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Chapter 1 Introduction

In the foreign language classroom, the acquisition of the target language is thefinal goal of language education. Being clear of the process of classroomcommunication, the teacher can supervise and modify the classroomcommunicative pattern, which decides the students’ participation in the classroomactivities through language as well as the effect of the target language. In recentyears, many researches have proved that classroom interaction is the key to thesuccess of language learning. However, such interaction is mainly generated andpromoted by teacher talk.Teacher talk is of crucial importance, not only for the organization of theclassroom but also for the process of acquisition. So it not only is a tool to impartknowledge, but also serves as a crucial source of input (Nunan 1991). Englishteaching in China has its own characteristics and limitations. Since Chinesestudents seldom have the opportunity to practice English outside class, classroomstudy is the most important form for the students to acquire foreign language inChina, thus, teacher talk becomes one of the major sources of comprehensibletarget language input the learner receives in the foreign language classroomteaching. This can be regarded as one function of teacher talk—to providesufficient comprehensible input for the students. However comprehensible input isnot enough for the learners to acquire language. There is another important factorin the course of language acquisition, which is called by Swain comprehensibleoutput. The output hypothesis put forward by Swain holds the view thatcomprehensible input is necessary but in no way a sufficient condition forlanguage learning. The accuracy of the learners’ language can be achieved throughtheir use of meaningful language resources (Swain 1985). Thus, teacher talk has tofulfill another function: to provide opportunities for the students to uttercomprehensible output.In view of the important role teacher talk plays in language teaching andlearning, many scholars have done quite a lot of empirical researches about teachertalk. (Chaudron 1988; Wong-Fillmore 1992) But these researches mainly focus onthe characteristics of teacher talk as a source of input such as the modifications inpauses, intonation, stress, vocabulary, syntax (Chaudron 1988). Later, with the roleof interaction recognized, some researches have been done on interactionalmodifications which are based on the second function of teacher talk.In China where English is still a foreign language, the importance of studyingEnglish teachers’ instructional language is self-evident. As Wong-Fillmore (1982)states, for non-English speaking students, the language used by teachers serves adouble function: it conveys the subject matter to be learned at school, and itprovides an important source of the input such students need in order to learn theschool language, the potential value of instructional access to SL is even moreincreasing. In addition, the research findings can hopefully provide practicalguidance for the designing of teacher education programs in China.In college English class, the learners are usually silent and passive which leadsto one-way communication. This way of communication is not helpful to thelearners’ SLA. What I have done is a quantitative research on teacher talk from theaspects of question types, interactional adjustment and teacher’s feedback with thewish to help improve teacher talk so as本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。