Emilia Rosanti (0743042011)

An analysis of teacher talk in Darma Wanita Kindergarten

(SLA Assignment)

Emilia Rosanti

0743042011

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT

TEACHING TRAINING AND EDUCATION FACULTY

UNIVERSITY OF LAMPUNG

 BANDAR LAMPUNG

2010

The definition of teacher talk

For foreign language learners, classroom is the main place where they are frequently exposed to the target language. The kind of language used by the teacher for instruction in the classroom is known as teacher talk (TT). For this term, Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics defines it as “that variety of language sometimes used by teachers when they are in the process of teaching. In trying to communicate with learners, teachers often simplify their speech, giving it many of the characteristics of foreigner talk and other simplified styles of speech addressed to language learners” (Richards, 1992: 471).

Having studied the SLA for many years, Rod Ellis (1985) has formulated his own view about teacher talk: “Teacher talk is the special language that teachers use when addressing L2 learners in the classroom. There is systematic simplification of the formal properties of the teacher’s language studies of teacher talk can be divided into those that investigate the type of language that teachers use in language classrooms and those that investigate in the type of language they use in subject lessons.” He also commented “the language that teachers address to L2 learner is treated as a register, with its own specific formal and linguistics properties” (Ellis, 1985: 145).

In this research, it is the oral form of teacher talk instead of written form that is under this investigation. It refers to the language that teachers use in language classrooms rather than in other settings.

From the definitions, firstly we can see that teacher talk in English classrooms is regarded as one special variety of the English language, so it has its own specific features which other varieties do not share. Because of the restriction of the physical setting, special participants as well as the goal of teaching, teacher talk has its own special style. Secondly, we can see that teacher talk is a special communicative activity. Its goal is to communicate 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 (Feng Qican, 1999: 23). Teachers adopt the target language to promote their communication with learners. In this way, learners practice the language by responding to what their teacher says. Besides, teachers use the language to encourage the communication between learners and themselves. Therefore we can say teacher talk is a kind of communication-based orinteraction-based talk.

Key concepts of Relevance Theory

Sperber & Wilson (1986/1995) put forward the notion of relevance and two principles of relevance: cognitive principle and communicative principle of Relevance Theory serving as the foundation for Relevance Theory. According to Sperber & Wilson, relevance is seen as a property of inputs to cognitive processes. It can be a property of stimuli, which are inputs to perceptual processes, or of assumptions, which are input to inferential processes. Sperber & Wilson (1986) proposed a fundamental assumption that human cognition is relevance-oriented. Every utterance starts out as a request for the hearer’s attention. As a result, it creates an expectation of relevance. Relevance is defined in terms of contextual effect and processing effort. When an input (for example, an utterance) is processed in a context of available assumptions, Sperber & Wilson (1995) argues that contextual effects can be achieved in the following three ways:

• Combining newly presented information with old information that is drawn from an existing representation of the world to yield to contextual implications.
• Strengthening existing assumptions
• Contradicting existing assumptions

2.2 Relevance-based Account of Teacher Talk

   2.2.1 The nature of teacher-student interaction

Classroom study is important in English teaching and learning because classroom is a place where interactions of various kinds take place, and it affords students opportunities to learn English. In most language classrooms, the interaction comes between teacher’s questions and students’ answers, that is, teacher-student interaction. Therefore, it is of great necessity to give a careful reconsideration of the nature of teacher-student interaction.

   2.2.2 Factors that affect successful teacher-student interaction

            2.2.2.1 Mutual manifestness of cognitive environments: the basis for teacher-student interaction.

According to the Relevance Theory, communication (both linguistic and non-linguistic) is a kind of psychologically cognitive activity. Interpretation of this cognitive activity is a problem of understanding the cognitive environment of the teacher and the students. Successful communication between both parties lies in whether the communication participants’ cognitive environment can be manifest and mutually manifest to each other.

2.2.2.2 Definition of cognitive environment

A cognitive environment of an individual is a set of facts that are manifest to him (Sperber & Wilson,1986/1995:39). This definition suggests that the objective environment of communication constitutes the object of human cognition and the subjects in the communication constitute the subjects of cognitive activities. The objective factors in the cognitive environment are some concrete facts in the material world, which can be perceived by the subjects through cognitive activities.

According to Cognitive Theory (Garnharm,1985), human tend to form thinking representation based on information obtained from the cognitive environment. In the real world, people’s cognitive schema is based on one’s education, surroundings, personal experiences, occupation and one’s own perspectives to the world.

When such cognitive schema—knowledge networks accumulated in the brain—was stimulated by new information, relevant cognitive environment is established and interpretation occurs within a certain cognitive scope. Just like what we have mentioned, the subjects of cognitive activities may vary from one to another in their understanding of the same communicative environment. That is why in communication, the students’ interpretations towards the same information may vary greatly in accuracy.

The subjective factors that affect individual’s cognition may be summarized as follows:

• Individuals vary in their status in communication.
• Individuals vary in their perceptual and cognitive abilities, or more specifically in their understanding and inference abilities.
• Individuals vary in their memorization, which leads to the difference in their information storage that can be employed to facilitate understanding in communication.

2.2.3 Contextual effect, processing effort, relevance and successful teacher-student

        Interaction

According to Sperber and Wilson's Relevance Theory, relevance in conversation is gained by its contextual effects through processing effort. The content of the conversation is usually information relevant, situation relevant or topic relevant in the context.

  2.2.4 Contextual effect and conditions for relevance

Contextual effect is contextual implication. It can include information effect, interpersonal effect,

humorous effect, etc. It is the result of the interaction between newly presented information and

contextual assumptions (old information). Sperber and Wilson regard this process as “contextualization” through which the old context is constantly revised, supplemented and improved and thus constitutes the foundation of the next-step communication and inference. When the newly presented information interacts with the contextual assumptions, the new contextual effect will be further resulted in.

Name of  teachers                  :           Dra. Masnoni

                                                            Sukmawati

Time of record                        :           08.00am

Guru                 :           Selamat Pagi Anak-anak ..

Murid               :           Selamat Pagi Ibu Guru ..

Guru                 :           Tadi kita sudah periksa kuku, periksa gigi, dan telinga.

Sekarang Ibu guru mau tanya, tadi pagi sebelum berangkat ke sekolah sarapan gak??

Murid               :           Sarapan bu ..

Guru                 :           Sarapan pake apa??

Murid               :           Sayur, tempe, bayem, kangkung, buncis ..

Guru                 :           Sekarang kelompok ini (menunjuk pada kelompok anggur) ??

Murid               :           Tempe, kecap.

Guru                 :           Kemudian semuanya ada sayur, lauk pauk, trus ada yang putih-putihnya,

itu apa ya??

Murid               :           Nasi bu guru..

Guru                 :           Nasi tulisannya gimana??

Murid               :           N - A - S - I

Guru                 :           Pinter ..

                                    Kemudian setelah makan nasi dan sayur, yang untuk cuci mulut itu

namanya apa ya??

Murid               :           Buah - buahan ..

Guru                 :           Buah - buahan itu ada apa aja sih??

Murid               :           Apel, anggur, strowberry, pisang dan banyak sekali ..

Guru                 :           Abis makan nasi pake lauk pauk dan sayur - sayuran, ditambah 1 gelas apa

ya??

Murid               :           Susu ibu guru ..

Guru                 :           Susu tulisannya gimana sih??

Murid               :           S - U - S - U

Guru                 :           Ada susu apa aja??

Murid               :           Dancow, sapi, kambing, kuda liar, kedele ..

Guru                 :           Sekarang ibu guru mau tanya, kalo cabe termasuk sayuran apa buah –

buahan ya??

Murid               :           Sayuran ..

Guru                 :           Trus kalau bayam, termasuk lauk pauk apa sayur - sayuran??

Murid               :           Sayuran ..

Guru                 :           Siapa yang suka makan??

Murid               :           Saya (semua menjawab)

Guru                 :           Siapa yang suka minum susu??

Murid               :           Saya (semua menjawab)

Kemudian guru mengajak para murid untuk bernyanyi..

Guru                             :           Ayo kita nyanyi 4 sehat 5 sempurna ..

Guru dan Murid            :           Nasi .. Sayur .. Buah .. Ikan .. dan Susu harus kita makan semua ..

                                                Agar badan sehat selalu ..

                                                Sayuran .. makanan yang bergizi ..

                                                Tempe dan tahu jangan lupa buah - buahan dan susu ..

                                                Agar badan kita sehat selalu ..

Kemudian guru mengajak para murid untuk mewarnai buah - buahan..

Guru                 :           Siapa yang mau mewarnai???

Murid               :           Saya (semua menjawab)

Guru membagikan buku mewarnai.

Guru mengajarkan, setelah mewarnai objek, jangan lupa untuk mewarnai warna dasar.

Anak - anak mewarnai, guru mengawasi kegiatan mewarnai mereka ..

Satu anak bertanya pada salah 1 guru ..

Murid               :           Ibu guru .. Semangka itu boleh warna kuning gak??

Guru                 :           Boleh ..

Guru memilih untuk mengajarkan murid untuk mewarnai di karenakan mereka lelah setelah upacara di pagi hari ..

Setelah mewarnai, kemudian guru menyiapkan para murid untuk istirahat dengan menggunakan lagu sebagai instruksi. Barang siapa yang rapi, maka mereka yang terlebih dahulu beristirahat ..

Guru menyanyikan lagu             :           Tangan ke atas

                                                            Tangan ke samping

                                                            Tangan ke depan

                                                            Duduk dengan manis

Dan satu persatu siswa keluar dari ruang kelas untuk bermain di lapangan bermain ..

Dan saya pun mengakhiri kunjungan saya ke Taman Kanak - Kanak tersebut.

The analysis of teacher talk

However, I believe there are also certain conditions in regard to the para-verbal features of teacher-talk.

• When the teacher talks, she or he maintains eye contact with as many members of the class as possible.
• The teacher uses eye-contact and body movement to give emphasis and invite participation (prolonged gaze at different students between some sentences to invite comment, gestures to help explain language, etc.)

According to the scripts, most of the students like to listen to teachers’ instruction and view it as a good learning strategy. But they do not like teachers to explain everything to them. Towards teachers’ question, the students like to be asked and answer the questions in class. All the data indicate most of students have the strong desire for participation.

All the students expect the teachers’ praise and the students like to be encouraged by teachers’ feedback. When they make mistakes, the students hope to be pointed out immediately. However most of them don’t like to be corrected directly, and the students expect the teacher to give them a clue and correct their errors by themselves or negotiate with them for correction.

CONCLUSION

All of the theories reveal the effects of different types of classroom interaction on L2 acquisition from different perspectives. Therefore, a conclusion can be drawn from these theories, that is, a FL classroom that can facilitate learners’ language learning should have the following features:

1)         Providing opportunities for learners to communicate in the target language and

enable them to learn the target language through meaningful use of it.

2)         Providing optimal comprehensible input for learners through classroom

communication. Both teachers and learners make an effort to make their speech

comprehended by using communicative strategies.

3)         Negotiation of meaning is encouraged. Teachers are expected to initiate learners

to reorganize their language by using interactional modifications when problems  occur   in communication.

Teacher talk is not only the tool that teachers use to impart knowledge, but the most important means to control the classroom.

In order to improve the efficiency of classroom interaction, teachers must modify their speech to be more comprehensible. Therefore, teachers should consciously improve their questioning behavior.

Asking relevant questions

In order to make relevant questioning, teachers firstly should provide an information gap between the teacher and the students, and the gap can be related to a topic that is relevant to the learner’s lives, can stimulate their interests, and can require a level of thinking that stretches the students intellectually. Moreover, questions with information gap can provide a chance for students to discuss life issues, and can lead consideration of individuals’ own viewpoints. Secondly, optimal teacher’s talk focuses the acquirer on the message, not on the form. There may become difficult grammatical points in a material, but the number should be limited; otherwise, the learner's attention may be shifted from the message to the form. As a result, the learner might get bored with the input. This requirement is very difficult to meet, for the students in a class quite differ from each other in terms of their goals, interests and backgrounds. Anyhow, the optimal teacher talk should not be grammatically sequenced. With a grammatical focus, teacher’s mind is focused on a particular structure, and not on communicating ideas. What is proposed here is that the goal, in the mind of a teacher, should be the message instead of the rules.

However, new information may also support and therefore strengthen old assumptions. Therefore, in order to facilitate the success of teacher-student interaction, each of the teachers’ questions in the classroom must be ostensive and teachers should clarify the purpose of asking such questions to students.

When it is difficult for students to infer the meaning of the teacher’s questions, teachers should provide optimally relevant new information, which helps to stimulate students’ old information and yield to adequate contextual effects and in turn help the students to make inference.