personal pronouns in vietnamese and american english ( from cultural perspective) = đại từ xưng hô trong tiếng việt và tiếng anh mỹ, xét từ góc độ văn hóa

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY - HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES




NGUYỄN THỊ THU HÀ



A STUDY ON TEACHER TALK IN EFL CLASSROOMS AT BACKAN
EDUCATION COLLEGE

Nghiên cứu về việc sử dụng ngôn ngữ trong lớp dạy Tiếng Anh của giáo viên
Trường Cao đẳng Sư phạm Bắc Kạn.



M.A. MINOR THESIS



FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY
CODE: 60 14 10

HA NOI – 2010



VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY - HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES




NGUYỄN THỊ THU HÀ



A STUDY ON TEACHER TALK IN EFL CLASSROOMS AT BACKAN
EDUCATION COLLEGE

Nghiên cứu về việc sử dụng ngôn ngữ trong lớp dạy
Tiếng Anh của giáo viên Trường Cao đẳng Sư phạm Bắc Kạn.



M.A. MINOR THESIS



FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY
CODE: 60 14 10

SUPERVISOR: LÊ VĂN CANH, M.ed.





HA NOI - 2010



iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements ……………………………………………………….…………… i
Abstract ………………………….………………………………………….………… …ii
Table of contents …………………………………………………………… iii
Lists of abbreviations …………………………………………………………………… vi
Lists of tables and figures ………………………………………….…… vii
INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………… 1
1. Rationale …………….………………………………………………………………… 1
2. Aims of the Study …………….…………………………….……………………… 1
3. Research Questions ………….….………………… ………….…………… 2
4. Scope of the study………………………………………………………………… 2
5. Research Method …………….…………………………….… ……………… 2
6. Structure of the thesis…………….………………………………………… … 2
7. Summary ………………………….…………………………… …………… 3
DEVELOPMENT……………………………………………………………………….….4
CHAPTER 1. LITERATURE REVIEW……………………………………………… 4
1. The role of teacher talk in foreign language teaching………………………………… 4

1.1. Teacher Talk as a Tool of Classroom Management……………………………… 4
1.2. Teacher Talk as a Source of Target Language Input………………………… ……….4
2. Teacher Talk from the Second Language Acquisition Perspective…………… …… 5
3. Strategies for Teachers’ Use of Target Language in the Classroom…………….……….7
4. Previous researches on teacher talk…………………………………………… …… 10
4.1. Descriptive Studies……………………………………………………………………11
4.2. Correlational Studies………………………………………………………… …… 11
4.3. Experimental Studies on Teacher Talk……………………………………………….12
4.4. Qualitative Studies on Teacher Talk…………………………………………… 12
5. Summary …………………………………………………………………………… 13
CHAPTER 2. DATA ANALYSIS……………………………………………………… 14

iv
2.1. The Context……………………………………………………………………… 14
2.2. The Participants ……………………………………………………………… 15
2.3. The teacher talking time……………………………………………………….… 15
2.3.1. The teacher 1…………………………………………………….………………….15
2.3.2. The teacher 2……………………………………………………………………… 16
2.3.3. The teacher 3……………………………………………………………… … 16
2.4. Interview Data………………………………………………………………….…17-18
2.5. Functions of teacher talk……………………………………………… ……… 18
2.5.1. Giving instructions……………………………………………………………… 20
2.5.1.1. The teacher 1…………………………………………………………… …… 21
2.5.1.2. The teacher 2…………………………………………………………… …… 21
2.5.1.3. The teacher 3……………………………………………………………… …….22
2.5.2. Checking the students’ understanding……………………………………… 22
2.5.2.1. The teacher 1. …………………………………………………………………….23
2.5.2.2 The teacher 2…………………………………………………………………… 23
2.5.2.3. The teacher 3……………………………………………………………….…… 24
2.5.3. Respond to a learner’s response…………………………………………… …… 24

2.5.3.1. The teacher 1……………………………………………………………….…… 24
2.5.3.2. The teacher 2……………………………………………………………….… 25
2.5.3.3. The teacher 3………………………………………………………………… 25
2.5.4. Cued elicitation……………………………………………………………… … 27
2.5.4.1. The teacher 1………………………………………………………………… 27
2.5.4.2. The teacher 2………………………………………………………………… 27
2.5.4.3. The teacher 3………………………………………………………………… 27
2.5.5 Questioning……………………………………………………………………… 28
2.5.5.1. The teacher 1………………………………………………………………… 28
2.5.5.2. The teacher 2………………………………………………………………… 28
2.5.5.3. The teacher 3……………………………………………………………… … 29
2.5.6. Recycling. …………………………………………………………………… ….29
2.5.6.1. The teacher 1………………………………………………………………… 30
2.5.6.2. The teacher 2…………………………………………………………………… 30

v
2.5.6.3. The teacher 3……………………………………………………………… ……30
2.6. Summary………………………………………………………………………… …30
CHAPTER 3. DISCUSSION AND SOME PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS……… 32
3.1. Discussion…………………………………………………………………………….32
3.1.1. Amount of teacher talk…………………………………………………………… 32
3.1.2. Functions of teacher talk. …………………………………………………… 32
3.1.3. Teacher language…………………………………………………………… ……33
3.2. Some pedagogical implications…………………………………………………… 34
3.2.1. Shifting the teacher- centered classroom into student-centered classroom……… 34
3.2.2. Controlling Teacher Talking Time and focus on the quality of teacher talk…… 35
3.2.3. Using suitable language…………………………………………………………….35
3.3. Summary….………………………………………………………………………… 36
CONCLUSION……………………………………………………………… ………….37
References …………………………………………………………………… ………….40

Appendices………………………………………………………………………………… I

















vi

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
L1: First language

L2: Second language

SLA: Second Language Acquisition

I: Initiating

R: Response

F: Feedback

ESL : English as a second language.

EFL: English Foreign Language

M.A: Master in English

B.A: Bachelor in Art

TTT: Teacher Talking time

STT: Student Talking time





vii

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Table 1: Participants Profile

Table 2: Teacher talking time per lesson (in minutes)

Table 3: Number of moves regarding the functions of teacher talk

Table 4: Functions of teacher talk

Table 5: Functions of teacher talk




















1
INTRODUCTION
1. RATIONALE.
Teacher talk in the language classroom is one of the questions in which second language
methodologists and applied linguists have shown a great interest for several years. As
various language teaching methods have come and gone ( Howatt with Widdowson, 2004;
Richards & Rodgers, 2001), perspectives on teacher talk has changed accordingly ( Brown,
2001; Gass, 2003; Doughty, 2004). For example, advocates of the Communicative

Approach claim that teachers need reduce their talking time in the classroom in order for
their students to have more time speaking the foreign language. Furthermore, the issue
raised is not quantitative between teaching and learning, who should say more than whom
in the classroom, but the important thing is whether the quality and purpose of talk are
useful to gain the effect in the classroom. This study focuses on analyzing the role of
teacher talk used in the classroom according to functions of teacher talk. The concept of
“teacher talk” used in this research is talk performed by teachers in the foreign language
classroom. The term is defined in the Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and
Applied Linguistics as the “variety of language sometimes used by teachers when they are
in the process of teaching. In trying to communicate with learners, teachers often simplify
their speech, giving it many of the characteristics of foreigner talk in other simplified styles
of speech addressed to language learners” ( Richards, 1992: 471). Although the above
definition is helpful, it does not tell much about the functions of teacher talk. I think,
teacher talk is a type of input source, which is really important in input-poor learning
environment like the one in Bac Kan province where the present study was conducted.
Therefore, for the purpose of this study, I define teacher talk as the quantity and the quality
of the target language teachers use in the classroom for the sake of classroom management.
2. AIMS OF THE STUDY.
The purpose of this research study is to investigate how teachers talk in foreign language
classrooms and the rationale behind their talk in the classroom. Furthermore, this study
aims to explore teachers‟ perceptions of their talk in the classroom. Although teacher talk
involves many aspects, this research just focused on three aspects, that is: the frequency of
teacher talk in the classroom in comparison with student talk, the frequency of teacher talk
in English in comparison with their talk in Vietnamese, and the way teachers talk in the
classroom.


2
3. RESEARCH QUESTIONS.
In order to achieve the above aims, the study is set out to seek answers to the

following research questions:
1. How often do teachers talk in the classroom as compared with the students?
2. Which language do teacher use more often in the classroom: English or Vietnamese?
3. Why do teachers talk the way they do in the classroom?
4. SCOPE OF THE STUDY.
The study was limited to the investigation of a small number of college teachers
regarding the way they use language as a pedagogical tool so that understanding of the
teachers‟ perspectives on the role of teacher talk could be gained. Specifically, the study
was confined to the understanding of the amount of teacher talk in the classroom in
comparison with that of the students, the preferred use of L1 or L2, and teachers‟
perception of the functions of their talk in the classroom. Since the study was conducted on
a very small number of classroom teachers of English (3 teachers) in a college of education
located in a mountainous area, no generalization of the findings was intended. However,
the findings can be valuable to attempts to understand teacher talk as a pedagogical tool in
similar educational contexts.
5. RESEARCH METHOD.
As the purpose of this study is to investigate the use of teacher‟s language in the foreign
language classrooms at Bac Kan Education College. This study is a case study research
with two research instruments were employed for data collection. These are (a) classroom
observation, and (b) post-observation interviews with teachers and students.
6. STRUCTURE OF THE THESIS
This study consists of three parts, excluding the references.
Part one, Introduction, consists of the rationale, the aims, the research questions, and the
scope of the study, the methods, and the design of the study.
Part two, Development, is the heart of the study and includes three chapters:
Chapter one presents the literature review relevant to the study including
theoretical background of teacher talk.
Chapter 2 describes in details the research method used in the study with the
necessary components before supplying information about the procedures of collecting the
data. Then, the statistical results and the analysis of the collected data are shown.

3
Chapter 3 discusses the findings from statistical analysis and some pedagogical
implications.
The last part is the conclusion of the study as well as some suggestions for implications
achieved from the discussion in the thesis and for further studies.
7. SUMMARY
This chapter presents an overview of the study including the rationale, the
purposes, the research questions, the scope of the study, as well as the structure of the
thesis. In addition, the research instruments which include classroom observation and
interviews were also presented. In the next chapter, a theoretical framework for the study
will be discussed.

4
CHAPTER 1. LITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter reviews the literature on the pedagogical functions of teacher talk. Also the
role of teacher talk from a second language acquisition perspective will be discussed.
1. The role of teacher talk in foreign language teaching.
Teacher talk plays a vital important role in language learning. Quite a few
researchers have discussed the relationship between teacher talk and language learning. For
example, Nunan(1991) maintains that “Teacher talk is of crucial importance, not only for
the organization of the classroom but also for the processes of acquisition. It is important for
the organization and management of the classroom because it is through language that
teachers either succeed or fail in implementing their teaching plans. In terms of acquisition,
teacher talk is important because it is probably the major source of comprehensible target
language input the learner is likely to receive.” In Nunan‟s words, teacher talk is to fulfill
two pedagogical functions: (1) as a tool of classroom management, and (2) as a source of
comprehensible input. Regrading the first function of teacher talk in the classroom, Gower,
Phillips and Walters (1995) clarify that in the classroom, teachers usually speak more when
they present the grammar or structures containing in the lesson, clarifying them to help
students understand the new knowledge, checking the understanding of students, modeling
new structures. Furthermore, they need to talk more when they set up activities or give
instructions and feedback in one classroom period.
1.1. Teacher Talk as a Tool of Classroom Management.
From the classroom management perspective, teacher talk is needed for good
classroom management. The teacher gives clear instructions to attract students‟ attention,

and tells the students what they are expected to do, as well as to establish a good rapport by
for example, calling on students by name, etc. Furthermore, there is nothing artificial about
a situation involving the teacher praising a student or asking another to try again. In
addition to these, the teacher can explain something about the language that is being
learned in a helpful and reassuring way, and check the students‟ understanding.
1.2. Teacher Talk as a Source of Target Language Input.
The language teacher uses in the classroom can provide authentic listening texts for
his or her students. She or he uses the voice to read the texts, which sometimes helps
students reduce stresses of listening comprehension. Virtually, it is not always necessary to
play a recording of an account, an anecdote or a joke if the teacher can provide the real


5
thing. In addition, the teacher can often provide the best model for new language, which
helps the students understand more clearly. There is no denying that it is better for the
teacher to model the language personally than to use a recording. Most importantly, the
language used by the teacher in the classroom is genuinely communicative. By using the
target language, the teacher reacts naturally to the students, who will often pick up the
everyday words and expressions that the teacher uses in the classroom. In other words, the
students learn the target language not just from the materials but also from the target
language used by their teachers in the classroom. This point will be further discussed in the
subsequent sections.
2. Teacher Talk from the Second Language Acquisition Perspective.
One of the most relevant Second Language Acquisition (SLA) theories to the
discussion of teacher talk is Krashen‟s (1983) comprehensible input hypothesis. This
hypothesis states simply that “ we acquire (not learn) language by understanding input that
is a little beyond our current level of (acquired) competence” (Krashen and Terrell
1983:32). For instance, if a learner‟s stage is 'i', then acquisition occurs when he/she is
exposed to comprehensible input that constitutes 'i + 1' level, provided that he/she
understands (read: an acquirer is focused on the meaning rather than on form) language

containing „i + 1‟. It can be achieved through reading and hearing structures, which slightly
excel learner‟s current ability, as well as through context and extra-linguistic
information. The input itself can be divided into finely- and roughly-tuned. The finely-
tuned input is targeted at the learners' present level of acquisition, aiming at one structure
at a time. This is typical of teaching syllabus, whose goal is „i +1‟, thus the aim of the
lesson, for both teachers and students, is to teach and learn a specific grammatical item or
structure. The moment the structure is mastered, the next structure from the syllabus can be
presented. The roughly-tuned input, in contrast, acts as a net spreading out around the
current level of acquisition of the learner, his „i‟, also consisting of instances of his „i +
1‟. In this case, the speaker‟s or teacher‟s aim is to make him/her understood. It is said that
“when communication is successful, when the input is understood and there is enough of it,
i + 1 will be provided automatically” (Krashen 1982:22). Good examples of roughly-tuned
input are caretaker speech, foreigner talk, and teacher talk. Caretaker speech, a simplified
form of a given language, is considered to be of a great help in the overall process of
acquisition, for both first language and second language acquirer, as those who are exposed


6
to it, apparently acquire language faster. Caretaker speech, as it is much simpler in
structure and form, appears to be roughly tuned to the linguistic level of the child, and it
gets more complex as the child grows in linguistic maturity. It is meant for communication,
and “here and now” situations. Later, when the child has grown enough in his/her linguistic
competence, it becomes more displaced in time and space, giving extra-linguistic
information or context for the child to acquire „i + 1‟ (Krashen and Terrell
1983). Foreigner talk is another form of caretaker speech, and is characterized by the
modifications that native speakers make when talking to non-native speakers. Its purpose,
just as in the case of caretaker speech, is communication. The modifications include
“slowing down, repeating, restating, changing wh- questions to yes/no questions” (Krashen
and Terrell 1983:34). Teacher talk, i.e. meta-language of the classroom delivered in the
target language, also proves to be roughly tuned to the level of acquirer. Again, it is used

for communication, and seems to have comparative outcome on adults as it has on
children. Teachers talking to their students and making sure they are understood will not
only provide an ordinary language lesson but also administer a great deal of input for
acquisition. Roughly tuned input is said to be more important and advantageous from
finely tuned input. With rough tuning, we are always assured that i + 1 will be covered,
while with finely tuned exercises, we are taking a guess as to where the student is. With
roughly tuned input, we are assured of constant recycling and review. Third, roughly tuned
input will be good for more than one acquirer at a time, even when they are at slightly
different levels. Finally, roughly tuned caretaker speech in the form of teacher talk or
foreigner talk, will nearly always be more interesting than exercise that focuses just on one
grammatical point (Krashen and Terrell 1983:35). Krashen‟s (1983) comprehensible input
hypothesis can be interpreted that if the teacher uses the target language in the classroom
appropriately, i.e., at the students‟ „i+1‟ level, her or his language can be a valuable source
of input to the students to acquire the target language. This point is of particular
importance in cases where English is taught as a foreign language because in such a
context, students tend to have limited exposure to the target language. However, teacher
talk is effective to language acquisition only when it is used appropriately. Misuse of
teacher talk in the classroom may bring about reverse effect. Gower, Phillips and Walters
(1995) states that normally, the aim of most language classes is usually to get the students
using the language, therefore when the teachers talk too much the chances for the students


7
are not being given maximum opportunity to talk. Moreover, it is also likely that they will
not be listening to the students closely enough, thinking too much about what they are
going to say next. Next, if the teachers talk „for‟ students they will think the teachers do
not appreciate their efforts and will become demotivated. In addition, there will be a
danger for learners, especially at lower level, if the teachers use for explanation is more
difficult to understand than the language being learnt. The next section will discuss
appropriate strategies for teachers to use their language in the language classroom.

3. Strategies for Teachers’ Use of Target Language in the Classroom.
Although teacher talk or the way she or he uses the target language in the
classroom plays a pivotal role in students‟ acquisition of the target language, it is not
automatically effective. To be more specific, in order for the teacher talk to support
acquisition, teachers should be aware of various strategies for the use of the target
language in the classroom. In this part, we review the literature on the basis strategies
which teachers can apply in the classroom to help learners acquire the target language
effectively. Sinclair & Coulthard (1975) analyze the classroom discourse and give the
general model consisting of three moves which are I-R-F (Initiating - Response -
Feedback). The three moves are illustrated in an example below:
T: What‟s the boy doing? (I)
S 1: He‟s climbing a tree. (R)
T: That‟s right. He‟s climbing a tree. (F)
The „F- move‟ shows that teacher talk is used to follow up or feedback about learners‟
speech. Furthermore, it is utilized to distinguish the classroom talk from speech events
outside the classroom. Because when we communicate outside the classroom, the F –
moves are optional and unpredicted. In the classroom, the teacher‟s F-move is a
pedagogical function. Cullen (2002) utilizes this model to anlyze teacher talk used in
English classroom at high school in Tanzania, and concludes that teacher talk applied in
the classroom of the F-move has five pedagogical functions below:
+ Retell a learner‟s response in the right grammatical structure (reformulation)
+ Embellish a student‟s responses by elaborating on them in some way. (elaboration)
+ Comment on a learner‟s response (comment)
+ Repeat a learner‟s response (repetition)
+ Respond to a learner‟s response (responsiveness)


8
Other researchers (e.g. Nabei & Swain , 2002; Edwards & Mercer, 1987; Edwards
& Mercer, 1987; Cullen, 2002) have recommended that teachers can utilize their talk to

carry out the following additional pedagogical functions.
 Repetition.
Repetition of individual learner‟s contribution is used for many different aims. For
example, to record a learner‟s response, to confirm again the learner‟s response with an
acceptable grammar, or to repeat another student‟s response for the whole class to assert
the idea of that response but not the form in which it was expressed to draw the students‟
attention to the mistakes more directly.
(1) Teacher: Can you describe the man in the picture?
Student: He‟s tall.
Teacher: He’s tall. Good, Yes. He’s tall.
(2) Teacher: Now, second question. What do you think the man‟s job is?
Student: Teacher
Teacher: a teacher. Yes, a teacher.
 Recast/ Reformulation.
Repairing a definition is expressing again the learner‟s incorrectly grammatical response to
be correct with syntactic function without changing the learner‟s idea. Many Second
Language Acquisition researchers have been interested in the role of reformulation with
the wrong syntax of learners because the opinion making comments on reformulation is
one part of English methodology, which not only heightens information but also notices
the grammar. Researchers consider the form- focused instruction as the effective language
teaching method. ( Long & Robinson, 1998). For example:
(1) Teacher: Ok. Linh?
Linh: Studying hard to en….ent….
Teacher: Enter
Linh: enter examination
Teacher: Ok. Studying hard for examination. Ok. That is a problem, yeah.
In the above paragraph, teacher has reformulated Linh‟s response twice. The first time
is to complete the student‟s sentence and the second is to repair the whole word phrases.

9
(2) Student: My opinion is… cats are more dangerous animal than dog because
they….they keep going when they met a car. They never change their way, and
they…run over.
Teacher: OK. Yeah,…cats are… Cats are at more danger. OK. So something is
dangerous is going to hurt something else. At danger is they can be hurt. OK.
Source: Nabei & Swain, 2002, page. 50.
An example above shows that the teacher has recast the students‟ wrong sentence in a
correctly grammatical form and has explained further about using of two words
“dangerous” and “at danger”.
 Cued elicitation.
Cued elicitation is a technique which teachers spend „spatial discourse‟ on learners
completing a word or a speech. “It is a tool which requires students to be active in creating
a common knowledge of teacher and learner not to sit and listen to teacher‟s lecture.”
(Edwards & Mercer, 1987, page 143). In the following dialogue, the teacher pauses
midway in the conversation for the student to complete the sentence with his or her idea.
(1) Teacher: OK. So you helped people in mountainous areas. But what exactly did
you do?
Student: ……….
Teacher: We taught the children to…….
Student: read and write
(2) Teacher: Many students can not buy all the required textbooks. What do you think
we should do to help them?
Student: I think we should…
Teacher: we should collect….
Student: used textbooks.
Teacher: for…
Student: school libraries
Teacher: Right. I think we should collect used textbooks for school libraries.
 Questioning.

Normally, teachers spend most of their talking time in questioning. Many researches in
foreign countries indicate that the teacher asks two questions per minute on average
(Edwards & Mercer, 1987). Questions and answers often happen according to the I-R-F


10
model shown above. This model helps the teacher attract the student‟s participation and
confirms again a student‟s response in F-moves. However, the limitation of this model is
not to provide the student with a chance of initiating a dialogue, to reduce the ability to
think independently and the development the learner‟s speaking skill. To overcome this
disadvantage, the teacher should be flexible and base on the learner‟s response to change
the way to question.
(1) Teacher: Have you ever spoken English to a native speaker?
Student: No
Teacher: You’ve never spoken English to a native speaker. Why never?
(2) Teacher: What would you bring to the party?
Student: bread
Teacher: Right. What else?
 Recycling.
While speaking a foreign language in the classroom, the teacher should try to utilize words
and grammatical structures students have learnt to help them both remember and
consolidate again the old knowledge. This thing is vitally important in learning foreign
language in Vietnam. Thus, teachers had better choose the important and suitable unit of
vocabulary and grammatical structures to use frequently in the classroom and encourage
students to reuse them.
Teacher: Anything else? Yes?
Student: He is telling him now to be under his control.
Teacher: Now you are under my command. You have to do whatever I want
you to do.
Source: Cullen, 2002, p.121

In the sentence above, the teacher both repairs the learner‟s response exactly and elaborates
on it to help the learner remember again these structures he or she has learnt before.
4. Previous researches on teacher talk.
Scholarly studies on teacher talk began approximately in the early-mid 1980s. They
evolved inspired by various findings from (1) "caretaker speech" studies in first language
development (Snow, 1972) and (2) "foreigner talk" research (Ferguson, 1975). Teacher
talk studies began Teacher talk studies began to evolve partly because of Krashen and


11
Terrell (1983), who argued that teacher talk is a vital source of comprehensible input in the
second/ foreign language classroom.
4.1. Descriptive Studies.
Seminal teacher talk studies in the 1980s focused on finding and describing similar
linguistics features shared in various second/foreign language classroom teacher talk. The
majority of teacher talk studies administered until the late 1980s were descriptive studies.
For instance, Wesche & Ready (1985) studied discourse of classroom lectures presented
(in English and French) to first language speakers with those to second language speakers.
They found significant differences, whether the lectures were given in English or in
French, between (1) classes composed of first language speaker students and (2) those
consisting of second language speaker students in the following five aspects of teacher
talk: (a) speech rate, (b) the number and duration of pauses, (c) frequency of tensed verbs
and number of S nodes (= clauses) and T units (=a principal clause plus all related
dependent clauses), (d) percentage of imperative sentences and self- repetition, and (e)
amount of non-verbal information use ( such as gestures, facial expressions, pictures, and
visual aids).
4.2. Correlational Studies.
In the 1980s, teacher talk research as one sub- area of second language acquisition research
grew not only in number but also in quality. By the end of the 1980s, several studies
started to utilize quantitative research methods based on statistical analyses. One of the

quantitative research methods utilized then was the correlation (associational) research
method. Tollefson (1988), for example, explores the degree of association between
teachers‟ question types and students‟ response patterns in ESL (English as a second
language) classes. Teachers‟ question types were divided in to (1) display questions, which
aim at testing students‟ target- language knowledge (e.g., “Are you a student?” “What day
is today?”), and (2) referential questions, which intend to gain real information from
students (e.g., “What would you like for lunch?” “Has anyone seen the eraser?”). The
results show that teachers‟ referential questions have a strong correlation with students‟
creative responses, which often lead to further teacher- student interactions. On the other
hand, teachers‟ display questions were apt to have a strong association with students‟
imitative responses, which usually do not lead to or facilitate further teacher- student
interactions.


12
4.3. Experimental Studies on Teacher Talk.
Experimental studies, which can examine/establish causal relationships between variables,
were relatively rare in the early 1980s. However, more articles about experimental teacher
talk studies appeared in second language acquisition journals in the late 1980s. In the late
1990s and early 2000s, they became a mainstream research methodology for teacher talk
research. Chaudron & Richards (1986), for example, conducted their experimental study to
investigate the effects of discourse markers in teacher talk on students‟ comprehension.
The discourse markers included two different types: (1) “macro-markers”, which signal the
macro- structure of a lecture and (2) “micro-markers”, which indicate links between
sentences within the lecture or function as fillers. Discourse markers, such as “What I‟m
going to talk about today?” and “let‟s go back to the beginning…” are categorized as
macro- markers while discourse markers, such as “well”, “now”, “so” and “you see”, are
micro- markers. Subjects had significantly better comprehension on the macro- marker
version of the spoken lecture information than the baseline version. In contrast, the micro-
marker version did not produce significantly better comprehension scores than the baseline

version. Furthermore, Sueyoshi & Hardison (2005) conducted their experimental study to
examine the effects of gestures and facial cues on listening comprehension of a videotaped
lecture among ESL students. Results of a multiple- choice comprehension task revealed
that the subjects who saw the audiovisual lecture attained significantly better listening
comprehension scores than those who listened to the audio only.
4.4. Qualitative Studies on Teacher Talk.
In the 2000s, teacher talk researchers began to study qualitative some affective factors
(such as perceptions, feelings, and anxieties) students may experience when they are
exposed to different types of teacher talk. For instance, Mackey, Gass & McDonough
(2000) videotaped task-based communicative interactions where a student and a native or
near- native interviewer interacted with each other. While utilizing so-called stimulus
recall and videotaping, they examined how language learners noticed error correction
feedback conveyed in the interviewer‟s teacher talk. The analysis of the qualitative data
showed that the students were relatively accurate in their perceptions about phonological,
lexical, and semantic levels of error correction feedback was not noticed as such in general.
Similar studies followed in the 2000s (e.g., Carpenter et al., 2006; Katayama, 2007).


13
Although teacher talk in EFL classroom has been researched early but in Vietnam this
issue remains underresearched , therefore to study teacher talk is really necessary.
5. Summary.
In this chapter, I have presented the role of teacher talk in language classrooms.
Overall, two most fundamental functions of teacher talk are to manage classroom activities
and to provide comprehensible input of the target language to the students. Then I have
reviewed the literature on how to make teacher talk more effective to students‟ learning
and to fulfill the functions of the language teachers use in the classroom. Finally, a review
of previous studies on teacher talk is presented. As can be seen from this literature review
that while teacher talk has attracted international researchers for several decades, the topic
remains almost unexplored in Vietnam. The present study is an attempt to make a modest

contribution to the understanding of the issue in the context of a college of education in a
mountainous area. In the next chapter, I will present the context in which the present study
was conducted as well as the research methods that were employed for the purpose of the
study.



















14
CHAPTER 2. DATA ANALYSIS
This chapter presents the findings of the study. Qualitative data were analysed with
reference to this study‟s research questions. Since the goal of interpretive research is tp
“understand the inner perspectives and meanings of actions and events of those being
studied” (Anderson and Burns, 1989, p. 67) and words not numbers are considered the
primary source of data (Dörnyei, 2007), data were collected through semi structured

interviews and open classroom observations (i.e. which aim to describe events fully and
focused on some predefined topics but with flexibility to other others which emerge (see
Drever, 2003). Observations are necessary for the analysis of how much teachers talk in
the classroom as well as the functions of their talk while interviews are used to find out the
rationale of teachers‟ talk in the classroom.
2.1. The Context.
The study was conducted at BacKan Education College, which is located in Backan
- a mountainous province in the north east of Viet Nam. Most students of the college come
from the rural or mountainous areas, especially, a number of these students belong to the
ethnic minorities. In the same way, students at English classes here are mainly from places
where the living standard and the condition to study English are so poor. At present, at
Backan Education College, English is taught to non-major English students. This subject is
taught in 2 terms of the first year, and we use the course New Headway to teach students.
The number of students in each class reaches nearly 50. Although the students have been
learning English for at least four years (three years at their high schools and one year as the
first year students at Backan Education College.), they have not gained the elementary
level of English,yet. Students‟ ability use English as a foreign language to communicate
with the teachers, and classmates in English classes is bad; they are often silent in English
periods. They are shy or even do not want to speak out, and they almost use Vietnamese.
Furthermore, some of them are from different ethnic groups and Vietnamese is second
languages for them, i.e., they often speak Tay language when they meet their parents. At
that time, they feel most comfortable. Normally, they only speak Vietnamese when they
are at school or at work. Therefore, English is really not easy for them to learn, they are
often affected by Vietnamese when they pronounce Obviously, in order to help students
learn English well in such unfavorable environment, there is no way to except that the
teachers themselves have to make their teaching methodology flexible and helpful.


15
2. 2. Participants.

Three teachers agreed to participate in this study. Teacher 1 is a female teacher
with over 7 years teaching experience and she has a M.A. degree. She is teaching non-
major English students with elementary level, there are 57 students in the classroom in
which there are17 male students and 21 female students. Their ages are from 18 to 21.
Teacher 2 is a female teacher with over 8 years teaching experience and she has a B.A.
degree. She is teaching non-major English students with elementary level, there are 49
students in the classroom in which there are 12 male students and 37 female students. Their
ages are from 18 to 21. The third teacher is a female teacher with over 6 years teaching
experience and she has a B.A. degree. She is Tay person. She is teaching non-major
English students with elementary level, there are 41 students in the classroom in which
there are 4 male students and 39 female students. Their ages are from 18 to 21. Table 1
presents the information about the participants.

Teacher 1
Teacher 2
Teacher 3
Gender
Female
Female
female
Qualifications
M.A
B.A
B.A
Teaching experience
7 years
8 years
6 years

Table 1: Participants Profile

2.3. The teacher talking time
Table 2 shows the amount of teacher talk in an average 45-minute lesson. As it is shown
in the table that teacher talk accounted for averagely more than two-thirds of the classroom
time. Individual cases will be presented and analysed.
Teacher 1
Teacher 2
Teacher 3
33
37
31

Table 2: Teacher talking time per lesson (in minutes)
2.3.1. Teacher 1.
In a 45 minute class, the teacher was talking for a total of 33 minutes and left only twelve
minutes for the students. The teacher talked most the time in the period, even in pair work,
or individual work of the students, the teacher also intervened. When they worked in pairs,


16
the teacher talked quite a lot. It is not necessary for her to repeat the student‟s question
while they can hear the partner‟s question.
Extract 1.
[R] S3: Where does Seumas live?
[R] S4: She lives and works on the island of Ghigha in the west of Scotland?
[I] T: ( ask S3) Can you hear the answer? (Question)
Perhaps, the reason why the teacher spent much time telling the students to do the task is
that her instruction was not clear at the first time. In average, each period each student gets
only from 40 to 60 seconds, and the rest time is for the students to discuss the task in
groups. Their activities almost are to answer the teacher‟s requirement and the teacher took
part in the students‟ work quite a lot, which reduces the nature in communicating English

between the students.
2.3.2. Teacher 2.
The teacher 2 talked too much in the period, her talking time occupied 37 minutes whereas
the students‟ talking time only got 8 minutes. The students prepared the task in 2 minutes
then answered the questions in the book. The teacher called the student one by one. Each
student talked from 6 seconds to 14 seconds depended on the students‟ ability. They could
answer right or wrong. The extract below is illustrated.
Extract 2.
[R] S1: she likes her job
[F] T: she likes her job. (repetition) Not /dop/ You! What is your name?
(Question)
[R] S1: job
The teacher talked all the time in the period, even when she let the students discuss in
group, she also intervened some questions or instructions which she said before asking the
students to do the task.
2.3.3. Teacher 3.
In the period, the teacher 3 talked for 31 minutes and left 14 minutes for the students to
speak and discuss. The student has much chance to speak English or answer the
requirement in the exercise in the book. They worked individually and got from 5 seconds
to 14 seconds for each student. The teacher spent about 3 or nearly 4 minutes for the
students preparing the task. Most of the students had opportunities to speak English, but


17
the task was repeated a lot, which made the students bored and they did not attention to the
teacher and other students‟ activity.
2.4. Interview Data.
In order to gain insights into teachers‟ thinking about the way they used either L1 or L2 in
the classroom, I carried out post-observations with them. The interviews were non-
structured to capture the variation in the way teachers talked in the classroom. For

example, I asked the first teacher why she spoke Vietnamese so much in the period. She
said that speaking Vietnamese in the period was her habit and she had not improved her
methodology yet. Furthermore, the students were bad at listening and answering in
English, she had to use the first language to teach and communicate. Because when she
presented a new structure, she had to explain more clearly. Whereas, the second teacher
said that she did not want to speak Vietnamese so much in the period because she wanted
to create environment learning in English. Teachers could use the simple and familiar
structures to express so that the students could think in English. The second question we
asked them: “what is the role of teacher talk in learning English?” Both of them said that
they used teacher talk to communicate, explain the structures or grammar in each unit and
help the learners imitate. The last question we mentioned is “Should the teacher talk less or
much in the period?” The first teacher said that it depended on the learners‟ ability and
knowledge, the aim, requirement and content of the lesson. The second teacher said that on
the theory, the teacher should talk less than the students should, the teacher should guide,
suggest, and encourage the students to speak English. However, in fact, she talked more
than the students did because she thought that the students in BacKan were ethnic people
and they were bad at language, they acquired the knowledge slowly. Therefore, the teacher
was quite hard in teaching and she often talked much more than the students did.
According to me, when the teachers teach one period and there are some other people to
attend, they often speak English much. The reason is that they teach English so they need
to speak English much. In addition, the theory and practice is different. Sometimes, we
know what we need to teach but when teaching we face to many difficulties such as
designing many activities in the period, limited time, stress because we are young and we
have not much experience in teaching. Therefore, the teachers sometimes forget some
activities, some speeches they plan to teach or talk. For example, after giving the
instruction for the task, they think that they will check the students‟ understand but they


18
forget. Besides, the teachers are afraid of ending the time, they talk much and quickly to

cover the steps in the period. In short, we need to practice a lot in order to achieve the
effective teaching period.
2.5. Functions of teacher talk.
The following table represents the „F-move‟ of three teachers from three classes that were
investigated. The functions are listed first, followed by three teachers‟ moves in one
period.
Period 1.
There is a common pattern regarding the functions of teacher talk across all three cases.
For example, the teachers questioned extensively in the classroom with the number of
moves being 63-25. The number of questions asked by Teacher 1 and Teacher 3 was
exactly the same whereas Teacher 2 asked questions less than half. Similarly, Teacher 1
and Teacher 2 made almost the same moves in giving instructions while the number of
moves in giving instructions by Teacher 3 was approximately half. It is indicated from
Table 3 that recast/reformulation was very rare in the classroom with just one move in the
case of Teacher 1 and Teacher 3 while Teacher 2 did not reformulate the students‟
language. It is obvious that recast/ reformulation was rarely used as a technique of
corrective feedback in the lessons taught by these teachers.


Functions
Teacher 1
Teacher 2
Teacher 3
1. Giving instructions
39
30
17
2.Checking students‟ understanding
4
19

2
3
Repetition
23
20
13
Elaboration
3
1
2
Comment a learner‟s response
5
16
9
Recast/ reformulation
Responsiveness
1
19
0
28
1
37
4. Cued elicitation
15
6
0
5. Questioning
63
25
63

6. Recycling
0
0
0