Impacts of Teacher Talk in Promoting Students' Communicative Skill: the case of Misrak Goh Secondary School
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Date
2012-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Teacher talk is an indispensable part of the Foreign language classroom. According to
Krashen(1985},1he language used by teachers in the classroom determines whether a class will
succeed or not. Many studies have focused on the quantity ofTeat;:her Talk, however, the quality
of Teacher Talk and its impact on learners' communicative skill has not been given much
attention. This study attempts to explore the quality of the teachers' oral input learners are
expased to by focusing on The Lexical Variation, Language Functions and Communicative
Features of teacher talk.
The data for the study was gathered through audio-tape recording and classroom observation.
Next, the recorded data was transcribed and analyzed. The research followed a quantitative
qualitative approach to analyze the data. In order to determine the variety of lexical items the
students were exposed to, the Lexical Variation adopted by Meara, Lightbown and Halter was
used. The distribution of language fimctions was determined by coding the teacher talk into the
six categories of jUnctions developed by Bowers (J980}.The qualitative analysis was based on
communicativefoatures suggested by Thomburry(J996) and Cullen(2002}.
The study discovered that Questioning and Explaining are the most frequently used fimctions in
the Teacher Talk while Sociating or establishing and maintaining classroom rapport was the
least. A fiirther analysis of the questions asked showed that display questions dominated where
as the amount of referential questions was very insignificant. The teacher talk was also
characterized by low lexical variation, dominated by technical tem/s, which indicated that the
teacher talk was not rich in lexical items that are necessary in communication. In addition the
qualitative analysis of the teacher talk indicated that the feedback given fOCllsed on foml and the
follow-up to students' response did not encourage interaction and communication.
Overall, the result of the study implies that teachers are not aware of the impact and importance
teacher talk has on the language classroom. Therefore, teachers should foclls on maximizing the
potential of Teacher Talk without drastically reducing it.
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The case of Misrak Goh Secondary School