Lets make ELT attaractive

1. Teacher Talk as Strategies in the
Classroom
Shim, Jae-Hwang*
《ABSTRACT》
The purpose of this study is to identify the interaction patterns between teacher and students
and teacher skills in the real classroom lesson. The data in this research identify the patterns of
teacher talk in eliciting, questions, and giving feedback to students during the class. The data
were collected from the middle school classrooms in Seoul. Two teachers, one female and one
male, led the 2nd grade middle school English classes for two weeks. The classroom interactions
between teacher and students in the two classrooms were recorded on cassette recording tapes
without any visual supports. The 16 class recordings for two weeks were transcribed by means
of transcription symbols and analyzed based on the taxonomy of foreign language interaction
analysis system. The results show that teacher utterances are quite dominant in every pattern of
tasks during the class, while student responses or other attributes are relatively low in volume in
a teacher-focused classroom. The analysis also shows that elicitation, response, and feedback are
used systematically by teacher, and students are part of the structure of classroom discourse
activities. The pattern, however, can be changed depending on the teacher intention or the periods
of lesson that students learn.
Key words: classroom interaction, teacher talk, teacher strategy
* 중앙대학교 사범대학 영어교육과 강사
한국교육문제연구
제25호 pp. 73-88
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2. 한국교육문제연구 제25호
I. Introduction
This research focuses on the frequency and rate of teacher talk and students reactions
through the topics of ‘speaking a foreign language' or ‘teaching English through English
(TETE).' The researcher analyzes classroom interaction in EFL middle school classrooms.
The 2nd grade middle school classroom was chosen as a sample to get reliable data
because the teachers of the school thought that the students can react to the teachers
more actively than other grades in the real classroom context. The topics in this study
are the features that the researcher look for as meaningful consequences: attributes
dominant in EFL middle school English classrooms, patterns of teacher talk in each period
of class, and teacher strategies of feedback in order to elicit students reaction.
To find out the results on the topic, the researcher first present some literatures
related on teacher talk and strategies in the classroom. Second, the researcher explains
the research methods. The chapter covers the research method on data collection from
subjects or participants, and research process including the transcription of data, the way
of analysis. After analyzing the data based on the guideline of classification for categories,
the researcher treats the limitations of the research and the problems of EFL classroom
interaction, especially in a natural setting, and summarize the result of this research.
II. Literature Review
Sinclair and Coulthard (1975) established an analytic framework to describe classroom
interactions. Their analysis covers interactions rather than the intent or goal of the
participants. One of their main roles is the use of language pattern in an English
classroom. That is, the pattern of language use, or the plan of class teaching create in
affirmative or negative effects on the students.
Studies of teacher talk can be divided into two types of language. One is the
investigation of language that teachers use in their language classrooms, and the other is
the investigation of language that they use in subject matter lessons. Gaise (1977, 1990)
found that teachers' utterances were simpler on a range of measures of syntactic
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3. Teacher Talk as Strategies in the Classroom
complexity when they addressed pupils than when they were talking among themselves.
Tudor (1993) emphasizes the teacher's role in the learner-centered classroom. He insists
that the teacher's role should be reconsidered in the recent trend of learner-centered
teaching and the basic issues in the classroom. Ellis (2003) makes a list of classroom
environments depending on the types of participants, and compares them with natural
setting. Fotos (1998) observes that the instruction pattern of a class shifts the focus from
form to form in the EFL classroom.
Cadorath and Harris (1998) observe classroom language in order to search for the
effect of consequences during a lesson. They make use of two transcripts from high
school and university classrooms in ESL, and analyze teacher students interaction. They
conclude that lesson planning and communicative activities have unintended results in the
teacher-centered classroom. The principle of triangulation(Sinclair and Coulthard, 1975;
Long, 1983; Allwright, 1983; Allwright,& Bailey, 2004) can simply mean the combination
of observation and introspection for a variety of observers: ask learners, and not just
teachers, for their recollections and interpretations of classroom events. With these
methods of data, a researcher can make three points of view so as to understand
classroom language learning.
Recently Korean researchers have carried out research on teacher talk as a classroom
interaction. The researches are largely based on various EFL classroom settings, which
can reflect on the real classroom teaching through teacher talk and students reaction. Lee
et al. (1999) and Ryu and Sung (2005) analyze of teacher talk in a college EFL
classroom. Three articles treat the teacher concern on EFL classroom setting and the
quality of teacher in Communicative Language Teaching(CLT) practice. Choi (2000) is
interested in teachers' beliefs about communicative language teaching and their classroom
teaching practices. The study argues that other researches have been little conducted
from the empirical aspect such as what language teachers actually believe about CLT.
Pae (2002) requires the conditions of teaching English through English (TETE) and the
roles of teachers in Korea.
Studies on authentic classroom interaction are conducted by the researchers who are
mostly concern with teacher talk and students response in the real context. First, Kim
and Suh (2004) study teacher talk in Korean English classroom. They analyze recorded
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4. 한국교육문제연구 제25호
data from six middle school teachers in Busan. The result shows that the teachers
account for about 60% of the classroom talk on average and talked about 17 times a
minute, which is 4.5 times more than the student talk. The findings also show that the
teacher talks in the teacher-fronted class more than those using the student-centered
group work. Second, Park (2005) analyzes teacher talk in primary EFL classrooms. He
concludes that most of teachers' talks are display questions, direction and evaluative
feedback. Lee (2005) compares teacher talks from three different primary school teachers
(one native speaker of English and two Korean teachers). The results show that many
existing differences between teachers depending on their proficiency levels in English.
III. Method
1. Participants and Materials
The participants in this study consisted of two middle school English teachers
teaching the 2nd grade middle school students in Seoul. The school uses Middle School
English II, published by Doosan Publishing Company(Chang, et al., 2005). The scope of
studying contents treated by the teachers was due to one chapter in lesson 4 and lesson
5 for two weeks as their normal course of the first semester. They have four periods of
English class each week: three hours are compulsory and one is optional, but most middle
schools have four periods of English class in order to improve the students' competence
in English.
The teachers utilized a potable cassette recorder but avoided using other technical
instruments such as an MP3 or a stereo phone because they did not catch the response
of students sitting in the back. Any extra instruments to aid for catching sound such as
a microphone or a speaker set might be hindrance factors in a natural classroom setting.
Other methods to process data collection from the classroom are the following four
elements: visual recording, audio recording, field notes, and interview with participants in
the classroom. Some studies show results from the four methods of analysis data, and
others make use of three without visual recording. The researcher thinks that the method
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5. Teacher Talk as Strategies in the Classroom
of using four elements is somewhat unnatural in the interaction of a real classroom
setting. Interview technique may not give any reliable information, for the middle school
students in a teacher-centered classroom are usually not active in front of a teacher or
an interviewer. Furthermore, they do not have enough confidence to express their ideas
orally.
<Table 1> Recording Time of Classes
2. Transcription Symbols
In addition to a number of ways of classroom discourse, Sinclair and Coulthard (1975)
have coding system. Their transcription systems largely have their own strengths and
weaknesses in cording the scripts. Most systems, however, focus on the ESL setting that
generally has a long turn of transcript. The EFL middle classroom setting demonstrates a
relatively slow interaction between teacher and students. In a teacher-centered classroom,
a teacher usually spends most of time trying to elicit students response. Therefore, a
teacher can speak many tasks in his/her turn of talk. In this research, some examples
similar to EFL setting were considered in order to meet the simple and short turn of
utterance. The transcription notation symbols are from Studies in Language Testing 14:
A qualitative approach to the validation of oral language tests by Lazaraton (2002, pp.
203-204). Though the system is for the candidates of speaking test in ESL and EFL, it is
rather simple to note for the middle school classroom interaction.
Excerpt (Tape 04 A)
Period 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Class A 24':06" 24':34" 23':25" 28':09" 22':31" 25':32" 19':50" 23':26"
Class B 33':21" 32':14" 32':07" 30':03" 25':58" 32':18" 32':12" 33':00"
Line Scripts Classification
102 T: Do you mind if, or is it okay? 5
103 Okay, very good. 3
104 If you want to do something you can use expressions. 8
105 Uh, so, if you want to open the window, 8
106 How can you say? 11
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6. 한국교육문제연구 제25호
In the excerpt above, a turn spoken by the teacher can be divided into some tasks
though she takes only one turn after a student utterance. Line 102 tells ‘confirming' on
student reaction in the course of explaining new information to students. Line 103 means
‘praising' as an affirmative feedback to students. Lines 104 and 105 can be divided into
two lines, for the teacher takes a long unit of time with a full stop between the
sentences. The teacher has a kind of ‘display question' in line 106 to check students
attention on the contents that the teacher tries to initiate.
IV. Analysis and Discussion
1. Frequency of Interaction
Three parts can be observed in the English classroom activities: teacher talk, student
talk, and tape listening. Tape listening means the native speaker's speaking recorded on
the textbook contents, which is an essential classroom aid during the lesson.
Mean time of tape listening(12.06%) is the second in each class, which is a little more
than the amount of student talk that the researcher has expected before experiment. The
result indicates that students strongly rely on the role of teacher tasks during the class.
<Table 2> Talk Time in Recording
Teacher talk consists of two languages in the classroom. Though teachers try to
speak English in order to meet the requirement of their English class, they have
sometimes decide to speak Korean so that students may understand the context. English
spoken by teacher has two types of teacher task: reading English lines in the textbook
and speaking in English to interact with students. L2 spoken by the teacher should be
Teacher Student Tape Listening
Class A 81.40% 7.11% 1.49%
Class B 86.08% 9.27% 12.64%
Total (Mean) 83.74% 08.19% 12.06%
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7. Teacher Talk as Strategies in the Classroom
included in English language though the teacher reads English words or sentences of the
textbook, and L1 spoken by teacher be included in Korean language. A turn dominant in
L2 is also classified into English language.
<Table 3> Teacher Talk in Languages
2. Teacher Utterances
Brown (2001) introduces the guidelines that help look into teacher and students roles
as initiators of interaction in the classroom. The introduction of list is from the work of
Moskowiz (1971, 1976) known as the FLINT(Foreign Language Interaction) model, which
gives us some categories in the classroom observation. The list is a little revised to meet
the EFL middle classroom context. For example, category 26 is added to explain the task
of teacher lecturing, and student talk is also revised according to the reaction to teacher
talk in the classroom.
<Table 4> Patterns of Classroom Interaction
Adapted Foreign Language Interaction Analysis (FLINT) system from Moskowiz (1971, 1976)
Korean English Total
Teacher A 16.6% 83.4% 100%
Teacher B 18.4% 81.6% 100%
Teacher Talk Student Reaction
No Tasks No Tasks No Tasks
1 accepting 14 correct mistakes 27 accepting
2 discussing 15 order 28 affirmative answer
3 praising 16 request 29 negative answer
4 encouraging 17 giving direction 30 question
5 conforming 18 directing drills 31 request
6 joking 19 criticizing 32 rejection
7 making fun 20 rejection 33 surprising
8 explaining 21 anger 34 laughter
9 clarifying 22 smile 35 noise
10 repeating words 23 silence 36 silence
11 display question 24 monolog
12 giving information 25 borrowing
13 referential question 26 translation in L1
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8. 한국교육문제연구 제25호
3. Types of Teacher Talk
1) Frequency of Teacher Talk
Teacher tasks mean the content of lesson that each teacher treats during each period
of the class. Each teacher has his/her own methods of teaching style though they teach
the same content of a textbook. Major types of teacher talks can be selected from the 26
tasks of teacher talk type according to the frequency of utterance during classes. Table 5
indicates the rank of teacher talk selected from 26 categories.
Class A (teacher A) speaks explaining (type 8) more frequently than other task of
teacher talk. She speaks display question (type 11) second time and she frequently
explains the topics in L1 translating (type 26) in order to make students understood
easily.
<Table 5> Major Five Types of Teacher Talk
In question types, teacher A asks students ‘display question' or ‘request,' whereas
teacher B usually prefers to ask students in request first and then employs two types of
questions: display and referential question. To analyze the difference between the classes,
the explanation on the main teacher task should be required: elicitation, questions, and
feedback.
Teacher A Teacher B
Rank Talk type Turns Talk type Turns
1 explaining 879 explaining 1383
2 display question 365 request 669
3 translating in L1 327 display question 330
4 request 213 referential question 233
5 conforming 183 conforming 156
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9. Teacher Talk as Strategies in the Classroom
explaining
50%
request
20%
displayquestion
15%
conforming
8%
referential question
7%
[Figure 1] Frequency of Teacher Talk
2) The Frequency of Questions
Long and Sato (1983) compared the number of ‘display questions' (questions that
teachers know the answer to and which are designed to elicit or display particular
structures) and ‘referential questions' (questions that teachers do not know the answers
to) in naturalistic and classroom discourse. They found that in naturalistic discourse,
referential questions are more frequent than display questions, whereas display questions
are much more frequent in whole-class teaching in ESL classrooms.
Display questions are usually dominant, which is similar to the results of other
researchers. Though teacher B (class B) tries to ask referential question in his classes,
the rate of frequency is less than the display question. The display question in class A
(365 turns: 35%) is the first feature more dominant than any other section.
<Table 6> Question in Periods
Teacher A Teacher B
Display Referential Display Referential
1 st 34 47 72 5
2 nd 41 12 26 23
3 rd 51 17 16 32
4 th 32 7 32 29
5 th 43 2 21 34
6 th 50 7 50 76
7 th 44 2 109 8
8 th 70 5 4 26
Total 365 99 330 233
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10. 한국교육문제연구 제25호
4. The IRE Pattern
1) Types of Initiation
(1) Request and Giving Direction
The data indicate the teacher initiation as a request and giving direction in
each period of class. The rate of giving direction is 4.7% in class A, and 3.5%
in class B, which is somewhat similar rate in frequency. The rate of request,
however, differs from each class. Teacher B employs request type twice times
more than teacher A. The rates make it possible to infer that teacher A
focuses on giving information directly to students in order to make them
understand the teacher intention, while teacher B prefers to lead the
communicative environment with students so as to react teacher initiation.
<Table 7> Request and Giving Direction
(2) Confirmation and Order
Teachers speak ‘confirmation' task more frequently than ‘order,'as minor
task. Teachers stress ‘confirmation' in order to make sure the text content or
their ideas, while they hardly speak to the students as an order type. The two
kinds of task are implied in questions as an initiation.
<Table 8> Confirmation and Order
5. Teacher Feedback
1) Types of Feedback
Teacher A Teacher B
Request Giving direction Request Giving direction
Total 8.5% 4.7% 19.7% 3.5%
Teacher A Teacher B
Confirmation Order Confirmation Order
Total 7.2% 0.2% 4.6% 0.2%
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11. Teacher Talk as Strategies in the Classroom
Lyster and Ranta (1997) analyze the different feedback types in the
content-based French immersion classes. They say that all teachers employed
recasts more than any other type of feedback. The different feedback types are
presented in order from highest to lowest frequency. They demonstrate that
recasts accounted for more than half of the total feedback provided in the four
classes. Repetition was the least frequent feedback type provided compared
with other types of corrective feedback. They say that some of feedback types
occur in combination with each other. The order of feedback in their
experiment is from ‘recast' through ‘repetition': recasts→elicitation→
clarification requests→ metalinguistic feedback→ explicit correction→ repetition
2) Repetition and Mother Tongue
Lynch (1996) has a different idea on the feature of repetition that the
teacher uses in the classroom. He introduces some results on repetition
experimented by other researchers. Different from other studies by Cullen
(1998), Lynch (1996), and Chaudron (1983), this research shows that teachers
usually do not exploit repetition feature as their classroom feedback. The
teachers in the EFL middle school classroom give repetition to students only
0.02% each: teacher A uses it with 52 turns of 2513, while teacher B speaks
only his 76 turns as repetition. They hardly give the feature of correct
mistakes, which can be ignored due to its almost zero percent. In the EFL
school setting, the feature of translating in L1 may be a special attribute
spoken by a teacher to reduce the students' burden or anxiety during the
class.
<Table 9> Repetition and Mother Tongue
Teacher A Teacher B
Turns / Total turns Turns / Total turns
repeating words 0.02% 0.02%
correct mistakes 0.00% 0.00%
translating in L1 0.13% 0.01%
Total 0.15% /100% 0.03%) /100%
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12. 한국교육문제연구 제25호
V. Conclusion and Implications
This study has examined the classroom interaction as it occurred in two
classroom activities between teacher and students in EFL middle school
classroom. The classes targeted in this research are the 2nd grade middle
school students in Seoul. The analysis shows that teacher talk is a lot more
dominant than student reaction in the teacher-fronted with a big size class
setting.
The analysis also shows that elicitation, response, and feedback are used
systematically by teacher, and students are part of the structure of classroom
discourse activities. The pattern, however, can be changed depending on the
teacher intention or the periods of lesson that students learn. While the pattern
of teacher talk can be related to the student reaction, the researcher thinks
that there are some problems or limitation in this research.
First, due to the classroom size, the analysis can not give any information
concerning each student reaction during the classes. A teacher as an instructor
and controller speaks his/her own talk without being interrupted, while all
students as participants can not give their responses at the same time.
Second, the classrooms are only two at the same 2nd grade middle school
students. The students participated in the class are 67 (class A: 32, class B:
35). The students number means that the data may not be generalized, but it
can be made up for as a setting that represents typical selection in mid-level
middle school students in Seoul.
Finally, there seems to be a problem in collecting data as it emerged during
the lesson. Generally, the way of monitoring the aspect of classroom
interaction is to audiotape or videotape the setting, allow a friend or a
colleague to observe the classroom, and note down the real interaction. The
methods, videotape or field note, might result in the side-effect for the
students who strive to provide appropriate responses to earn the approval of
the teacher, and the methods can inhibit the development of students own
internal motivation or otherwise their attempts at using the target language.
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13. Teacher Talk as Strategies in the Classroom
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16. 한국교육문제연구 제25호
요약
영어교실에서의 교사말 전략
심재황
이 연구의 목적은 실제학습이 이루어지고 있는 교실에서 교사와 학습자사이의
의사소통형태와 교사말에 대한 학습자의 반응을 살펴보는 것이다. 연구조사에 있어서
연구자는 서울에 소재하고 있는 중학교를 대상으로 하여 실험자료를 수집하였다. 남성과
여성 각 두 명의 담당교사가 2005년 6월 중순부터 2주 동안 영어수업을 진행하였다. 두 명의
교사에 의한 각 학급의 수업내용은 시각적인 자료 없이 카세트테이프에 녹음되었다. 이것은
단순히 수업진행 상황만을 녹음하였음을 의미하며 시각적인 비디오테이프나 면담 등의
방식은 활용하지 않았음을 의미한다. 또한 교사나 학습자들의 불안감이나 부담감을 배제한
자연스런 교실학습상황을 그대로 자료화 하려는 의도이다. 연구자료의 분류 결과로서
교사중심적인 학습환경에서 교사의 발화는 모든 의사소통의 방식에서 상당히 두드러진 반면
학습자의 반응이나 그 속성은 대체로 매우 저조했다. 이 결과를 근거로 하여 연구자는
교사발화를 더욱 세분화하여 연구하여 교사말이 학습진행 중에 학습자의 학습이해
외국어이해도에 영향을 미치는 것을 살펴보았다. Brown(2001)은 교사발화가 학습자에게 직접
간접적으로 영향을 주고 있음을 밝히고 있는데, 이러한 이론을 바탕으로 하여 교실에서의
교사말이 좀더 자세히 연구할 필요가 있다. 즉 학습내용이나 교사의 학습방식에 상관없이
학습자들은 적극적으로 반응하기가 기대되고 있으나 교실에서 영어로 의사교류를 하는 것에
대한 효과는 다소 부정적이다. 교사말에 대한 학생들의 학습참여도, 즉 학습자 반응은
소극적이며 EFL 학습상황에서의 다른 변이요소도 이러한 결과를 초래하고 있다. 그
결과로서 학습자들의 적극적인 반응을 유도하고 효과적인 외국어 학습의 동기를 부여하기
위하여 교사의 학습전략이 요구된다.
주제어: 교실영어, 교사말, 영어로 말하기 수업, 교사학습 전략
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