An exploratory study on teacher talk and students’ learning opportunities in a primary school context

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OFPOST-GRADUATE STUDIES PHAN THỊ LOAN TRANG AN EXPLORATORY STUDY ON TEACHER TALK AND STUDENT

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF

POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

PHAN THỊ LOAN TRANG

AN EXPLORATORY STUDY ON TEACHER TALK AND STUDENTS’ LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES IN

A PRIMARY SCHOOL CONTEXT

Nghiên cứu thăm dò về cách sử dụng ngôn ngữ của giáo viên trong lớp học và cơ hội học tập của học sinh trong bối cảnh trường Tiểu học

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 8140231.01

HANOI, 2018

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF

POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

PHAN THỊ LOAN TRANG

AN EXPLORATORY STUDY ON TEACHER TALK AND STUDENTS’ LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES IN

A PRIMARY SCHOOL CONTEXT

Nghiên cứu thăm dò về cách sử dụng ngôn ngữ của giáo viên trong lớp học và cơ hội học tập của học sinh trong bối cảnh trường Tiểu học

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 8140231.01

Supervisor: Assoc Prof Le Van Canh

HANOI, 2018

Hanoi, May 2018

Phan Thị Loan Trang

I would like to express the deepest gratitude to my supervisor,Associate Professor Doctor Le Van Canh for his encouragement, supervisionand support all along the course of research This paper would not have beenaccomplished without his expert, constant and valuable guidance andcriticism

My special thanks also go to my colleagues and students at someprimary schools in Hanoi (Tu Hiep primary school, Yen My primary school,Dong Ngac primary school) for their enthusiastic participation during theprocess of data collection

Finally, I would also like to express my sincere thank and love to myfamily who gave me time and encouragement to overcome all obstaclesduring the completion of this study

In the following paper, it was tried to explore the characteristics ofteacher‟s using language in the classroom as well as the influences of teachertalk on the students‟ learning process in primary school context Teacher talkand its consequence on students‟ learning opportunities are put intoinvestigation Within the scope of this paper, three teachers and the students

in six classes coming from three distinctive primary schools in Hanoiparticipated in the study Data was collected by nonparticipant observationwith six video recordings which were transcribed carefully later The differentaspects of teacher talk are analyzed according to recognized frameworks Asthe result, teacher talk was used to serve different pedagogical functions:Question strategies; Encouraging expanded answering; Giving feedback;Elicitation; Repetition; and Code switching The result demonstrates thatbasically, the teacher talk as indicated in the observational data shows that itmatches the pedagogical functions to some extent They tended to repeat thebasic linguistic patterns to the students and also tried to elicit as much aspossible the students in an attempt to provide them with more opportunities touse English in their own way However, there were not many instances of thispedagogical purpose that were observed In addition, teachers rarely usedtheir talk to provide comprehensible input to the students Particularly, itseems that the teachers used Vietnamese unnecessarily excessive, thuslimiting the students‟ exposure to input for learning This has implicationsboth for teachers of English in primary schools and teacher educators

Zone of Proximal Development

LIST OF FIGURE AND TABLES

Figure 1 A teaching-learning model (Stern, 1983: 500) 7

Table 3.1 Frequency of question types teachers used per lesson 26

Table 3.2 Frequency of teacher questioning for 29

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

LIST OF ABRREVIATIONS iv

LIST OF FIGURE AND TABLES v

PART ONE: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale 1

2 Aims of the study 2

3 Research questions 2

4 Scope of the study 2

5 Significance of the study 2

6 Research methodology 3

7 Structure of the study 3

PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT 5

Chapter 1: Literature review 5

1.1 Definition of teacher talk: 5

1.2.The role of teacher talk in foreign language learning 6

1.3.The features of teacher talk 8

1.4 Students‟ learning opportunities 8

1.5 Related theories 9

1.5.1.Krashen‟s Input Theory 9

1.5.2.The Interaction Hypothesis 11

1.6.Teacher talk and learner learning 12

CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 18

2.1 Research methodology 18

2.2 Data Collection Instruments: 19

2.3 Context and Participants 21

2.4 Data Collection and Data Analysis 23

CHAPTER 3 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 25

3.1.Questioning strategies 25

3.2.Encouraging expanded answers 32

3.3 Giving feedback 33

3.4 Elicitation 35

3.5 Repetition 37

3.6 Code – switching 40

PART C: CONCLUSION 44 REFERENCES Error! Bookmark not defined APPENDIXES I

PART ONE: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

It is no doubt that language teaching is a complex process involving manyinterrelated factors Before 1960s, teaching methodology has been exploredand an effective teaching method is tried to be found to apply for languageteaching Since teaching methods don‟t play a decisive role in languageclassrooms, the focus has shifted from teaching methods to teachers‟ talk inclassroom process Ellis (1985:143) points out: “Classroom process research,

as Gaies calls the study of communication in the classroom, has takendifferent form The earliest was interaction analysis… An alternativeapproach focused only on the language used by the teacher when addressingsecond language learners It sought to tabulate the adjustments which occur inteacher talk.”

Teacher talk is particularly important to language teaching(Cook,2000:144) The language that teachers use in classrooms determines to a largedegree whether a class will succeed or not Teacher talk is estimated to make

up around 70% of classroom language Teachers pass on knowledge andskills, organize teaching activities and help pupils practice through teachertalk Teacher talk involves many aspects, in which teacher questions havedrawn much attention

In recent years, studies on the language that teachers use in languageclassroom has gradually drawn people‟s attention However, few researcheshave explored the effects of teacher talk on second language acquisition, evenhardly there are many researches exploring both positive and negativeinfluence on students‟ learning, especially in a primary school context

In addition, I am myself an English teacher in a primary school Thus, to

push the situation of learning language of the student, it is necessary for me to

do some researches on teacher talk which can facilitate or hinder the learningprocess of my own students Ultimately, I can pursue more suitable ways ofteaching for the enhancement of student learning

2 Aims of the study The study aims at:

* Exploring the characteristics of teacher‟s using language in the classroom

* Exploring the influences of teacher talk on the students‟ learning process

3 Research questions.

In brief, these objectives can be achieved through finding tentative

answers to the following research questions:

1 What pedagogical purposes does teacher talk in the observed

classroom most serve?

2 To what extent does the teacher talk facilitate learner’s learning in the EFL classroom?

3 To what extent does the teacher talk hinder learner’s learning in the EFL classroom?

4 Scope of the study.

In the context of a primary school, the research is only focusing onanalyzing the critical episodes of teacher talk in the lesson which eitherfacilitate or hinder students‟ learning In deep, I will investigate teacher talkthrough six lessons of three teachers from three different primary schools inHanoi

5 Significance of the study

The results of this action research will help the author as well as the

Engllish teacher in primary schools can realize the current situation of

teacher‟s using language in the classroom and its influences on students‟

2

learning opportunites Thanks to that, we can find out the reasonable ways toimprove the effect of teacher talk in the classes of English language teaching.

6 Research methodology.

The study is aimed at exploring the characteristics of teacher‟s usinglanguage in the classroom and its influence on the students‟ learning process.Thus, a qualitative classroom-based research of methodology was chosen forthe study In this exploratory study, the videos of six lessons of three teacherscoming from three different primary schools were collected and transcribedspecificially Then the critical episodes of teacher talk from the transcribedversion would be analyzed carfully to find out that the language the teachesused in the primary school class can facilitate or hinder students‟ learning

7 Structure of the study

The research consists of three main parts: Part one, Part two and Part three

Part one : Introduction

It consists the rationale, the research question, the scope of the study, thesignificance of the study, the methodology of study, the research procedureand the structure of the study

Part two: Development

There are three chapters presented

Chapter one reviews the literature relevant to the study including

definition of teacher talk, the role of teacher talk in foreign language learning,the features of teacher talk and some discussion of students‟ learningopportunities This chapter also presents some related theories such asKrashen‟s input theory, the interaction hypothesis The IRF Cycle (Initiation-Response-Feedback) with the researches relating to Interaction in theclassroom and the outstanding characteristics of very young learners as wellare also mentioned in the last part of this chapter

Chapter two discusses the method used in the study It presents a

thorough justification for the use of qualitative research and the research‟scomponents

Chapter three presents the findings and discussion of the study This part

is apparently important because it justifies the effectiveness of the research

Part three: Conclusion

It provides summary of the findings, implication, limitation and suggestionsfor further studies

PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1: Literature review 1.1 Definition of teacher talk:

It is no doubt that language teaching is a complex process involving manyinterrelated factors Before 1960s, teaching methodology has been explored and

an effective teaching method is tried to be found to apply for language teaching.Since teaching methods don‟t play a decisive role in language classrooms, thefocus has shifted from teaching methods to teachers‟ talk in classroom process.Ellis (1985:143) pointed out: “ Classroom process research, as Gaies calls thestudy of communication in the classroom, has taken different form: interactionanalysis; teacher talk; discourse analysis” All dimensions of classroom process,from giving instruction to questioning or disciplining students, providing thefeedback, involve teacher talk Study on teacher talk has become one of the mostimportant parts of classroom research

There are many definitions of teacher talk given by many authors For this

term, Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics

defines it as “that variety of language sometimes used by teachers when theyare in the process of teaching In trying to communicate with learners,teachers often simplify their speech, giving it many of the characteristics offoreigner talk and other simplified styles of speech addressed to languagelearners” (Richards, 1992: 471) This view is similar to what Rod Ellis (1985)considered teacher talk as the special language that teachers use whenaddressing L2 learners in the classroom He also commented “the languagethat teachers address to L2 learner is treated as a register, with its own specificformal and linguistics properties” (Ellis, 1985: 145)

Consided as a general term for different types of teacher talk, Ellis (1998)stated that, teacher talk is a general term for different types of teacher talk

which refer to as “special language the teacher uses when addressing secondlanguage learner in the classroom.” It can be categorized according to thelinguistic aspects and functions.

In another aspect, according to Poppi (n.d), teacher talk referred to themodifications in teachers‟ speech which can lead to a special type ofdiscourse By using „teacher talk‟, teachers are trying to make themselves aseasy to understand as possible by the students, and effective teacher talk mayprovide essential support to facilitate both language comprehension andstudents‟ production In the scope of this study, teacher talk referred to thekind of language used in the classroom rather than in other settings It is theoral form of teacher talk that is under this investigation

1.2 The role of teacher talk in foreign language learning

Teacher talk is considered as a special communicative activity tocommunicate with students and develops students‟ foreign language proficiency.Teacher talk is used in class when teachers are conducting instructions,cultivating their intellectual ability and managing classroom activities (FengQican, 1999: 23) Teachers make use of the target language to promote theircommunication with learners In this way, learners practice the language byresponding to what their teacher says As the result, the communication betweenlearners and teachers is encouraged Therefore we can say teacher talk is a kind

of communication-based or interaction-based talk

By the way, talk makes up around 70% of classroom language (Cook,2000; Chaudron, 1988; Zhao Xiaohong, 1998) As Nunan (1991) points out:

“Teacher talk as discussed by (Cook, 2000:144), teacher talk is particularlyimportant to language teaching According to pedagogical theory, thelanguage that teachers use in classrooms determines to a larger degreewhether a class will succeed or not Many scholars found teacher is of crucial

importance, not only for the organization of the classroom but also for theprocesses of acquisition It is important for the organization and management

of the classroom because it is through language that teachers either succeed orfail in implementing their teaching plans In terms of acquisition, teacher talk

is important because it is probably the major source of comprehensible targetlanguage input the learner is likely to receive.” Teachers pass on knowledgeand skills, organize teaching activities and help students practice throughteacher talk In English classrooms, teachers‟ language is not only the object

of the course, but also the medium to achieve teaching objective Both theorganization of the classroom and the goal of teaching are achieved throughteacher talk Thanks to Stern with his teaching-learning model which revealsthe important role of the language teacher and teacher talk during the process

of language learning

Figure 1 A teaching-learning model (Stern, 1983: 500)

Besides, there is a range of authors like Richards( 2015: 113) Ellis(2005) believed that teacher talk is affected by language proficiency Teacherswith a high level of target language proficiency are to be more competent inproviding extensive input for learners, which, as states, is a key principle forsuccessful instructed language learning The same idea with Kim and Elder(2008), Freeman et al., (2015) maintain that the relationship betweenteachers‟ target language proficiency, their classroom teaching and student

learning is really complex With the scope of this research, this relationshipwill be discussed concentratively on the teacher‟s ability to use language( even mother tongue through the oral form of talk) to support studentlearning in the L2 classroom.

1.3 The features of teacher talk

Basing on the definitions, we can see that teacher talk in Englishclassrooms is regarded as one special variety of the English language with itsown specific features as well as special style In the researches of somescholars (Hu Xuewen, 2003; Dai Weidong & Li Ming, 1998), teacher talk isdiscussed in double features The first one refers to the form of teacher talk,such as the speed, pause, repetition, modifications of teacher talk The secondone, which refers to the features of the language that teachers use to organizeand control classes, includes the following aspects: the quality and quantity ofteacher talk; the questions teachers use; interactional modifications andteachers‟ feedback In this study, these features are going to be discovered inthe English teachers‟ talk in the primary schools

1.4 Students’ learning opportunities

There is no learning without input that is used to describe the way inwhich learning opportunities are created in the L2 learning environments It isdefined as a consequence of participation and use (Van Lier, 2014: 92) or

“Where language use and pedagogic purpose coincide, learning opportunities arefacilitated; conversely, where there is a significant deviation between languageuse and teaching goal at a given moment in a lesson, opportunities for learningand acquisition are, I would suggest, missed.” stated by Wale( 2002:5) He alsopresented the features of teachers‟ classroom language use that can facilitatelearning include direct error correction, content feedback, checking for confir-mation, extended wait-time, and scaffolding In addition,

from a conversation analysis perspective, Wong and Waring (2010: 278)suggest teachers to be highly alert and deeply reflective about theirinstructional practices so as not to shut down opportunities for studentparticipation with their language use.

As Musumeci (1996: 314) suggests: „teachers speak more, more often,control the topic of conversation, rarely ask questions for which they do nothave answers, and appear to understand absolutely everything the studentssay, sometimes before they even say it!‟

The work of Musumeci and others (see also Love (1991)) has clearrelevance to the EFL classroom where the ability by learners to formulate, re-formulate, clarify and seek clarification are important indicators not only thatlanguage acquisition has taken (or is taking) place but also that something isbeing understood and eventually learnt By „filling in the gaps‟, teachers mayfacilitate a coherent and flowing discourse, but they may be denying theirlearners opportunities to get to grips with the subject matter and to identifypotential problems in understanding In the words of Scott Thornbury (2000:28): “Moreover, language classrooms are language classrooms and for theteacher to monopolise control of the discourse – through, for example, askingonly display questions – while possibly appropriate to the culture ofgeography or maths classes, would seem to deny language learners access towhat they most need – opportunities for real language use.”

1.5 Related theories:

1.5.1 Krashen’s Input Theory

Input plays a critical role in language learning There is no learning withoutinput The language used by the teacher affects the language produced by thelearners, the interaction generated, and hence the kind of learning that takesplace The problem is what type and how much of input is appropriate

and useful for language learners in classrooms.

In Krashen‟s view, learning only takes place by means of a learner‟saccess to comprehensible input “Humans acquire language in only one way

by understanding messages or by receiving comprehensible input Learningwill occur when unknown items are only just beyond the learner‟s level It isexplained in detail “i+1”structure “i” stands for the learners‟ currentlinguistic competence, and “1” stands for the items the learners intend tolearn The Input Theory also has two corollaries (Krashen, 1985: 2):

Corollary 1: Speaking is a result of acquisition, not its cause; it emerges asresult of building competence via comprehensible input

Corollary 2: If input is understood and there is enough of it, the necessarygrammar is automatically provided The language teacher need not attemptdeliberately to teach the next structure along the natural order it will beprovided in just the right quantities and automatically reviews if the studentreceives a sufficient amount of comprehensible input

By examining the idea of comprehensible input and the two corollaries,one can find that comprehensive and right quantity input is the centralconcern with which learners are able to learn language It is the foundation orpremise of the occurrence of learning This provides implications for languageteaching: teacher talk should be comprehensible in different forms and in rightquantities But how could teachers know whether their input is enough or not?How could they make their input comprehensible? Krashen describes twoways: the linguistic resources are insufficient for immediate decoding.Simplified input can be made available to the learner through one-way or two-way interaction, with the former including listening to a lecture, watchingtelevision and reading, and the latter occurring in conversations Krashenstresses that two-way interaction is a particularly good way of providing

comprehensible input because it enables the learner to obtain additionalcontextual information and optimally adjusted input when meaning has to benegotiated because of communication problems.

In Krashen‟s view, acquisition takes place by means of a learner‟saccess to comprehensible input He comments that the input, which is totallyincomprehensible to learners, is not likely to cause learning to tack place.Teacher talk, actually serves as main sources of input of language exposure aswell as the opportunities for students to take part in the lesson, then achievenew knowledge by themselves in classroom learning, is more important forforeign language learning So teachers should make their inputcomprehensible and in right quantities

1.5.2.The Interaction Hypothesis

The Interaction Hypothesis claims that it is in the interaction process thatacquisition occurs: learners acquire through talking with others (Johnson, 2002:95) In recent years, a great deal of researches (Allwright, 1984; Ellis 1990;Long, 1983; 32; Swain, 1985) in the field of L2 acquisition reveals to a greatextent the importance of classroom interaction that involves both input andoutput According to Allwright and Ellis, classroom teaching should be treated asinteraction Now, it is clear that the language used in classroom affects the nature

of the interaction, which in turn affects the opportunities available for learning,the study of interaction is therefore critical to the study of language classroomlearning Van Lier (1988) pointed out that if the keys to learning are exposure toinput and meaningful interaction with other speakers, we must find out whatinput and interaction the classroom can provide… we must study in detail the use

of language in the classroom in order to see if and how learning comes aboutthrough the different ways of interaction in the classroom He also pointed outthat interaction is essential for language

learning which occurs in and through participation in speech events, that is,talking to others, or making conversation (Van Lier, 1988:77-78).

Ellis (1985) pointed out: classroom instruction, both in the form ofmeaningful interaction, and in the form of linguistic rules, may influence therate of acquisition Teachers can influence the kind of interaction that occurs

in their own classrooms In another word, teachers use the language toencourage the communication between learners and themselves Therefore wecan say teacher talk is a kind of communication – based or interaction – basedtalk Successful outcomes may depend on the type of language used by theteacher and the type of interactions occurring in the classroom We can sayhow a lesson progresses and whether it is successful largely depend on theinteraction between the students and the teacher

Thus in order to improve students learning outcomes, it is necessary toengage students in meaningful interactions with teachers and other students.When learners are given opportunities to take part in conversationalinteraction, they have to “negotiate for meaning” This term refers to thosemodifications, which speakers make during the interaction in order to beunderstood or to understand each other This process of negotiation is thought

to lead to L2 development specifically communicative abilities The result ofthe negotiation of meaning is that particular types of input and interactionresult (Ellis, 1985:142) Teachers carry out all his teaching tasks by teachertalk, an understanding of the aspects of teacher talk and their functions in theclassroom interaction is, therefore, very important

1.6 Teacher talk and learner learning

As mentioned above, this paper is based on the theory of Interactionhypothesis Therefore, in this section, I will discuss the most common feature

of teacher-student interaction which is found in the classroom and often

mentioned in research on classroom interaction (e.g., Macbeth, 2000; Walsh,2011): Initiation-Response-Feedback (IRF) Next, the outstandingcharacteristics of very young learners who are at the age of primary schoolwill be made clear in this interaction.

Firstly, the IRF Cycle(Initiation-Response-Feedback) in languageteaching which is first described by Sinclair and Coulthard (1975)is thefamiliar sequence of teacher-student-teacher turn-taking in the classroom Inthe “initiation” (I) phase the teacher usually asks a question, to which thestudent responds (R) Then, it is followed by some sort of feedback by theteacher In other words, the role of teachers in IRF is asking students known-answer questions (Heritage, 2005; Hosoda, 2014; Lerner, 1995; Schegloff,2007), to which students respond, and teachers give feedback based on theaccuracy of the student's response IRFs are an important feature of classroomdiscourse As discussed by Van Lier(2001: 94), three factors in the cycle havegreat influences on each other, in detail, “depending which questions areasked, the initiation stage may „…require students merely to recite previouslylearned items.” On the contrary, he goes on to say: “ At the most demandingend of IRF, students must be articulate and precise; they are pushed bysuccessive probing questions, to clarify, substantiate, or illustrate a point thatthey made previously.” While the IRF format may not be inherentlyineffective, it could be considered restrictive, in that students aren‟t able toinitiate themselves (Van Lier, 95) The IRF sequences have been blamed forconstraining the development of authentic discourse in classrooms Forexample, van Lier (1996: 151) states,

At times the IRF structure makes it unattractive and unmotivating forstudents to participate in classroom interaction, since their responsesmay be evaluated or examined publicly, rather than accepted andappreciated as part of a joint conversation

However, Van Lier uses „at times‟ meaning for many teachers, eliciting

is heavily ritualised, and virtually the only way they know how to talk tolearners It might be possible to conclude, therefore, that this form ofinteraction could be viewed as more pedagogically sound if the teacher were

to ask more referential questions vs display questions, which would give IRFthe purpose of scaffolding, as Van Lier (2001: 96) suggests: „The initiation-response-feedback exchange, at least when it moves beyond mere recitationand display, can be regarded as a way of scaffolding instruction, a way ofdeveloping cognitive structures in the zone of proximal development, or away of assisting learners to express themselves with maximum clarity.‟Perhaps he is advocating that we design our questions with consideration toVygotsky‟s (1978: cited in Van Lier, 2001: 96) “zone of proximaldevelopment.”

According to Walsh (2011), the IRF exchange structure is "the mostcommonly occurring discourse structure to be found in classrooms all over theworld" (p 23) Ohta (1999) examined instances of IRF sequences in teacher-student interaction, and student-student interaction in Japanese languageclassrooms and reported that the IRF sequences have power in the languagesocialization of classroom interaction (p 1495) Similarly, in another studyOhta (2001) reported that “ne-marked” assessments (i.e assessments followed

by the word “ne” which is used to show agreement or emphasis a prior word

or sentence) in the third turn of IRF sequences were frequent and explicitlyworked as an agreement token to the ongoing interaction, or an affiliation tothe talk the student is producing Nassaji and Wells (2000) argue that the IRFstructure has several functions and can take various forms This paperinvestigates how IRF sequences are performed in a team-teaching contextinvolving a native-and non-native speaking English

teacher” It also examines the different forms that the IRF can take, detailingexactly what happens before and after as well as between each of the turns inthe IRF sequence In classroom interaction the teacher often controls the topicand the amount of attention that each student receives, and allocates turns(Erickson, 2004) On occasions where a teacher proceeds with the interactionwithout providing feedback, Seedhouse (2004) argues that the lack of the Fturn (i.e., the feedback part of IRF) implies a positive assessment even thoughone is not explicitly given Sometimes sequence closing thirds, words such as

"oh" and "okay," which minimally expand the preceding adjacency pair,occupy the F position in the IRF sequence (Schegloff, 2007) However,minimal responses in classroom interaction sometimes work as feedback anddemonstrate the convergence of pedagogical goals (Walsh, 2012) Beach(1993) points 178 Jeffrie Butterfield and Baikuntha Bhatta out that "okay" cansignal an activity shift This paper describes not only how IRF sequences areco-constructed between teachers, but also what happens at and after the Fposition, and how teachers close the sequence or begin a sequence closingsequence It also explicates how sequence closing sequences are dependent onthe nature and goal of the activity

Most of the researches of the sequence of interaction in the classroomare commonly applied on adult learners In the paper, I will discuss in deepthis aspect in the context of primary school; in another words the interactionbetween teacher and very young learners who have special characteristics inlearning as well as dealing with teachers in the classroom In the followingpart, these features related to the interaction process will be made clear

Piaget( 1970) pointed out that children are active learners and thinkers.Except for through their own individual actions and exploration, Theyconstruct knowledge from actively interacting with the physical environment

in developmental stages and learn through social interaction This view issimilar to what Vygotsky (1962) stated that children construct knowledgethrough other people, through interaction with adults Adults/teachers workactively with children in the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) Zone ofProximal Development (ZPD) = difference between the child's capacity tosolve problems on his own and his capacity to solve them with assistanceChildren learn effectively through scaffolding by adults (Bruner, 1983) Theadult‟s role is very important in a child‟s learning process Like Vygotsky,Bruner focused on the importance of language in a child‟s cognitivedevelopment He shows how the adult uses “scaffolding” to guide a child‟slanguage learning through finely-tuned talk (Cameron, 2001) EffectiveScaffolding (Bruner, 1983) includes the following conditions: creating interest

in the task; broking the task down into smaller steps; keeping child “on task”

by reminding him of the purpose or goal; pointing out the important parts ofthe task; controlling the child‟s frustration during the task; modeling the task,including different ways to do the task It is obviously that all of them belong

to the circle IRF, especially in the first stage where teacher talk happens themost

Adopting the position that maximizing learner involvement isconducive to second language acquisition, Walsh (2002) examined the ways

in which teachers, through their choice of language, construct or obstructlearner participation in face-to-face classroom communication Walshconcluded that teachers‟ ability to control their use of language is at least asimportant as their ability to select appropriate methodologies, because teachertalk can either facilitate and optimize or obstruct learner contributions hasimplications for both teacher education and classroom practices According toWalsh,

Where [teachers‟] language use and pedagogic purpose conincide,learning opportunities are facilitated; conversely, where there is asignificant deviation between language use and teaching goal at a givenmoment in a lesson, opportunities for learning and acquisition are, Iwould suggest, missed.

(Walsh, 2002: 5)

In the literature, teacher talk is used for the following pedagogical functions:

 Presenting, clarifying, checking, modeling new or revised

language;

 Setting up activities or giving instructions and feedback;

 Providing language input

 Establishing report by chatting

(Gower et., 1995: 33)While the relationship between teacher talk and learner learning hasbeen a concern to language educators and researcher for many years (Walsh,2002), not much of classroom-based research on this issue has been reported

in the context of Vietnamese primary school This study is an attempt tooccupy the research void

CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This chapter first explains the methodologies that are employed in thisdissertation in order to collect and analyze the essential data to answer theresearch questions In addition, it also provides details regarding the researchsetting, the teachers and students who participated in this study

2.1 Research methodology.

In order to achieve the aims of the study, a qualitative approach will beemployed in the research According to Steven J Taylor, Robert Bogdan,Marjorie (2015), qualitative methodology refers in the broadest sense toresearch that produces descriptive data - people‟s own written or spokenwords and observable behavior As Ray Rist ( 1977) pointed out, it is morethan a set of data- gathering technique It is the way of approaching theempirical world

Bogdan,& Biklen (1992) presented five main features of qualitative:

- Naturalistic Coming to a particular setting with either pad and pencil, orvideo/audio recording equipment, researchers feel that action can be understoodwhen it is observed in the setting in which it occurs Each act, word and gesture isconsidered significant

- Descriptive data The data in qualitative research takes the form of words orpictures rather than numbers Data can include: transcript, field notes, photographs,video recordings, audio recording, personal document and memos Researchersnotice gestures, jokes, tone of voice, verbiage, descor, style of dress, responsetime, body language and a multitude of other details of their studies

- Concern with process Qualitative researchers are concerned with process rather than simple outcomes

18

- Inductive: Qualitative researchers analyze their data inductively They donot set out to find data to prove or disprove hypotheses that they have prior to theirstudy.

- Meaning: The data can be shown in the form of transcripts and recordedmaterial to the informants to make sure the interpretations of what the informantssaid/did is accurate/true

These features were reflected in the study First, the aims of theresearch is to explore the characteristics of teacher‟s using language in theclassroom and the influences of teacher talk on the students‟ learning process.Thus, the research was applying basing on the real classes of English that theresearcher observed Second, the data in this paper was taken from the videorecordings which were transcribed fully and clearly including the notices ofgestures, response time, the modes of speech…Third, the data was taken from

2400 minutes of six periods of three different teachers in six classes fromthree primary schools Therefore, this concerned with long process of teachertalk in her real classes Finally, this study was not carried out to prove or notprove any theories, just to explore teacher talk and its influences on students‟learning opportunities in a primary school context

In conclusion, qualitative research is a good choice for this study onaccount of suitability in target, design and characteristics of the study

2.2 Data Collection Instruments:

The major instrument of data collection used in this study is participant observation Among a range of the instruments in qualitativeresearch such as interview, focus groups, case study and narrative,observation was selected as the technique to collect data in this study As ameans of gathering information for research observation is defined asperceiving data through the senses: sight, tastes, touch and smell The data

non-collection method is applied due to the following purposes:

- To enable the researcher to gather empirical data which are difficult to obtain by other means

- To enable the researcher to gather sufficient data to supplement or verify information gathered by other means

- To enable the researcher to gather information or data needed to describethe aspect of a variable being studied which cannot described accurately withoutobservation

- To enable the researcher to gather directly primary data or first-hand information for his study for a more accurate description and interpretation

- To enable the researcher to gather data from the laboratory or elsewhere through experimentation

There are a variety of types of observational research, each of whichhas both strengths and weaknesses However, I would like to refer tonaturalistic (nonparticipant observation) which was used as data collectioninstrument in the scope of this paper It has no intervention by a researcher It

is simply studying behaviors that occur naturally in natural contexts, unlikethe artificial environment of a controlled laboratory setting Importantly, innaturalistic observation, there is no attempt to manipulate variables It permitsmeasuring what behavior is really like

In the current study, the teaching-learning process in the completedperiods were recorded by the cameras so that the data are not biased Videorecordings are, in many ways, the easiest means of capturing not only spokeninteraction but also gestures, descor, the mode of response, body language and

a multitude of other details in classrooms Using mechanical recordersincreases analysis time because researchers may observe events whilerecording and then repeatedly observe them while processing, coding, andanalyzing data later

With the aims of investigating the characteristics of teacher‟s usinglanguage in the classrooms observation can give the researcher in depthinformation with detailed descriptions of participants‟ activities, behaviors,actions and the full range of interpersonal interactions and organizationalprocesses that are part of observable human experience, which help in theexploration of the situation.

2.3 Context and Participants

The study is conducted at three different primary schools in Hanoi city( one school in the urban and two others in the suburban area) The urban school

is a quite big school with about 600 students and 24 teachers of all subjects Thestudents in the school have many chances to take part in the extra classes ofEnglish in the center or are guided by their own parents who have intellectuallevel quite high A suburban school consists nearly 1200 students with 38teachers of all subjects but there is only one teacher who is responsible forteaching English The students coming from the gifted classes also have quitegood background of English for most of them took part in the English classes out

of the school while in the common classes, the number of the students does likethat is not big There is also one teacher of English in the rest primary schoolwhich has 450 students and 27 teachers in total This school is quite far from thecenter of the district, so there are mot much students being familiar with Englishbefore classes Although the quantity of students and teachers, these schools hasthe same context that English is an elective subject from Grade 3 to Grade 5 fortwo 35-minute periods per week As the regulation of Hanoi DepartmentEducation and Training, to the primary school which has under 25 classes, there

is only one teacher of English who is in the regular staff Therefore, these threeteachers are representative to three schools, three distinctive contexts of teachingEnglish for mainstream primary students

Tieng Anh 3, 4, 5 which are approved by the Ministry of Education andTraining in August, 2010 are the course books used commonly in the state-owned primary schools in Vietnam in general and in these school inparticular The book follows a systematic, cyclical and them-based syllabuswith twenty units of familiar topics Each unit consists of three lessons each

of which provides materials for two periods of class contact In the otherwords, the seri of books is designed for 6 periods/units and 4 periods/week.However, in the fact of the three primary school, there are two periodsintroduced every week for each class The structure in detail of one unit in thetextbook series is presented in Appendix 1

The participants of the study are selected conveniently, including threeteachers (Teacher1, 2, 3) and six classes with approximately 50 mainstreamstudents/class (Class 4.1, 4.2; Class 4, 3 and Class 5.1, 5.2 respectively) Theattempt to observe three teachers and three classrooms is not to make acomparative study but rather to have a more comprehensive idea about thelanguage used by teachers and learning process of learners in the context ofthe study

All of three teachers selected in the study appeared to be representative

to the population of Vietnamese primary school teachers of English working

in state-own schools in many aspects Interestingly, they graduated fromHanoi teacher training college to teach English to junior secondary schoolstudents (grades 6-9) After graduation, while teacher 1 has had no morecourse; teacher 2 selected to continue her study for Bachelor‟s degree atHanoi national university of education and now she is taking part in the MAcourse of English teaching methodology in university of languages andinternational studies and teacher 3 also has the qualification of Bachelor‟s

degree by Hanoi national university of education No2 However, when thisstudy was conducted, all of them had been teaching English in a Hanoi-basedstate-own primary school for at least 5 years Now teacher 1 has 12 periodsper week for 6 classes, teacher 2 is teaching12 classes with 24 periods perweek and teacher 3 is in charge of teaching for 8 classes with16 periods perweek All of them reached level 4 on the National Target LanguageProficiency Scales (equivalent to B2 on the CEFR) as the requirement for theteacher of English at the primary schools They were married and had one ortwo small children to look after These are the typical cases of Vietnameseprimary school teachers of English who are young, married females, aged 25-

32, and had a similar professional training background

2.4 Data Collection and Data Analysis

Before observing and audio-taping each lesson, I had some informalmeeting with the teachers to talk about my intention and ask them for theirpermission The aim of the study was stated clearly and the teachers wereexplained that the results of class observation and interview were used forscientific purpose only, not related to their work at school Both of the actionswere in order to persuade them to agree to be observed and help them nothave a feeling of being assessed during the observed lesson However, I amsure that they can not do their teaching task as in the normal periods they used

to do everyday when I sit on their classes and observe them carefully.Because I have ever been in the same situation in another research, whichmade me run the lesson less natural than I used to teach Thus, I decided not

to come to their classes, let them ask some one in their schools to record theirlessons and send me later I also noticed them to focus on teacher talk andstudents‟ respond rather than the others All the recordings then weretranscribed and made ready for the next phase – data analysis andinterpretation

Flanders (1970) explained that “techniques for analyzing classroominteraction are based on the notion that these reciprocal contacts can beperceived as a series of events which occurs one after another” (Flanders,

1970 as cited in Tarricone &Fatherston, 2002) It is a system to codespontaneous verbal communication in classroom (Tarricone & Fetherston,2002) Data was analyzed according to the pedagogic purposes of teacher talk(Gower et al., 1995) and then interpreted according to Walsh‟s (2002)suggestions on the matches between teacher talk and the pedagogic purposes

CHAPTER 3 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

This chapter presents the results of the research analysis with related tothe 3research questions mentioned in Chapter 1 The follow up discussion will

be presented after the research results

Data was presented according to the different pedagogical functions ofteacher talk

3.1 Questioning strategies

According to Jack C.Richard & Charles Lockhart (2000), questioning isone of the most common techniques used by teachers and serves as theprincipal way in which teachers control the classroom interaction There aremany ways to identify the types of questions With the growth in concern forcommunication in language classrooms, Long and Sato (1983).has made afurther distinction between “display” and “referential” questions In Long andSato‟s terms, display questions refer to those that teachers already know theanswers, while referential questions are ones to which the teachers asks forinformation he or she does not know It is clear that demands are similar toquestions in its nature - requesting students to do or say something Basing onthe data in the present research, the form of demands is different to questions,they are still counted and classified into appropriate groups of questions aspresented in the following chart

Teachers used questions frequently in the lessons and they useddifferent types of questioning strategies These are illustrated in Table 3.1below

Table 3.1 Frequency of question types teachers used per lesson

Teachers Classes Display questions Referential

Obviously, teacher 3 is the person who used less RQ than two other Itseems that she only concerned on letting students practice the vocabulary andstructures mentioned in the lesson although the topic in her both periods isabout jobs, a familiar topic for students Two periods which RQs were usedmost are a review lesson – no more new knowledge introduced and a lesson

of daily activities that is not too difficult for teacher to give questions andmake students share their own experiences

All three teachers used DPs to elicit the students This was mostfrequently observed while the teachers were teaching Part I (Look-Listen andRepeat), which introduces the content of the whole lesson in the textbook.Below is one example from the observed data

T: Where are they? Who can? NL?

S: They are…(smiling) (some ss say the answer)

T: Ok Sit down please Now, open your book please, pg 36 And you look at part

1 please Listen and number OK, now First, you look at the picture on the TV and tell

me who‟s this? … Who‟s this?

SS: Mai

T: And Who are they?

Ss: Mai‟s father ( Some say)

Mai‟s mother (Some say)

T: Yes, Mai‟s parents: her mother and her father And Who‟s this?

Ss: Her brother

T: her brother So Where are they? Where are they?

Ss: ( discussing)

T: Where?

SS: family,…house… ( many ideas)

T: Ok They are in the living room So can you guess what day? what day?Ss: It‟s Tet

Ss:[ Ss2: Ôn lại mẫu câu hỏi về tuổi ạ!]

T: [đúng rồi.Vậy về nhà các con hãy tìm thêm thật nhiều từ có chứa âm /s/ và /f/

và hỏi tuổi những người xung quanh bằng Tiếng Anh nhé!]

( Class 3 – Teacher 2)

As the result, the students did not have to do much brainstorming They

just told the teacher what they saw or remember previous lessons

In addition to elicitation, teachers used questions for many different

purposes such as paraphrasing, simplifying, etc Table 3.2 shows the

frequency of teachers asking questions for those purposes

Table 3.2 Frequency of teacher questioning for

different pedagogical purposes

Questions were repeated at least once For primary school students,

repetition is necessary to make sure that the students understand the question

before answering it Observed data shows that teachers sometimes repeated

the whole questions, sometimes they just repeated the key part of the

questions depending on the complexity of the question The following lesson

extracts show these purposes

29

T: can you guess where is it? Where? Can you?

Ss: Sword Lake ( In Vietnamese)

( Class 4 – Teacher 1)

Lesson extract 6:

T: Good What‟s it in Vietnamese, “ taking photos”?

Đ, taking photos ( including miming the correlative activity) What‟s it in