Is Teacher Talk Pernicious to Students? A Discourse Analysis of Teacher Talk

Abstract

Many communicative teachers consider teacher talk as an obstacle that restricts students’ learning opportunities. This paper analyzes teacher talk's quality and quantity within the framework of the communicative approach. The primary purpose is to raise teachers’ awareness of the effectiveness or pitfalls of their talk in classrooms. The focus of the analysis consists of a typewritten script of an audio-taped lesson of the communication which took place during classroom interactions. Teacher talk was benchmarked in terms of its alignment or congruence with some authors’ pedagogical recommendation and language learning theories. The finding indicated that the teacher was not successful to create genuine or authentic communication. The talk was repetitive and monotonous and it followed the IRF sequence which allowed the teacher more turns and talk. The teacher talk was not consonant with theories of second language acquisition, i.e. interactionist, functionalist and cognitive perspectives. The talk was hurtful and stressful and it could block the learning opportunities.

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