TEACHER TALK AT TK DARMA WANITA UNILA

By TRESIA NOVIYANTI (0713042048)

English Education (S1 REG)

1.1 Definition of teacher talk
What is teacher talk? The definition is very simple and self-evident. Teacher talk means that teachers address classroom language learners differently from the way that they address other kinds of classroom learners according to Ellis (1994). They make adjustments to both language form and language function in order to facilitate communication. These adjustments are referred to as “teacher talk”. Teacher talk is very important for both classroom teaching organization and students’ language learning in the process of foreign language learning and second language acquisition, because teacher talk is an instrument of implementing teaching plan.

Teacher talk is usually viewed as one of the decisive factors of success or failure in classroom teaching. Based on the basic principles of Relevance Theory, the
present thesis has focused on the teacher-student interaction in form of question-answer in language classrooms and tried to analyze teacher talk under the framework of Relevance Theory to prove that Relevance Theory is able to provide an explanation for teacher talk. This thesis proposes some pedagogical implications for successful teacher talk and teacher-student interaction in EFL context.

1.2 Significance of the research
Relevance Theory is the foundation of cognitive pragmatics. It has been widely used to different areas, such as translation, stylistic explanation, grammar and discourse analysis. Although Relevance Theory is on communication and cognition, it is a general cognitive principle. Teacher talk in English classroom interaction is a form of communication, which can be studied from the cognitive perspective theoretically. The study of teacher talk under the framework of Relevance Theory is expected to widen the practical applications of Relevance Theory and to obtain some implications for EFL teachers to improve teacher-student interaction. It is of theoretic significance and practical significance.

1.3 Teacher’s feedback
Feedback is the response to efforts by the learner to communicate, which includes the notion of error correction. Feedback has been widely investigated in information theory and general communication research outside classroom or language learning context (Annett, 1969). It has been suggested that feedback plays a major role in helping learners to test hypotheses they have formed about the rule system of the target language (Ellis, 1985). Behavioral psychologists were the first to recognize the power of feedback as a motivating influence. Feedback refers to the informative responses to what learners say or do, for example, a nod, smile, puzzled frown, or clarifying question are all useful feedback to learners. Now we just want to talk about how teachers use teacher talk to make error correction on a student’s spoken language, including a response either to the content of what a student has produced or to the form of an utterance.

1.4 Error correction on content
There are some ways of error correction, such as:
① indicating an incorrect answer. The teacher indicates that a student’s answer is incorrect by saying
“No” or “that’s not quite right”.
②Expanding or modifying a student’s answer. The teacher responds to a vague or incomplete answer by
providing more information, or rephrasing the answer in the teacher's own words.
③Summarizing. The teacher gives a summary of what a student or group of students has said.
④Criticizing. The teacher criticizes a student for the kind of response provided.




BAB II
THEORY AND ANALYSIS

2.1 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:
①Combining newly presented information with old information that is drawn from an existing
representation of the world to yield to contextual implications.
②Strengthening existing assumptions
③Contradicting 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:
①Individuals vary in their status in communication.
②Individuals vary in their perceptual and cognitive abilities, or more specifically in their understanding
and inference abilities.
③Individuals vary in their memorization, which leads to the difference in their information storage that
can be employed to facilitate understanding in communication.

Let’s take an example as an illustration: The teachers plan to ask the students make a conversation on bargaining, in order to make teacher-student interaction successful, they try to create shared cognitive environments about introducing words of English:

The Script of the teacher talk’s recording

Students : Blue biru.. (together)
Teacher : Kalau warna yellow..mana yellow..
Students : ituuu (pointing the thing)
Teacher : pinteerrr...yakk sekali lagii..... Red merah
Students : Red merah
Teacher : Yellow Kuning
Students : Yellow Kuning
Teacher : Blue Biru
Students : Blue Biru
Teacher : Red Merah
Students : Red Merah
Teacher : Black Hitam
Students : Black Hitam
Teacher : White Putih
Students : White Putih
Teacher : nahh..sekarang..kalian punya anggota tubuh???
Students : Punyaaa..
Teacher : Anggota tubuh kita ada apa saja???
Students : ada mata.. ada hidung..
Teacher : Pinterrr...
Students : ada mulut, ada telinga, ada kaki, ada tangan, ada rambut (together with the teacher)
Teacher : (drawing the parts of the body on the whiteboard)
Teacher 2 : Apa coba yang digambar ibu Nia??? Coba sebutin!!
Students : mataaa...
Teacher 2 : Bahasa inggrisnya apa??
Teacher : Bahasa inggrisnya apaaa??
Students : Eye mata..eye mata..
......
Student : Tangan endut (Seeing the drawing of the teacher)
Teacher : Tangan siapa ini yaa..yang gemuk iaaa....
Teacher 2 : Tangan siapaa???
Student : Tangan Tazaa..
Teacher 2 : Taza ama cha..
Students : chaa...
Teacher 2 : Badannya see...
Students : hattt..
Teacher 2 : Badannya Gee..
Students : Muukk..
Teacher 2 : Rajin maa..
Students : kaann..
Teacher 2 : Minum su...
Students : Suu..
...........
Teacher : Tangan itu..Popeye...Popeye si pelaut (singing as the melody)
Student : Popeye..peyaut..pelaut...
............
Student : Blue Biruu..
Kaki... (seeing the teacher’s drawing)
Teacher : Niee kakii.. (responding the students)
Student : Telinga (Guessing the teacher’s drawing)
Teacher : iyaa baguss...
Student : Mataa...
.............
Teacher 3 : Kucing...ayokk nyanyi yookkk...
Teacher and students : Kucing cat..Anjing dog..Gajah itu Elephant..Sapi Cow..Ikan Fish..Kupu-kupu butterfly (singing together)
Teacher 3: Macann apaa??
Students : Tiger..
Teacher 3 : Bebek..
Students : Duck
Teacher 3 : Harimauu..eh singa ding..Singaa..
Students : Lionn..
Teacher 3 : Buaya..
Students : Crocodile..
Teacher 3 : Watermelon Watermelon (The students follow singing too)
Students : Papaya..Papaya..Banana banana..banana banana..tomato tomato (the melody is same like ‘Brother John’ song)
Teacher and Students : Watermelon..Watermelon..Papaya Papaya..Banana Banana..Banana Banana..Tomato..Tomato..
Teacher 3 : Yeee..Tepuk tangan (the students applause together)
Teacher : Niee udah selesai nihh...
Student : Mouth Mulut..
Teacher : iyaaa..di sini ada gambar apa??
Students : Mataa..
Teacher : Terusss..
Students : Tangan...
..................

From the script above that is taken from TK Darma Wanita Unila, I can do some analyze like this:
 The classroom is characteristically reluctant to allow overlapping or simultaneous talk because of the requirement for centralizing attention. The teachers can control the class activity because there are three teachers in one class. So, it is really helpul to make the students to be more active. We can see from the script, there are three teachers (Teacher, Teacher 2, and Teacher 3) that lead the students do something like singing, repeating the teacher’s words, following the teachers’s gestures and point something to show the things.Like in this part of script:
Teacher : pinteerrr...yakk sekali lagii..... Red merah
Students : Red merah
Teacher : Yellow Kuning
Students : Yellow Kuning
Teacher : Blue Biru
Students : Blue Biru
Teacher : Red Merah
Students : Red Merah
Teacher : Black Hitam
Students : Black Hitam
Teacher : White Putih
Students : White Putih
Teacher : nahh..sekarang..kalian punya anggota tubuh???
Students : Punyaaa..
Teacher : Anggota tubuh kita ada apa saja???
Students : ada mata.. ada hidung..
Teacher : Pinterrr...


 For the students, they actually do not learn in that class. It is just like the game for them that make them fun and enjoy following the lesson. In addition, the children are just in a play in the class such as singing, dancing, and pointing the thing using the big ruler. The students are also really active in the class that they can aswer the teacher question if they are asked and they can repeat and follow what the teacher say in the class. So, the children for this case are smart, talkative and cheerful.

 For the teachers, the teachers have a certain amount of power in the classroom. Therefore, the children also clearly influence the pace and direction of interaction. But, different students come with different personality too. They do not have identical psychological process while following the class activity. So that, children need motivation and learning factors influence their learning process. And for this Kindegarten, I have found that the teacher really help the children to focuss to the learning. For example: when the first teacher is drawing on the whiteboard. The second and third teacher do not just keep silence. They try to make the interaction to the children like this following script:
Student : Tangan endut (Seeing the drawing of the teacher)
Teacher : Tangan siapa ini yaa..yang gemuk iaaa....
Teacher 2: Tangan siapaa???
Student : Tangan Tazaa..
Teacher 2 : Taza ama cha..
Students : chaa...
Teacher 2 : Badannya see...
Students : hattt..
Teacher 2 : Badannya Gee..
Students : Muukk..
Teacher 2 : Rajin maa..
Students : kaann..
Teacher 2 : Minum su...
Students : Suu..
From that script, we can see that not just the first teacher that is active giving direction or interaction to the children but the second teacher also help. And this one is the interaction of the third teacher to the children when the class starts quite:
Teacher 3 : Kucing...ayokk nyanyi yookkk...
Teacher and students : Kucing cat..Anjing dog..Gajah itu Elephant..Sapi Cow..Ikan Fish..Kupu-kupu butterfly (singing together)
Teacher 3: Macann apaa??
Students : Tiger..
Teacher 3 : Bebek..
Students : Duck
Teacher 3 : Harimauu..eh singa ding..Singaa..
Students : Lionn..
Teacher 3 : Buaya..
Students : Crocodile..
Teacher 3 : Watermelon Watermelon (The students follow singing too)
Students : Papaya..Papaya..Banana banana..banana banana..tomato tomato (the melody is same like ‘Brother John’ song)
Teacher and Students : Watermelon..Watermelon..Papaya Papaya..Banana Banana..Banana Banana..Tomato..Tomato..
Teacher 3 : Yeee..Tepuk tangan (the students applause together)

In this case, the teachers also never give correction for the students even the teacher give the reward for the children like say: “pinteerr” or “tepuk tangan”. This words can increase their motivation to be more active than before. It will avoid the feeling of shy and embarrassed in children feelings.
Teacher : Anggota tubuh kita ada apa saja???
Students : ada mata.. ada hidung..
Teacher : Pinterrr...
....................

Teacher and Students : Watermelon..Watermelon..Papaya Papaya..Banana Banana..Banana Banana..Tomato..Tomato..
Teacher 3 : Yeee..Tepuk tangan (the students applause together)



In the conclusion, I can say that teacher talk for kindegarten students really need the teacher guiding. It is better if the teacher in the class is more than two teachers. It is really helpful to make the students more active and focuss on the teachers. But in order to improve the efficiency of classroom interaction, teachers must modify their speech to be more comprehensible and understood by the children. Therefore, teachers should consciously improve their questioning behavior.