Abstract Teacher talk has a important role in both the classroom teaching organization for teachers and the students’ language acquisition. Teacher talk is also a significant factor of teaching researches in classroom. The analysis and study of teacher talk can explore the relationship between teacher talk and teaching effects. Therefore, the study of teacher talk can help us understand the real situations to improve the English classroom teaching effect. Within the framework of qualitative research, this thesis studies the teacher talk in the college English classroom of in vocational and technical institutions and explores that the different teacher talk has a great difference on English classroom and English learners. On the theoretical basis of Krashen’s Comprehensible Input Hypothesis, Swain’s Comprehensible Output Hypothesis and Long’s Interaction Hypothesis, the Expert, proficient and novice teacher who have freshman classes and come from Lanzhou University of Arts and Science and 166 students are regarded as research subjects. The research instruments that are classroom observation and recording, questionnaire and interview with teachers are used. It can be found that there have some difference for the expert, proficient and novice teacher on discourse quantity, teacher’s question, international modification and feedback manners, therefore, some major findings are demonstrated as follow: First of all, The expert teacher's talk time (TTT) is less than the novice, the proficient talk time is slightly higher than the expert; while TTLT (teacher target language talk) of the expert teacher is more than those of the proficient teachers, the novice teacher's is relatively the least while TNLT (teacher native language talk) of the novice teacher is bitterly the most. Secondly, the expert teacher always adopt the questioning types of “nominating”, “chorus” “answering” and “volunteering”; the proficient teacher pays attention to “nominating” and a little “chorus” and “volunteer”; the novice teacher often ignored students’ interest of “chorus”, “volunteer” and “teacher-self answer”, and more prefer to choose the questioning types of “nominating”. Thirdly, the expert and proficient teacher are trying to use the confirmation checks and clarification requests in the classroom teaching, the teaching notion of the expert and proficient teacher is also increasingly changing. Comprehension checks used by the novice teacher are far I greater than confirmation checks and clarification requests; therefore, comprehension checks are the main communication strategies with students for the novice teacher. Finally, the expert, proficient and novice teachers all adopt more simple praise than praise with comments and praises with repetitions; the expert, proficient and novice teachers don’t point out the students’ error directly. the expert and proficient teachers adopt more negative feedback of “guiding to self-repair”, In contrast, the novice teacher is used to give negative feedback of “turning to another student” when students commit errors in the questions. Therefore, the appropriate feedback manners should be based on different situations so as to enhance students’ power and ability to learn English. After the survey and data analysis, there are some implications as follow: (1) Teachers’ concept, role and status should be changed; (2) teacher talk and curriculum design should be paid great attention so as to improve the quality of teacher talk; (3) teachers should focus on classroom interaction and stimulate students to participate in classroom activities; (4) teachers should make timely and appropriate feedbacks. Key words: teacher talk expert teacher teacher II proficient teacher novice Chapter One Introduction 1.1 Background of the Study In the language classroom, teacher talk is the medium of teaching, and is the carrier which can reflect the teaching method and carry out the teaching plan, but also is the learner’s target language and an important source of the students’ language input. Nunan (1991) pointed out: “Teacher talk is of great important both in the classroom teaching organization and the students’ language acquisition. This is not only because the ideal teaching effect can be achieved through perfect organization and use of teacher talk, but also an important language input for the students as a target language.” In China, English classroom is mainly place of language acquisition when English is considered as a foreign language, therefore, In the English classroom; the teacher classroom language (teacher discourse) is an extremely important source that the students acquire language input. English teachers’ classroom discourse is directly related to English teaching quality and all aspects of students’ proficiency in English. In a sense, Hakanson indicated “the quality and quantity of the teacher talk can affect and even decide whether the classroom teaching is successful or not”. (Hankinson, 1986). So it is very significant to analyze English teachers’ classroom discourse in the language teaching process. Nowadays, many researchers both at home and abroad are studying classroom discourse from different perspective, such as the amount of teacher talk, Teacher’s Questions, feedback manners. It is proved that discourse analysis from different perspective does help language teachers adjust their teaching methods, emphasizes the teaching process with a purpose, and thus effectively improves the quality of teaching. “An analysis on teacher talk” is a new perspective of English teaching study. Nowadays, it is still at the early stage. Firstly, the more empirical research is primarily aimed at high school English class or colleges, the fewer English class studies on vocational colleges; therefore, it is not underestimated to study the significance of the foreign language classroom. In addition, Xu Xiaozheng (2006) pointed out: “It is extremely surprising that there are fewer and fewer professional English teachers, less and less time and the number of papers published, fewer and 3 fewer words of monographs published to engage in scientific research in vocational and technical institutions.” Secondly, nowadays, many linguists both at home and abroad have done further research on the teacher talk, and most of them mainly studied the features and functions of teacher talk, the teacher’s talking time in class, teacher’s ways of questioning and feedbacks, and how does teacher talk affect the language output for learners in college, etc. For these reasons, I chose to regard vocational and technical institution as background of the study. My paper will do a comparative study on the teacher talk among expert teachers, novice teachers and proficient teacher in vocational and technical institutions English classroom from four perspectives of the discourse quantity, teacher’s questions, interactional modification and feedback manners. By comparing these differences between expert, novice and proficient teachers, this thesis will try to understand the situation of college English teachers’ classroom discourse, conclude features of teacher talk in vocational and technical institutions, find the aspects that need to improve and ultimately promote the language teaching, as well as provide useful references for the expert, novice and proficient teachers. 1.2 Significance of the Study As mentioned above, an analysis on teacher talk at home is still at the early stage, the more and more studies on classroom discourse take middle school, high school and college for background; relatively few studies are carried out in the context of vocational and technical institutions; while the less and less comparative study on teacher talk among expert, novice and proficient teachers are related to college English course in vocational and technical institutions. Therefore, the significance of this study is to find the common problems and differences of expert, novice and proficient teachers’ classroom discourse in vocational and technical institutions by investigating and analyzing college English teacher talk between expert, novice and proficient teachers in vocational and technical institutions, and thus we are able to get some constructive and instructive teaching Implications, it can help the teachers improve their own classroom discourse, focus on their classroom discourse and build their awareness of classroom discourse to improve the level of college English classroom teaching. This study will begin with a few aspects as following: the discourse quantity, teacher’s questions, interactional modification and feedback 4 manners. 1.3 Structure of the Thesis This thesis consists of five different chapters, which are shown as following: Chapter one is the introduction of the whole thesis, which clarifies the present background of the study, significance of the study, this chapter also presents the framework of the whole thesis. The second chapter is a literature review, which firstly introduces the definitions of teacher talk; secondly summarizes the current status of studies on teacher talk at both home and abroad; thirdly the precious status of studies on teacher talk between expert, novice and proficient teachers; finally states the theoretical foundations of this studies, based on three great theories of second language acquisition, such as Krashen’s comprehensible input hypothesis theory, Long’s negotiated interaction hypothesis theory and Swain’s comprehensible output hypothesis theory. The third chapter of this thesis is the methodology, which points out the research design, research questions, research subjects, and research instruments, data collection and date analysis. The questionnaire, audio-record, classroom note-taking and interview are introduced as the ways of data-collecting. The fourth chapter presents the comparative analysis and discussion between expert, novice and proficient teachers, which concludes the discourse quantity of teacher talk and students talk, teacher’s questions, interactional modification and feedback manners. The fifth chapter is a conclusion of the thesis, which indicates some main finding. After briefly analyzing limitations in this study, some implications for college English expert, novice and proficient teachers will be given. Chapter Two Literature Review 2.1 Teacher Talk Discourse analysis studies the language in use and is defined as “the study of the relationship between language and the context in which it is used” (McCarthy, 1991:5). Discourse analysis has 5 played a key role in the study of language. And the classroom discourse is generated discourse from classroom, including students discourse and teachers discourse. But so far, the most studies on classroom discourse tend to mainly study discourse produced actually in the classroom. In other words, the present studies on classroom discourse are actually only a part of classroom discourse. From the current status of studies on classroom discourse at home and abroad, the majority of studies are to explore the usage of foreign language classroom teacher discourse, among them main with English teachers’ discourse in the classroom is lord. Not only is classroom teachers’ discourse generated discourse by the use of mother tongue, but also including discourse is produced discourse by the use of foreign language. Therefore, we are not hard to see that the teachers discourse analysis is a new study perspective in the field of teaching. The western linguistics began to apply the related theory to in-depth study classroom discourse during the 1970s and 1980s; however, at present, the study of teacher talk in China is still at the early stage. So it is very necessary to study the definition of teacher talk in detail. In order to understand the definition and the content of teacher talk, the definition of teacher talk and the function of teacher talk will be firstly stated; then, the function of the teacher talk will be described in detail, which includes discourse quantity, teacher’s questions, interactional modification and feedback manners; afterwards, the current status of studies on teacher talk at both home and abroad and the precious status of studies on teacher talk between expert, novice and proficient teachers will be summarized; finally, the theoretical foundations of this studies based on three great theories of second language acquisition will be elaborated , such as Krashen’s comprehensible input hypothesis theory, Long’s negotiated interaction hypothesis theory and Swain’s comprehensible output hypothesis theory. 2.1.1 Definition of Teacher Talk So far, there are different definitions of teacher talk, and it is not same to the perspective of definition. As its name “Teacher Talk”, which indicates the teachers’ speeches in the classrooms to manage, monitor, coordinate the students to acquire knowledge. And Jack C.Richards (Richards, 1985:471) defined the teacher talk as the language used by teachers in the teaching process in order to achieve the purpose of communication with students, 6 which comes from the “Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics” . Meanwhile, teachers tend to simplify the language so that it has many features of other foreign language and the simplified language. Apparently, he had come to define the teacher talk from the perspective of language variation. Language linguist Sinclair and Brazil in their 1982 works “Teacher Talk" referred that teacher talk is defined as language used by teachers to students when the teachers performs the task of teaching in foreign language teaching process. American linguist Rod Ellis (1985) considered that teacher discourse here is a particular language applied from the teachers in the second language classroom, which the language used by teachers in the context of unnatural. Allwright (1991:39) indicated that “teacher talk is one of the major ways that the teachers convey information to learners, and also is one of the primary means of controlling the learners’ behavior”. For Bernard Spolsky (2000), “teacher talk is a special language, which is a series of special words (jargon) mark about a particular industry or occupation”. Nunan (1991:189) pointed that teacher talk is not only a tool that the teachers organize classroom teaching, but also the major source of the students’ comprehensible input in the English classroom. Chinese scholars Ma xiancan (1999: 23-30) localized the definition of teacher talk. He believed that “teachers discourse refers to speech activities which the teachers transmits the knowledge to the students and trains intelligence, organizes and manages the students in the classroom to complete the tasks successfully, also includes little educational speech activities. Obviously, teacher talk can also be understood a speech activities in the classroom”. No matter what points to define teacher talk, we can come to a common conclusion, in the “Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics”, it refers “the teacher talk as the language used by teachers in the teaching process”. 2.1.2 Function of Teacher Talk Generally speaking, teacher talk can be divided into two types: The first category refers to the 7 language directly related to the task and teaching content and task, including reading the sentence or paragraph in the text loudly, explain the vocabulary and grammar, and the discourse quantity, teacher’s questions, interactional modification and feedback manners; The second category refers to the language used by the teachers, such as greeting, glossary, etc. In other words, the first category is called a content language by Sinclair and Brazil; and the second category is known as the interlanguage of classroom management. The thesis will first mainly analyze category of teacher talk, here, teacher talk focuses on four features: the discourse quantity, teacher’s questions, interactional modification and feedback manners. Now these four features are detailed as follow: 2.1.2.1 The Discourse Quantity The discourse quantity refers to the total amount of talking per unit of time. The discourse quantity is the proportion of the use of language when the teachers are teaching in a natural school hour (usually 45 minutes). Many scholars in the study has been found that takes a 70%-90% proportion of classroom time (Wang Yinquan, 1999)，In addition to ask a few questions to students, it mainly takes the teachers more time to explain words and texts. Therefore, the teachers are the center of the entire classroom activities, lectures still hold a dominant position to the classroom, and it is still very important strategy for lectures to improve the quality of classroom teaching. In my thesis, the minutes taken by the teachers in classroom teaching will be firstly figured out in the 90 minutes class (the lectures, questioning and feedback.etc.), then which divided by 90, it can be seen the percentage of the discourse quantity of the teachers talk. According to this method, the percentage of the amount of teacher talk in the target language and native language also will be described. The distribution of discourse quantity is the most effective indicator to test the quality of language classroom teaching. If proportion of students’ discourse is the greater in the classroom, the class may be more successful. 2.1.2.2 Teacher’s Questions Teacher’s questions are divided into forms by foreign linguists as the following: closed questions (the only answer), open questions (multiple answers), display questions (the teachers know the answer)) and referential questions (the teachers do not know the answer or the answer is 8 uncertain the teachers know the answer). According to different content, it is generally believed that the teacher’s questions are divided into two types by Tsui(1995), Long & Stato(1983): display questions and referential questions. Referential questions here are related that the teachers do not know the answer or the answer is uncertain, the students can express their views, which have considerably higher degrees of freedom and need to understand and judge for the students. Such as: the higher levels questions, view questions, divergent questions, when-typed questions and what-typed questions. Referential questions can increase the language o learners in the classroom to promote language acquisition. utput of Display questions are that the teachers know the answer; students can often be answered with YES or NO or the answer can be found directly in the text. Display questions are rarely used outside the classroom environment, it is generally used to practice knowledge points what they have learned or to help students understand the text. The purpose of display questions is to check whether students have learned by learning the knowledge. How teachers can be used these questions properly? There are many related research in the past few decades. Long & Sato (1983) in their study found that 79 percent of teacher’s question is a closed question or display question. And Banres (1969) indicated that open questions permit a lot of possible answers that are extremely rare, while it is very common for closed questions to have only one acceptable answer. Lynch (1991) summarized “referential (information- seeking) questions which predominate in NS-NNS conversation outside classrooms (76% of all questions asked) made up a 14% of questions asked by teachers. This result suggests that, contrary to there commendations of many writers on second language teaching methodologies, communicative use of the target language makes up only a minor Part of typical classroom activities.” Therefore, teachers need provide more opportunities to let students answer referential question in order to increase the authentic two-way communication. In the course of negotiation and interaction, students not only can organize their thought and engage in meaningful practice, but also modify their output and strengthen their language acquisition. Display question is just a oneway flow of interaction which limits the learners the second language acquisition. 9 2.1.2.3 Interactional Modification In the foreign language classroom, the teachers often adjust their classroom discourse to make students understand the questions greatly, which is also known as interactional modification, interactional adjustment or meaning negotiation. There are many studies on interactional modification, such as Varonis and Gass establish the model of interactional modification among non-native speakers; Oliver explores the model of interactional modification in children's interactive discourse; Long (1980) summarizes a variety of strategies in the consultation process, including comprehension check, confirmation check and clarification request. Long (1983) argues that they often solve the difficulties through interactional adjustments when native speakers and L2 learners are talking, and he distinguishes the difference of three types of interactional modification: comprehension check, confirmation check and clarification request. (1) Comprehension check. It is required to ask whether the learner or learners have understood a previous utterance. E.g. Do you understand? Clear? Got it? (2) Confirmation check. The teachers play the important roles to confirm whether the students understand the previous utterance, it’s also required to ask whether a student agrees with the proposition raised by others. E.g. You mean that...？Do you mean…？Are you saying that…? (3) Clarification request. The speaker makes request for a clarification in order to ask for further information from the interlocutor or help himself understand the previous utterance. E.g. Pardon? Excuse me? What do you mean? Can you explain it? 2.1.2.4 Feedback Manners Teachers’ feedbacks on students’ classroom performance are supposed to be one of the most commonly conceived classroom functions of target language, which helps to comment students’ answers and their second language speech, and to arouse their incentive to examine their own oral English and prompt them to interact with each other to improve their language proficiency. (Chaudron, 1988) In order to establish a beneficial atmosphere in the classroom, the teachers by feedbacks can 10 improve students' motivation to learn. Teachers’ feedbacks can be classified as positive feedback and negative feedback. Positive feedback refers to teachers’ praise and comments for students’ classroom answers and behaviors, such as simple praise, praise plus comments, praises plus repetitions, etc. Positive feedback is teacher’s provision of praise such as “good”, “all right” after the learner gives some responses. Some studies suggest that positive feedback is much more effective in improving the learner's behavior, compared with negative feedback (Nunan1991; Zhao Xiaohong, 1998). Positive feedback can inspire and encourage students to produce more language output. Negative feedback is that the teachers perform some behaviors to ignore criticism or correction for students’ classroom answers and behaviors, negative feedback includes three aspects: 1) ignore the student's answer, the teachers do not praise when the students answered correctly; 2) Criticism; 3) the teachers eager to correct errors, interrupts the student's answer when the students made mistakes in voice, grammar, collocation. There are different attitudes toward the teachers about students’ errors, some teachers surely correct errors, and some teachers turn a blind eye to gaze at never correct errors. In addition, it is also highly inappropriate for some teachers to the way of error correction; they often interrupt students’ answer and point out students’ errors in grammar. Such the way of error correction would have a negative impact on students’ psychology and directly affect the students' language development. 2.2 Current Status of Studies on Teacher Talk at Home and Abroad 2.2.1 Teacher Talk Studies Abroad Studies on teacher talk began in 1970s; Americans linguists Gaies, Henzel, Krashen, Chaudron, and Richards are those who firstly observed and studied in this field. Therefore, a great deal of research methods for describing the foreign language classroom sprang up in that period. Experimental study on “audio-lingual method” and “grammar-translation method” in the language education field suggested that the effects of practical application of two teaching methods are basically the same, teaching effectiveness is uncertain. Thus the scholars quickly turned their 11 interest in teacher talk (Teacher's talk) in the process of classroom teaching, teacher-student interaction analysis (Interaction analysis) and discourse analysis. Such as Chaudron(1977), he analyzed the teachers’ feedback in the classroom. Early systematic studies on classroom discourse at abroad are supposed to investigate the model of classroom discourse. Bellack(1966) first proposed a four-step framework for classroom discourse: structuring; soliciting; responding and reacting. Coulthard and Sinclair (1975) found that the between teachers and students have a fixed pattern in the English-speaking classroom; they summarized the “IRF structure” in classroom talk, which refers to the “Initiation-Response-Follow-up”. Sinclair and Coulthard(1992) used descriptive linguistics approach to analyze discourse structure, and put forward to description framework of “five rank”, which is composed of five rank scale system, including lesson, transaction, exchange, move and act. There have a further influence on later studies on classroom discourse. Many scholars have done empirical studies on classroom discourse. As the field of L2 acquisition, Ellis (1990), Tsui (1995) did a lot of study on L2 classroom discourse and made achievements, which include teacher talk, meaning negotiation between the teachers and students, turn-taking and so on. Teacher talk is an important aspect of study on classroom discourse. Since 1970s-1980s, western linguists have begun to study the classroom behavior on teacher talk, teacher’s questions and so on. Foreign scholars from different perspectives analyze teacher talk in language teaching. Remirezetal (1986) studied on the amount, function and point of teacher talk; Wesche & Ready (1985) studied on the speed, pause and syntactic modifications of teacher talk. Many scholars have done a lot of empirical research on classroom discourse, such as Sinclair & Coulthard (1975), Coulthard (1977), Pica & Long (1986), Chaudron (1988), Cook (2000), Richardsetal (2000), Hou Yanfang (2005), etc. But their studies are limited to traditional classroom that is regarded as the teacher-centered, there are little Communication and interaction between teachers and students and students and student. Sinclair & Coulthard (1975) found that what some problems in the classroom are that there has no “information gap” between teachers and students when they are in dialogue. Most of the problems raised by teachers to students are that the teachers have already known the answer of the question, the purpose of the teacher’s questions is to inspect whether the students have mastered the knowledge rather than get information from students. Pica & Long 12 (1986) also found that the display questions are far greater than referential questions; confirmation checks and clarification checks are less than comprehension checks. They concluded that traditional classroom does not provide many opportunities for learner to communicate using the target language, In the true sense, it is lack of communication in the classroom and there have little language output for learners in the classroom, Therefore, which is not conducive to language acquisition. Since the 1990s, Allwright, Ellis, Nunan, Krashen and more and more linguists started to advocate a “teacher research”. (Wallace, 2000; Richards, 1998), they studied in detail teacher talk and teacher behavior in language teaching to try to show the importance of teacher talk on effective input and classroom interaction, and then emphasized that teacher talk should create a classroom environment in order to exchange information and express ideas for learners, and guide students to actively participate in various classroom activities so as to promote language acquisition by communication and meaning negotiation. However, most studies only conduct in the target language countries; survey subjects are limited to the native-speaking English teachers. How to do research on the teacher talk in the speaking-English as L2 countries is still need to be discussed. 2.2.2 Teacher Talk Studies Home Over the years, our foreign language studies much more emphasis on psychology and pedagogy of language acquisition and few less focus on practical classroom process, it is not given enough attention to the classroom process itself, and systematically study on teacher talk is lacking greatly. To some extent, we ignore the learning process and the cultivation of the learning method (Huang Guowen, 2000). On the one hand, whether we should only use the target language in the classroom teaching is still a hot debate. On the other hand, how much does the teacher talk really affect the learners’ learning effect still lack further research? In recent years, the main researches have been focused on the amount and types of the teacher talk, its functions in language acquisition, Teacher’s Questions, feedback and correcting manners. There are few studies of teacher talk in China. Domestic research on teacher talk originated from Zhao Xiaohong. The author conducted a research about teacher talk in the college classrooms, and published her essay Investigation and Analysis on Teacher Talk in College 13 English Reading Class in 1998. Zhao Xiaohong discovered that the quantity and quality of teacher talk had a great influence on students’ language acquisition. The surprising result that the teacher talk time takes up 65 to 90 percent of the whole class time reflected the general situation in domestic classroom teaching. The turning point of teacher talk research occurred in 1999. Wang Yinquan pointed out that teacher talk in foreign language classroom teaching plays an important part for the language output of the learners. Teacher talk in foreign language classroom is different from other subjects. It is not only a target language which students should learn, but also a kind of teaching medium to achieve teaching aims. Wang Yinquan formally introduced the research on teacher talk at home, and some sensitive researchers began to focus on this field. Such as in 2002, Zhou Xing and Zhou Yun investigated and analyzed the teacher talk in college classroom. “They found that the quality and quantity of the teacher talk have a great effect on students learning opportunities” (Lan Weidong, 2004). With the development of empirical study, Zhou Xing and Zhou Yun studied the teacher talk by comparing and analyzing the quality and quantity of teacher talk, questioning manners, interactional modification and feedback between the student-centered classroom and the teacher-centered classroom. Finally, they proved that the former provided more learning opportunities than the latter. Hu Xuewen (2003) talked about the features and functions of teacher talk in his article. The author stated the features from the teacher talk speed, pauses, pronunciation, vocabulary and syntax. Based on the Speech Act Theory, Tang Yanyu and Liu Shaozhong (2003) did the research on teacher talk in the view of pragmatics. Hu Qingqiu (2004) mainly analyzed the relationship between teacher’s question and student’s participation in class. Cheng Xiaotang (2010) pointed out that teacher talk should be authentic, interactive, logical and normative. Although some guidance and references for the English teachers are provided by these researches, some systematic investigations and studies on teacher talk are needed. Besides that, most of these researches are carried out in college, only few are involved in college classroom of vocational and technical institutions. Therefore, many findings concerning teacher talk in vocational and technical institutions remains to be done, and many aspects should be further studied: what are the characteristics of teacher talk in the college English course in vocational and technical institutions? Whether these characteristics can have a great influence on the learner’s language acquisition? So we still have a long way to go on to study teacher talk. 14 2.3 Precious Status of Studies on Teacher Talk between Expert, Novice and Proficient Teachers 2.3.1 Definition of Expert, Novice and Proficient Teachers At different stages of teacher’s development, different scholars have put forward different views. The famous contemporary American psychologist pointed that “expert teachers are the teachers who have some teaching expertise.” it is very difficult to define it by a strict standard. Every expert teacher has their own teaching style. Therefore, it is usually useless for novice and proficient teachers to exactly imitate behavior of expert teachers. Berliner (1988) initially put forward to the model of five stages of teachers’ skill development: (1) novice; (2) advanced beginner; (3) competent teacher; (4) proficient teacher; and (5) expert teacher. On the basis of the Berliner’s view, we can see that the study on teaching expertise reflect initially on the broader expertise literature. Sternberg (2003:65) proposed three common characteristics of expert teachers: First, the expert’s knowledge. Expert teachers often adopt more strategies and knowledge in teaching, compared with the novice and proficient teachers, they can be more effective use their knowledge to solve problems; Second, efficiency. Expert teachers spend less time to do more work than the novice and proficient teachers; Third, creative insight. Expert teachers are able to create new and appropriate way to solve problems than the novice and proficient teachers. These opinions provide us direction and basis to understand T1s, in practice study, we often adopt the three bases presented by Leinbart and Brandt (cited in Allwright1984:156): ⑴ using test scores. If the score of students are among the top 15 to 20 percent in a certain geographical area, the teacher is viewed as an expert teacher; ⑵ the authority of the subjective evaluation. Researchers list some features of expert teachers, and then hand over the leadership to discuss, accordingly they proposed expert teachers; ⑶ teaching years. It refers to teachers’ working age. At home, Lian Rong(2004) from college of education science and technology of Fujian Normal University firstly investigated the psychological characteristics of expert, novice and proficient teachers. He defined expert, novice and proficient teachers from related theories of 15 teacher development. In considering seniority, job title and teaching performance of cases, He argued that novice teachers are those young teachers whose seniority is in 0-5 years between, job title is below three-grade titles (including three-grade titles); expert teachers are those whose seniority is more than 15 years with the special-grade and senior title in the professional post, while expert teachers with rich experience and good response in teaching are recommended and evaluated by school leaders and experts; proficient teachers are those who are in the former and the latter between and participate in young and middle-aged backbone teacher training class or foreign visiting, seniority is in 6-14 years between with advanced teaching philosophy. In this paper, as a research perspective of view, we can understand the differences of expert, novice and proficient teachers' classroom discourse. 2.3.2 Comparative Status of Studies and Results on Teacher Talk between Experts, Novice and Proficient Teachers Since 1970s, the studies on the teacher development have increasingly become a very important research field. The comparative study between expert, novice and proficient teachers becomes the most famous one. Many researchers at home and abroad have done research on this comparative study in different professional fields, like applied linguistics, psychology, curriculum and teaching methodology, etc. Berliner (1988) initially put forward to the model of five stages of teachers’ skill development: (1) novice; (2) advanced beginner; (3) competent teacher; (4) proficient teacher; and (5) expert teacher. On the basis of the Berliner’s view, we can see that the study on teaching expertise reflect initially on the broader expertise literature. Palmer (2005) identified criteria used to classify the expert and novice teachers as the following categories: (a) years of experience, (b) social recognition, (c) professional or social group membership, and (d) performance based criteria (including normative and criterion-based selection). He further proposed the following two-gate identification procedure: First Gate: Screening Teachers should have: (a) three to five years of experience in a specific teaching content area and with a particular population of students, and (b) teacher knowledge as reflected in relevant 16 certification and degrees that correspond to the field in which these teachers are currently teaching. Second Gate: Performance Indicators Recognition as an exemplary teacher by: (a) multiple constituencies, for example, fellow teachers, researchers, administrators, teacher educators, based on recent and relevant indicators of teaching effectiveness to include teacher knowledge and skills, and (b) should be confirmed with documented evidence of teacher impact on student performance. (Excerpted from Qi Zhiwen, 2008) At home, Lian Rong(2004) from college of education science and technology of Fujian Normal University firstly investigated the psychological characteristics of expert, novice and proficient teachers. He defined expert, novice and proficient teachers from related theories of teacher development. some researchers make a comparison and analysis between expert, novice and proficient teachers on teaching behaviors, teaching strategies, teaching efficacy, teacher cognition the monitoring abilities and psychological features of teaching (Meng Pan, Hu Kezu, 2012). The results show that expert teachers tend to do better than proficient and novice teachers if the study focuses on the aspects of teaching strategies, achievement goal orientation and personality traits. Novice teachers are significantly less than expert teachers in the profession commitment and job burnout. The task target level of novice teachers is significantly lower than proficient teacher, but there is no difference in the performance goal. From the classroom behavior and performance, Professor Yu Guoliang(2003) from Beijing Normal University indicated that there are significant differences in teaching efficacy between expert teachers and novice teachers. The personal teaching efficacy of expert teachers is greatly higher than novice teachers. The general education efficacy of expert teachers is greatly lower than the novice. Expert teachers are more confident in teaching ability than novice teachers, for novice teachers, expert teachers usually have a more positive attitude in teaching. Professor Hu Zhijian from Liaocheng University found that the novice teachers lack teaching experience, in addition to, it is also very hard for novice teachers to use flexible teaching methods and form their own teaching styles, so that they can’t grasp the teaching difficulties and key points accurately. Therefore, they are more concerned about their own course content and teaching methods; and less focus on students’ different reactions and learning activities. (Cited by Wang Yanjie). 17 At abroad, comparative studies between expert, proficient and novice teachers mainly focus on the comparison in knowledge structure, problem solving, teaching behaviors, interactional modification and feedback manners, etc. The scholar Shullman from American (1987) concluded that “compared with novice teachers, expert and proficient teachers have broader knowledge, more insightful and easier to solve problems.” Sternberg (2003:65) proposed that three common characteristics of expert teachers: First, the expert’s knowledge. Expert teachers often adopt more strategies and knowledge in teaching, compared with the novice and proficient teachers, they can be more effective use their knowledge to solve problems; Second, efficiency. Expert teachers spend less time to do more work than the novice and proficient teachers; Third, creative insight. Expert teachers are able to create new and appropriate way to solve problems than the novice and proficient teachers. In terms of knowledge structure, Livingston and Borko (1989) believed that expert teachers have more extensive knowledge, more insightful and higher efficiency to solve the problem. Teachers are not prepared when students put forward to the questions, these three kinds of teachers will show significant difference in dealing with this emergency situation. Expert teachers can quickly and flexibly find ways to have teaching contents. However, novice teachers are contrary, it is relatively more difficult for them, because student responses not only lack coherence, native teachers but also do not finish the teaching task successfully while students put forward to the questions teachers have not prepared. Proficient teachers’ performance is in the former and the latter between. In the comparison of problem solving, Carter (1988) elaborated in his essay Expert-Novice Differences in Perceiving and Processing Visual Classroom Information that expert teachers are good at finding the problems and analyzing the situation than proficient teachers and novice teachers. Gagne (1993), Livingston, Borko and Westerman (1991) pointed out that compared with proficient and novice teachers, expert teachers’ teaching behaviors are usually better if teaching plans, teaching procedures and after-class evaluation are only considered. In the after-class evaluation, Livingston and Borko (1989) declared that expert teachers’ evaluation pays more attention to the students, they are particularly concerned to the students’ learning effect, while the novice teachers regard themselves as classroom center, they more consider whether their teaching is effective or not. Proficient teachers’ performance is in the former and the latter between. In summary, firstly we can make a conclusion that there are a great number of comparative 18 studies focused on the psychology point of view between the expert teachers and novice teachers. However, it is very pity that there have scarcely comparative studies on expert teachers and proficient teachers, proficient teachers and novice teachers or expert, proficient and novice teachers; Secondly, although most researches at home and abroad have achieved great success and provided some guidance for the development of teachers, especially for the novice teachers and proficient teachers, most of these studies are descriptive and theoretical ones, and lack detailed and in-depth empirical studies, especially comparative studies on expert, proficient and novice teachers in classroom discourse. In view of this, it is very significant for the three types of teachers to do a further observation and research to provide specific assistance for the development of teachers from the starting point. 2.4 Theoretical Foundations The author will state the theoretical foundations of this study, based on three great theories of second language acquisition, such as Krashen’s comprehensible input hypothesis theory, Long’s negotiated interaction hypothesis theory and Swain’s comprehensible output hypothesis theory. 2.4.1 Krashen’s Theory of Comprehensible Input Hypothesis The discussion in this chapter would not be complete without an examination of Stephen Krashen(1982; 1985) and his Comprehensible Input Hypothesis(or “i+1” theory) , and a theory built upon the interlanguage studies. Krashen firstly put forward to Comprehensible Input Hypothesis in 1982 to explain how the acquisition is generated. Many researchers all agree that Input Hypothesis is the most important theory in L2 acquisition. Krashen’s Comprehensible Input Hypothesis is the core of “Monitor Model” proposed by Stephen Krashen. Krashen’s theory is in fact made up of a set of five interrelated hypotheses: Acquisition-learning Hypothesis, Natural Order Hypothesis, Monitor Hypothesis, Input Hypothesis and Affective Filter Hypothesis. According to Krashen (1985), The Input Hypothesis attempts to explain how the learner acquires a second language. In other words, this hypothesis is Krashen's explanation of how second language acquisition takes place. So the Input hypothesis is only concerned with “acquisition”, not “learning”. 19 The theory claims that there is the inter language knowledge in the Comprehensible Input Hypothesis, which consists of two parts, the learned and acquired systems. Instruction, i.e., classroom teaching, feeds into the learned system through learning, and input feeds into the acquired system through learning, and input feeds into the acquired system through acquisition. When output is being made, the learned system is activated to monitor the process. Input Hypothesis is the core of Krashen’s theory, better known nowadays as the Comprehensible Input Hypothesis, which claims that L2 acquisition takes place when learners are exposed to comprehensible input, i.e., input whose content is comprehensible to them but whose linguistic forms are slightly in advance of their current level of ability, “slightly” meaning one step above their proficiency. If a learner is at stage i, the input conducive to acquisition should contain i + 1. If the input is at the level of i + 1, Krashen claims that learner can understand most of the language but are still challenged to make progress. If the input is at a higher or lower level (e.g., i + 2 or i + 0), in contrast, no acquisition will take place. (Notice that to any experienced schoolteacher, there is nothing new here, only that in the actual classroom, it is difficult to determine the “i”or to measure the “1”, a difficulty the theory does not help overcome.) To Kranshen, L2 development is a matter of quantitative accumulation: the more comprehensible input one receives, the greater progress one makes in acquisition. Therefore, Krashen suggests that natural communicative input is the key to designing a syllabus, ensuring in this way that each learner will receive some “i + 1” input that is appropriate for his/her current stage of linguistic competence. Input Hypothesis will be analyzed in details in the following part. According to Krashen, there are four features in the effective Input Hypothesis as following: comprehensible, interesting and relevant, non-grammatically sequenced and “i+1” (enough inputs). (1) Comprehensible It’s necessity for the language acquisition to acquire the comprehensible inputs. If learners could not understand what they have learned, they can not acquire the knowledge. (2) Interesting and Relevant Learners should refine the information initiatively to interest in it which can improve their learning. Some researches show that interests are related to learners’ basic knowledge. What are most interested for learners is that they are eager to know what they have learned. 20 (3) Non-grammatically sequenced Language Acquisition should be important to input enough information, Krashen declared that it is deficient and unnecessary to arrange teaching behavior by the grammatical sequenced, The most important reason is that learners can automatically acquire the language through plenty of comprehensible inputs. (4) “i+ 1” (enough inputs) the learner improves and progresses along the “natural order” when he/she receives second language 'input' that is one step beyond his/her current stage of linguistic competence. As Krashen indicated in his theory of comprehensible input hypothesis, learners should not be asked to speak too early; in other words, L2 learners should reach certain language level before they start to use L2, which means that it usually take a long period for foreign language learners to know a new language and build their own new language structures and their own comprehensible language input. People are accustomed to call this period as silent period because language learners always refuse to speak the new language. Later on, with the further development of the theoretical study, Gregg (1984) combined Krashen’s theories of production and acquisition into the new one, there are a graph as following (Figure 2.1): 2.4.2 Swain’s Output Hypothesis Neither the comprehensible input hypothesis nor the interaction hypothesis places much importance on the role of output practice in L2 development. Merrill Swain (1995) criticizes Krashen and Long for their failure to recognize the importance of “comprehensible output” and 21 argues for a comprehensible out hypothesis or simply output hypothesis. Given its importance, the discussion of this theory merits a separate section, which follows below. The output hypothesis holds that learners need the opportunity for meaningful use of their linguistic resources. Swain calls such meaningful use of the target language “pushed language use.” According to her, the output practice has at least three functions: (1) Output encourages hypothesis testing. It provides the opportunity to try out new language forms and structures as L2 to meet communicative needs; they make experiments with their language just to see what words and what does not. (2) Output facilitates the metalinguistic development, i.e., the learning of various rules about L2 and L2 use. It may encourage learner to discuss explicitly their doubts and questions about language and, as a result, may assist them in learning from outside experts, learning from their peers, or working to co-construct knowledge with their peers. (3) Output contributes to consciousness-raising. It enables learners to “notice a gap between what they want to say and what they can say, leading them to recognize what they do not know, or only know partially” (Swain 1995: 125). This point echoes the noticing hypothesis, an important theory to be discussed. In the input practice, i.e., listening or reading, Swain argues, learners are engaged in semantic processing, i.e., making meaning out of text, which does not necessarily lead to the development of syntactic competence. Only the output practice forces them to move from semantic to syntactic processing. It forces them to pay attention to the means of expression and to the use of the formal features that may not be semantically meaningful and, for that matter, may not be noticed by the learners. Swain’s argument is based on her observation of the problems with the French immersion programs in Toronto in the 1980s. These programs were set up to help children meet the bilingual requirement for civil service positions in Canada. She found, however, that since the only L2 experience of children in these programs was the teacher-fronted classroom, they received much input but made little output; in assessment, they received high in some skills of interaction but low in grammar and sociolinguistic traits. Moreover, these students would increasingly avoid using their second language in peer interactions as they moved into higher primary grade levels. (This is like some Chinese college English majors who practice oral English with each other only in first 22 two years of college, but not in the third and fourth years. One reason this happens is that they know they are not expected to make much output in English, whether in speech or in writing.) Nunan (1978), Strong (1983) and Peck (1985) whose studies advanced argues that it is greatly help for foreign language learners to product more target language to improve their language usage level. And Swain’s Comprehensible Output Hypothesis also is proved by these statements. According to Swain and other researchers who made the same point, it is one of the most important factors for foreign language teacher to affect the foreign language teaching. Through their communication and interaction, foreign language learners can get great more chances to produce the target language, which will be very beneficial for learners’ language achievements. However, Swain’s Comprehensible Output Hypothesis ran into some opposition. One may criticize Swain for having no direct evidence that pushed output promotes L2 learning. Indeed she herself has not come up with hard, empirical evidence. Still, the output hypothesis occupies an undeniable place in SLA literature largely because her criticism of the input hypothesis is based on solid observation. 2.4.3 Long’s Interaction Hypothesis Michael Long's view is based on conversation observation between the How these inputs becomes understandable second language learners and native speakers and him. He agreed Krashen’s view that comprehensible input is a necessary condition for language acquisition, but he is more concerned about how these inputs becomes comprehensible. Long (1983) proposed the “interaction hypothesis” to not only confirm the importance of the comprehensible language input in language acquisition, but also particularly emphasize negotiation of meaning on promoting language acquisition. Long believed that “two-way communication” is more conducive to language acquisition than the “one-way communication”. In the "two-way communication", because when the speaker can not understand the other one, they will have the opportunity to inform each other, therefore, both them will make sense of negotiation of meaning and interaction modification to improve the comprehension of language input. Allwright (1984) also believes that “comprehensible input” must be combined with “interactive” to create favorable conditions for 23 language acquisition. Input and interaction may facilitate L2 development by providing comprehensible input, i.e., input that is at i + 1, one step ahead of the learner’s existing L2. What we see here is: interaction→ i + 1 ， or the interaction hypothesis, a theory Michael Long (1985) built on Krashen’s comprehensible input hypothesis. The new hypothesis can be illustrated by FIGURE 2.2. It is clear that, if one compares this figure with FIGURE 2.1, which illustrates Krashen’s model, the only thing new is the addition of an “interaction” component, which leads to input. FIGURE 2.2 Long’s Interaction Hypothesis Interaction → Comprehensible Input → Acquisition Both Krashen and Long hold that SLA (second language acquisition) depends on the availability of comprehensible input before the learner’s internal processing mechanism can work. However, while Krashen believes that comprehensible input will happen by itself, Long is more concerned about the conditions for input that is one stage above the learner’s current level of proficiency. To put it simple, Long holds that input is made comprehensible as a result of interactional modification when communication problems arise. According to Long (1983a, 126-141) indicated that there are three ways to make input comprehensible listed as following: 1) By means of input simplifications. 2) Through the use of linguistic and extra-linguistic context; and 3) Through modification of the interactional structure of conversation. According to Long, in an NNS-NS (non-native speaker- native-speaker) encounter, both parties will experience difficulty in comprehension and expression and will therefore modify the interaction; particularly, the NS will adjust the speech to a level that is appropriate to the NNS. Such modifications have two results. On the one hand, it keeps the interaction going and gets things done; on the other hand, it provides comprehensible input. The more L2 interaction the learner holes with others (mainly NSs), the more negotiation of meaning will happen and subsequently the more comprehensible input the learner will receive. A critique of the interaction hypothesis merits a separate section. This is not because the 24 hypothesis is better than the other three that we have discussed briefly. It is not better, as we will see. We have to devote a separate section to it merely because of its importance and popularity in SLA literature. Chapter Three Methodology The third chapter of this thesis is the methodology, which points out the research design, research questions, research subjects, and research instruments, data collection and data analysis. The questionnaire, audio-record, classroom note-taking and interview are introduced as the ways of data-collecting. 3.1 Research Design Nowadays, we consider that the literature review is based on teacher talk, the present study predominantly plans to investigate and analyze the three teachers' classroom discourse from the perspective of teachers 'professional development. Therefore, the study mainly focuses on qualitative study of teachers’ classroom discourse; certainly, there are some qualitative analyses as well. Levin (2003) indicated that previous studies described that such methods can achieve great results in the field of general education and can also successfully apply the studies on English second language and English foreign language and related fields. This study is a case study about the three teachers of Lanzhou University of Arts and Science. Case study methodology allows the researcher to gather strong data from multiple sources while offering the potential of seeing how these varied experiences come and work together over a specific period of time. Case study offers an entrance through which the reader can cross the threshold, entering into a dialogue between one's own circumstances and knowledge and the specific parameters of the case study. (Excerpted from Qi Zhiwen, 2008) At the same time, the present study is a comparative study as well. While case studies have the advantage of allowing in-depth analysis of key phenomena that are clearly situated (Donato, 2000), there is a need to apply the same methodologies to similar or different contexts. There have been a number of calls in recent years for repeat studies of class-based research (e.g. Van Lier, 1996; 25 Borg, 1998); it is hoped that the procedures used here are replicable to other contexts. It is great value to conduct a comparative study. (Steve Walsh, 2006). Just as mentioned above, the present study intends to find out what different types of teacher talks are in the discourse quantity, teacher’s questions, interactional modification and feedback manners. There are the three groups of expert, proficient and novice teachers. The reason why such four aspects are chosen as the research interests is that there is much logic consistency among them. Detailed statements will be presented in this chapter. In short, the method of discourse analysis will be stated in this study to investigate and analyze the different types of teacher talks that are from the three different groups of expert, proficient and novice teachers, involving in four research interests: discourse quantity, teacher’s questions, interactional modification and feedback manners. This study make a conclusion as the following aspects: research questions, research subjects, research instruments, data collection and data analysis. 3.2 Research Questions Up until now, an analysis on teacher talk at home is still at the early stage, and the more and more studies on classroom discourse take middle school, high school and college for background; relatively few studies are carried out in the context of vocational and technical institutions; while the less and less comparative study on teacher talk between expert, proficient and novice teachers are related to college English classroom in vocational and technical institutions. Therefore, this thesis will take the teacher talk of college English classroom in vocational and technical institutions as an example. This study attempts to make a quantitative and qualitative analysis for classroom discourse between expert, proficient and novice teacher in order to obtain the characteristics and status of the English classroom discourse between them, and teacher talk impacts on students’ learning in L2. Meanwhile, this thesis also expects that the comparative study on teacher talk between expert, proficient and novice teachers are observed, analyzed, found out and summarized some strategies to improve teacher talk and quality of classroom teaching. This thesis will mainly focus on collecting and analyzing the characteristics and status of three group teachers as follow and make 26 comparisons in detail. The following four questions are addressed in this thesis: Research question A: What is the percentage of teacher talk time (TTT) and student talk time (STT) among expert, proficient and novice teacher in 90 minutes class? What is the percentage of the amount of teacher talk in the target language and in native language among expert, proficient and novice teacher in 90 minutes class? Research question B: What is the percentage of display questions and referential questions raised in college English classroom by expert, proficient and novice teachers respectively? What is the percentage of questioning types of the expert, proficient and novice teachers? Research question C: How the three ways of interactional modification are distributed among expert, proficient and novice teacher? Research question D: How the feedback manners (positive feedback and negative feedback) are used among expert, proficient and novice teacher respectively in college English classroom of vocational and technical institutions? How the three aspects of positive feedback (simple praise, praise with comments and praise with repetitions) and the two aspects of negative feedback (turning to another student, guiding to self-repair) are distributed among expert, proficient and novice teacher? 3.3 Research Subjects In this thesis, the research subjects are clearly defined to reduce some effects of unrelated variables as far as possible, and to ensure the reliability and validity of this study. Expert, proficient and novice teachers who have freshman classes and come from Lanzhou University of Arts and Science are regarded as research subjects. There are about 166 students in these three classes randomly selected, and also questionnaire is used to know feedback and suggestions from students. Teachers’ syllabus brings into correspondence and students use the same textbook. Teaching material that currently is used New Century English Integrated Course is published by the Shanghai Foreign Language Press in 2010. Because of involving all aspects of basic learning 27 English, the English teaching material is more integrated, it is very suitable for non-English major students in vocational and technical institutions. The reason why the author chose three freshman English teachers as research subjects is from two points: Firstly, first-year students in vocational and technical institutions do not understand teachers’ curriculum and teaching situation, students learning is in a natural state, it is to avoidable for the students after they have adapted to professional learning, which could affect the authenticity of data collection in the questionnaire survey; Secondly, expect the individual majors, college English course is only opened for one academic year. Therefore, three freshman English teachers are chosen to have comparative studies and questionnaire survey for the freshman students. Next the process will be described in detail how the research subjects are chosen. This thesis refers to related theories of teacher development proposed by Ph.D. supervisor Professor Lian Rong of Fujian Normal University to define expert, proficient and novice teachers. According to seniority, job title and teaching performance of cases, He set a standard to distinguish among expert, proficient and novice teachers. Detailed criteria have been discussed in the previous. There is a fact sheet of three groups of teachers as following (Figure: 3-1): Figure3-1 Three Groups of Teachers Fact Sheet Educational Full Name Sex Age Full/Part Seniority Job Title Background Teaching material Time New Century English Master's Teacher1 female 42 Associate Full professor time 18 degree Integrated Course by Xu Xiaozhen New Century English Master's Teacher2 female 36 Full 10 Lecturer degree Integrated Course by time Xu Xiaozhen New Century English Bachelor Teacher3 female 30 Teaching Full assistant time 5 degree Integrated Course by Xu Xiaozhen 28 3.4 Research Instruments Allwright and Bailey (1991) indicated that there are always three research instruments adopted in the classroom-based research, which includes experimental study, action research and naturalistic inquiry. Experimental study is the one that researchers intervene or control certain variables to prove some kind of reason causality; Action research declares that the researchers take certain actions in the classroom to observe systematically, analyze conclusion and effects caused; naturalistic inquiry states that the researchers observe and study the phenomenon occurring at the nature condition in the classroom in order to understand and describe the real teaching process without any intervention. The purpose of this study is to find the common problems and differences of expert, novice and proficient teachers’ classroom discourse in vocational and technical institutions by investigating and analyzing college English teacher talk between expert, novice and proficient teachers in vocational and technical institutions, this study has no intention to explore any causal relationship and take any teaching action, therefore, it adopted the naturalistic inquiry, three research instruments was used in this thesis as follow: (1) Classroom observation and video recording Generally speaking, Ellis (1990) believed that the purpose of classroom study is described in classroom behavior in detail and accurately record the real classroom situation, detailed and accurate description are based on the understanding and interpretation of what happened in class. Therefore, this study took note by classroom observation, recorded the teachers’ classroom discourse by recorder and transcribed into written words after class to collect data. At the same time, a number of factors that could affect the reliability of the corpus are also particularly concerned about, such as “observer paradox”. Labov (1972: 113) proposed that “the observer paradox” is the one that speaking style of the speaker will change, such as lack of real and natural, when the observer goes into the speech communication. Therefore, it will not inform teachers and students investigated in advance, the college English classroom is the whole recorded in Lanzhou University of Arts and science. Three teachers’ teaching schedule before lecture recording firstly is known in order to making better comparative analysis, then and it did not start to recording until teachers gave a class. It is 90 minutes per lesson. During the complete recording 29 process, a recorder will be used to ensure the quality of classroom recording. Because teachers and students investigated were informed in advance, this controlled influence on some unrelated variables in the lecture recording, meanwhile, the teacher’s lecture was basically in a relatively natural situation. In order to ensure the integrity of lectures, the recording also should be written in detail and classroom recording after class should be arranged when the author visited the class if there was any possibility to compensate for other non-verbal communication behavior actually appeared in the classroom(such as blackboard-writing, facial expressions of teachers, body language, students’ responses, etc.), limitations in data collection and unpredictable errors; the last work was that the classroom recording arranged was transliterated into writing words, and the recording and writing materials were analyzed statistically. (2) Questionnaire It is very possible that this study may have some contingency and one-sidedness, taking into account the six classes of recording sampling is relatively small, therefore, this study also took questionnaire survey as complementary research instrument. Expert, proficient and novice teachers who have freshman classes and come from Lanzhou University of Arts and Science are regarded as research subjects. There are about 166 students in these three classes randomly selected, and also questionnaire is used to know feedbacks and suggestions from students. Students’ questionnaire was based on the famous questionnaire from Zhou Xing, Zhou Yun (2002) adapted. Questionnaires will be distributed to students after finishing lectures and interviews with expert, proficient and novice teachers so as to timely adjust the questionnaire topics, options and questions found during the lectures. Student questionnaire includes fifteen questions (see Appendix I). Question 1-5 is designed for the amount of teacher talk; question 6-10 is to understand Teacher’s Questions in the classroom; question 11 and 12 is related to the feedback manners; question 13 is aimed at interactional modification; last two questions that are seen as a reference factor when the author analyzed the teacher talk are directed against the role of teachers and students. Questionnaire assessed classroom teaching, teacher-student classroom discourse and relevant situation in order to obtain some more comprehensive, in-depth data and information. During data analysis, relevant statistics of classroom recording and related data of questionnaire survey were compared so as to accurately describe the relevant situation of teacher talk and increase the 30 reliability of the findings. (3) Individual interview As one of the qualitative research methods, interviews can provide more detailed information and more reliable data for researchers. The author will have an interview with expert, proficient and novice college English teachers respectively to further understand the relevant situation of teacher talk on expert, proficient and novice college English teachers in the teaching process in vocational and technical institutions, the specific targeted suggestions were given after finishing this study. The interview was synchronized with the teacher’s questionnaire. Finally, the results of interviews were performed statistical analysis. 3.5 Data Collection (1) Data collection through case studies. The author adopted a combinative way of quantitative and qualitative analysis to investigate and study for research questions. There are six lessons; it is 90 minutes per lesson. First, the author attended three teacher's lectures after obtaining their consent, and make lecture notes and classroom observations. In order to ensure the integrity of lectures, Modal or repeat words appeared are also recorded in the classroom session except speech feature such as facial expressions, gestures, etc.; secondly, Expert, proficient and novice teachers who have freshman classes, questionnaire is handed out to 180 students in their won class to know feedback and suggestions from students; thirdly, The author will have an interview with expert, proficient and novice teacher respectively. (2) Data collection through questionnaires. In addition, questionnaires from students also were collected data., in order to the limitation of recording sampling, it was very possible that this study may have some contingency and one-sidedness, at that moment, questionnaire survey as complementary research instrument was particularly important. Because different class sizes had different numbers of questionnaire issued, there are about 160 pieces questionnaires. The details are as follows: there were 54 students in expect teacher class, 50 pieces valid questionnaires were collected; there were 55 students in proficient teacher class, 53 pieces valid questionnaires were collected; there were 57 classes in 31 novice teacher class, at last 55 pieces valid questionnaires were collected, therefore, valid questionnaires was a total of 158 pieces. In addition to the above mentioned, some questions raised by students had been explained in detail in order to ensure the reliability and validity of results of the questionnaires survey in the survey process. Students were given 30 minutes to finish, it can not hand on the questionnaire to the author unless all students finished it if some students completed questionnaire early, it can avoid affecting other students, so the author had to wait for all the students to complete and handed back together. After the recovery of the questionnaire, each questionnaire carefully was checked, it can be found 8 pieces invalid questionnaires, it was necessary to cast away the 8 pieces invalid questionnaires and calculate the statistic data to valid questionnaires. (3) Data collection through interview The author will have an interview respectively with expert, proficient and novice college English teachers. First, the author respectively communicated with expert, proficient and novice teachers, explaining the reason and purpose of the interview with them, after obtaining their consent, the author consulted with the three teachers about the time and place of the interview to have an interview respectively with expert, proficient and novice teachers. During the interview process, the author took notes while also should use a voice recorder for recording in order to avoid missing the interviews. Here, the recording was regarded as a supplementary note. At the end of the interview, the author immediately arranged interviews in order to better understand the ideological background of the interviewees. 3.6 Data Analysis Firstly, data related to research questions were analyzed in the classroom recording. Such as analysis of the amount of teacher discourse, the time what was taken in teacher talk was calculated in 90 minutes per lesson, the percentage of the amount of teacher talk should be counted if divided by 90 minutes per lesson. the current situation of English classroom discourse quantity between expert, proficient and novice teachers in Vocational and technical institutions through the above analysis method can be known. In addition, statistical analysis about the percentage of the amount of teacher talk in English teaching or in Chinese teaching will be studied. The method was that the 32 time used by teacher in English teaching and in Chinese teaching in total amount of teacher talk divided total amount of teacher talk by the percentage of the amount of teacher talk in English teaching and in Chinese teaching, which some situations of teachers teaching in English and Chinese can be learned. Secondly, the author analyzed data as follow when the author transliterated the recording into written materials: (1) to add up the total number of questions for three teachers in 90 minutes per lesson and the amount of display questions and referential questions to analyze; (2) to count teacher’s questions, e.g. the times of named questions, the times that ask and answer questions by oneself etc.; (3) to add up the teacher’s feedback and analyze, e.g. praises with repetition and praises with comments etc.; (4) to count the distribution percentage of interactional modifications in the total sum and the each times of use of comprehension checks, confirmation checks and clarification requests. Thirdly, recording situation of teachers’ interviews and the results of discussion are presented in tabular form. Fourthly, the author used SPSS software version 13.0 to have a frequency statistics and analysis on data of 158 pieces valid questionnaires. Finally, during the total data analysis, the statistical results of classroom recording and the relevant data of questionnaires were compared so that the author can more accurately describe the relevant situation of teacher talk and increase the reliability of the findings. 33
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