Teacher Talk in an EFL Classroom: A Pilot Study

Abstract

This study explored a non-native English teacher’s teacher talk in an EFL classroom through the qualitative research methodology. The study also aimed to find out the characteristics of EFL teacher talk and to explain them. The study mainly employed video-recorded classroom data for analysis, taking classroom observation as the supplement. The study shows that teacher talk nowadays still conforms to the widely acknowledged IRF pattern, which is in line with previous studies conducted on teacher talk. The study also tries to explore the use of L1 in EFL classroom. It shows that the EFL teacher uses Chinese mainly for three functions as explaining complex structures, ushering cultural knowledge and activating class atmosphere taking into account students’ low language proficiency level; besides, non-verbal discourse is also widely displayed in EFL classroom to support the teacher talk.