An Analysis of the Role of Teacher’s Talk in an Oral Classroom

Abstract

Second language acquisition theory and research seek to account for the rules and processes whereby learners acquire a second/foreign language outside of its social environment. Based on the key distinction between acquisition and learning, Krashen’s theory is one the theories that has revolutionized this and contributed markedly to its development. The most important concept that this theory has brought about is ‘comprehensible input’. The most effective teaching methods, according to this theory, are those that supply learners with ‘comprehensible input, which is considered to be both a necessary and sufficient condition for language acquisition to take place. In English as a foreign language context, teacher talk constitutes an important, if not the most important, source of comprehensible input. The present study aims at evaluating the effectiveness of teacher’s talk in an oral expression classroom using a number of key criteria set by Krashen’s theory. In order to achieve this aim, a checklist was designed on the basis of our review of the literature related to Krashen’s theory and the role of teacher talk. It was used in the analysis of tape-recorded interaction during twelve oral expression classes delivered to four groups of third year license students at the department of letters and English language at the University of Mohamed Saddik Ben Yahia, Jijel . The checklist operationalized teacher’s talk as a source of comprehensible input in terms of five key features: the adjustment of teacher’s input to the students ‘level (i+1), teacher’s questioning, teacher’s feedback, allocating turn-taking, and the silent period provided to learners. The analysis of the data generated by the present study showed that the teacher of oral expression did not provide learners with enough comprehensible input that is targeted specifically to their current level. Moreover, the results showed that the learners were exposed to both referential and display questions during classroom discussions which enabled learners to engage in the interactional atmosphere of the classroom. As regards the silent period, although the teacher was observed to allocate a sufficient time for learners to construct and arrange their own ideas before sharing and discussing them with the whole class, she resorted at certain occasions to force some learners to participate. As far as turn- taking is concerned, the teacher, on the whole, succeeded in allocating turns to the majority of learners on a regular basis so as to enable them to take part in the ongoing discussion. The major shortcoming in the teacher’s talk, however, was the fact that her feedback focused exclusively on the morpho-syntactic level and neglected the general discourse level of learner’s errors.