TEACHER TALK, BY: LILIS FAUZIYAH (0713042032)

ANALYSES OF TEACHER TALKS
(SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION ASSIGNMENT)

By: Lilis Fauziyah
SRN: 0713042032






ENGLISH STUDY PROGRAM
ART AND LANGUAGE DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF EDUCATION AND PEDAGOGY
THE UNIVERSITY OF LAMPUNG
BANDAR LAMPUNG
2010


Preface

This paper relies on an assignment of Second Language Acquisition subject which aims at analyzing a talk occurred between a teacher and her students in a kindergarten in Kedaton. This kindergarten consists of three classes, with the first class as the subject of the analyses.

The writer held the research by recording the talk, dialogue, conversation and also other interactions shown by the teacher and the students. The tool that was used here is a digital camera that is by utilizing the audio-visual media to record the talk.

There are two talks that were analyzed. The talk takes five minutes duration respectively. And the transcriptions have been enclosed in the part of discussion.

Finally, the writer hopes that this paper will be beneficial for the readers. Hopefully this paper can give new information about a teacher talk complete with its nature, characteristics problems and discussions.




I. BACKGROUND

There are some types of talks as the result of researches of relationship between input and interaction in second language learning. One of them is teacher talk. Teacher talk is one of variations of foreigner talk in and educational setting research of teacher talk shows the process how native speaker teachers communicate with non native students. Henzl was the first person who gathered empirical data on what she called Foreign Language Classroom Register (1973, p.207). she compared features of texts recorded by Czech native speaker for adult native speakers with those recorded by the same native speakers for non-native speaker university learners of Czech. Then, form the comparison, it is obtained that the characteristics of the recordings were well-formed utterances, indicating systematic modification from the native speaker-directed tapes in aspects of phonology, syntax, lexicon, and delivery. Henzl also stated that foreigner talk in the classroom setting tend to be well-formed.

Further, Wong-fillmore (1985) suggests that there are some characteristics of teacher talk that might work as input, they are:
1. the talk has clear separation of language (no alteration or mixing).
2. the talk emphasizes on comprehension, it focuses on communication by:
- use of demonstration, enactment to convey meaning
- new information presented in context of known information
- heavy message redundancy
3. the language used is entirely grammatical, appropriate to eh activity by:
- using simple structure, avoiding complex structure.
- Repeating the use of some sentence patterns or routines
- Using repetitiveness, using paraphrase for variation.
4. the talk uses tailoring of elicitation questions to allow for different levels of participation form students.
5. the talk has richness of language use, going beyond books, playfulness.















II. ANALYSIS

a. Transcription of the first teacher talk
Students : Bu guru-bu guru…
Teacher : Iya.. tidak boleh lempar-lemparan ya..
Kakinya diluruskan.
Tadi kan habis olahraga ya..
Udah. Yuda, Angga, Rangga..tidak ada yang mainan..
Rangga, Febri, Ari.. Angga, Angga, Febri..
Nah, sekarang hitung satu sampai dua puluh!
Students : Satu, dua, tiga, empat, lima, enam, tujuh, delapan, sembilan, sepuluh, sebelas, dua belas, tiga belas, empat belas, lima belas, enam belas, tujuh belas, delapan belas, sembilan belas, dua puluh..
Teacher : Jangan dilipat kakinya, jangan dilipat.. udah..
Ga ada yang ribut ya.. ga ada yang ribut ya..
Satu, dua, tiga, empat, lima, enam, tujuh, delapan, sembilan, sepuluh, sebelas, dua belas, tiga belas, empat belas, lima belas, enam belas, tujuh belas, delapan belas, sembilan belas, dua puluh..
Students : following the teacher counting..
Teacher : audzubillaahiminasyaitan nirrajiim.. bismillaahirrahmaanirrahiim..
Alhamdulillaahirabbilalamiin..
Students : Following the same utterances until finished.
Teacher : Selamat pagi..
Students : Selamat pagi..
Teacher : Selamat pagi teman-teman
Selamat pagi bu guru..
Assalamualaikum..
Angga, tadi baca doa malah main aja..
Anak jempol apa anak kelingking itu ya?
Students : Anak kelingking..
Teacher : Qul auzubirabbinnas (followed by the students)..

b. Transcription of the second teacher talk

Teacher : Kursinya dibalik semua.
Dibalik kursinya.
Belakang, dibalik juga kursinya.
Tepuk tangan anak-anak.
Students : (Clapping their hands).
Teacher : Sekarang tangan ke atas.
Tepuk tangan.
Tidak ada yang bengkok.
Tidak ada yang bengkok.
Sekarang kita hitung sampai sepuluh kali.
Kalau ada yang lebih berarti tidak mendengarkan.
Tangan di atas..
Hei.. gini semua..
Semua duduk.
Gak ada yang bengkok ya..
Luruskan tangannya ke atas.
Mulai hitung satu sampai sepuluh.
Students : Satu..
Teacher : Nanti dulu.. ayo,,satu, dua, tiga..
Students : Empat, lima, enam, tujuh, delapan, sembilan, sepuluh
Teacher : Nah, kita hitung lagi ya.. dari satu..
Students : Satu, dua, tiga, empat, lima, enam, tujuh, delapan, sembilan, sepuluh.
Teacher : Udah. Sekarang berdiri semua
Berdiri semua
Berdiri semua
Ber..di..ri.. semua..
Siap.. grak..
Siap.. grak.. siap.. grak..
Tangan di depan, dibuka ke samping.
Tangannya, tarik tangannya.
Rentangkan, rentangkan.
Sekarang tangannya gini.
Wah, tepuk tangan sepuluh kali…
Pintar ya..
Sekarang dengarkan.
Sekarang duduk lagi, duduk, duduk
Duduk Hafids, Angga.
Menghadap ke sini semua.
Sekarang ibu guru Tanya.
Siapa yang di rumahnya punya TV?
Students : Saya.. saya..saya..saya..
Teacher : ApaTVnya warnanya?
Ada yang TVnya warnanya item putih?
Ada yang berwarna gak?
Ada yang warna merah, hijau..?
Siapa yang TVnya berwarna?
Students : Saya bu guru..saya..saya..
Teacher : Nah, sekarang bu guru mau Tanya lagi.
Siapa yang nonton TVnya sampai malem?
Students : Saya.. saya.. saya..

From the transcription above, it can be observed that the two talks have characteristics as follows:
1. As stated by Henzl (1979), the talks seemed to involve gestures that were used to emphasize the intention or the message the teacher wanted to give to the students. At least, it can be seen when the teacher asked the students to count numbers. She, at first gave the students direction and guidance by showing her fingers to the students with the numbers being said. Also, in the second talk, when the teacher asked the students to count numbers form 10ne up to ten, she tried to encourage them by putting their hands up each time they were counting.
2. The talks have clear separation of languages. It did not alter or mix the utterances. To make the students easy to catch her intention, the teacher carefully avoided mixing and alteration from the source language to the target language. In the first talk, the teacher said to the students not to be noisy by using a direct command, without altering the meaning. While in the second talk, the teacher also gave a direct command when she asked to students to turn their chairs round, again it is done without altering the original meaning of the utterances.
3. The talks emphasized on comprehension, for example, the teacher tried to assure herself that the students have already understood what she wanted them to do. It was done by giving them demonstrations that is an enactment of meaning; in this case the teacher used a picture to emphasize the students’ understanding, also by showing them new information presented in context of known information, and exposure of heavy message redundancy. In the first talk, it can be seen when the teacher asked the students “Anak jempol apa anak kelingking itu ya?” It is obvious that the students have already understood the meaning of the expression. That’s why the teacher wanted to recheck whether the students have comprehended the expression or not
4. The language used entirely grammatical, appropriate to the activity by using simple structure, avoiding complex structures, repeating the use of some sentence patterns or routines, and using repetitiveness, using paraphrase for variation. It can be seen in the first talk, when the teacher asked the students not to play during the learning. She said “tidak ada yang mainan” instead of “jangan mainan” or “tidak boleh ada yang mainan”. Also in the second talk, the teacher showed her utterances by repeating them for times. It can be seen when the teacher asked the students to stand up. She repeated her command again and again, by saying “Berdiri semua. Berdiri semua. Ber..di..ri.. semua… These aim at making the students easy to grasp the intention of the teacher.
5. The talks used tailoring of elicitation questions to allow for different levels of participation from students. This obviously can be observed when the teacher tried to confirm the students’ understanding by asking “anak jempol apa anak kelingking ya?”. She wanted to assure that the students had understood her utterances.
6. The talk has richness of language use, going beyond books, playfulness. It may be the most typical characteristic of all above. Children tend to be easily learning in fun and enjoying circumstances. The teacher tried to cover this by producing utterances that implied playfulness. It can be identified form almost of the utterances she produced to the students. They obviously contained atmosphere of playfulness.

Then, as stated by Chaudron, the talks are rather different from those of other contexts
outside educational setting, yet it is not systematically and fundamentally different. Further, the adjustment in teacher speech was aimed at maintaining communication, clarifying information and eliciting learners’ response.

Input modifications
The modification of the teacher’s speech occurred at the level of linguistic and interaction. as advocated by hadrons, the modifications made by the teacher covers the terms of speech rate, phonology, intonation, articulation and stress, modification of vocabulary, modification of syntax, and modification of discourse.

a. modification in speech rate¸intonation, and speech sound articulation.

The speech rate used by the teacher seemed to be slower than the one in normal speech rate. Take for example, the teacher guided the students to have an opening prayer. She started by saying it very slowly; “audzubillaahiminassyaitaanirrajiim…”. The rate was obviously slower than the normal one.
It is also the same happening to the intonation used by the teacher to the students. Mostly her utterances, began form the first up to the last utterances are produced in a various intonation, completely from the low until the highest intonation, e.g. the teacher begin her opening utterances in high intonation, then decreased in the middle and increased again in the last utterances. It was done to really get the students’ attention, so that they followed all the direction well.
The last of modification input, the articulation of speech sound was done obviously by the teacher. All of her utterances were clearly articulated to the students. It was done very well by the teacher. She wanted her students to catch the meaning of what she said. And it was obviously different form that when she spoke with someone of the same level of language mastery.

b. modification of morphology and syntax

Typically, there are some characteristics covered in the modification of morphology and syntax, they are:
a. there is a shorter average length of T-units on input directed to NNSs than is found in NS-NS interactions, but there is no significant difference in the number of S-nodes per T-unit (Long, 1981). From the talks above it can be seen in all the sentences said by the teacher to the students. They were obviously shorter in length than those if said , for example, by the teacher to other teachers.
b. Modified interaction does not produce syntactically simplified and modified inp0ut described in the earlier descriptive studies of input (e.g. number of S-nodes per T-unit, lexical frequency of nouns and verbs, and higher proportion of copulas in total verbs (Long, 1981a, 1981b, 1983a, 1983b, 1983c; Long and Sato, 1983, Pica and Long, 1986).
c. There is a wide variety of sentence types, (1.e. statements e.g. “Selamat Pagi teman-teman”, imperatives, e.g. “Iya, tidak boleh lempar-lemparan ya..” and questions, e.g. “Anak jempol apa anak kelingking itu ya?”), but the sentences are not more or less complex (Long, 1981b, 1983b,; Long and Sato, 1983.
d. Modified interactions may produce syntactically more complex, longer, and more repetitive input than non modified interactions (Pica et al., 1986, 1987). It can be seen that the teacher talks contained more complex, longer and more repetitive input than when they may talk with other teachers

c. modification of vocabulary

Chaudron (1988) advocated that the most common measure used to investigate vocabulary modification is the ration of number of different words to number of words produced (“type token”, the smaller the ratio the less diverse). Then, Patil (1994)suggested that the vocabulary directed to nonnative speakers was structurally simpler containing practically no phrasal idioms. Form the talks above, it can be seen that the words used by the teacher were not varied, yet they were more just repetitions of the previous ones to address the teacher message to the students.

d. modification of discourse

Rather different from other modifications, since there has not been enough agreement among experts, modification of discourse has not been deeply investigated. Yet, there began some studies trying to observe this kind of modification. Pica and Long (1986) in their study of sentence types revealed a tendency for teachers-particularly more experienced teachers- to use more questions with nonnative speakers and more declaratives with native speakers. In the two talks above, as can be seen, the teachers use more questions (“Anak jempol apa anak kelingking itu ya?”) to the pupils rather than declaratives. It was aimed to ensure themselves that the students have understood what they have said. Hatch (1978) has proposed taxonomy of interactional moves. Then, it was later reviewed and developed by Long (1981), Pica and her colleagues. The taxonomy includes comprehension check (“Nah, sekarang hitung satu sampai dua puluh!”) to see if the listener has understood), clarification request (“jangan dilipat kakinya, jangan dilipat, udah..”) for more information or explanation, exact other repetitions, restatement (or semantic self-repetition) by the speaker, other statement (semantic other—repetition), expansion (of native speakers’ statement), and topic switches.

III. CONCLUSION
From the explanation and analysis above, finally it can be concluded that researches of relationship between input and interaction in second language learning includes some types of talks. One of them is generally called teacher talk. Teacher talk is a kind of talk occurred between a teacher and his/her students in an educational setting. Wong-Fillmore (1985) advocates that there are some characteristics of teacher talk that might work as input, they are:
 the talk has clear separation of language (no alteration or mixing).
 the talk emphasizes on comprehension, it focuses on communication by:
- use of demonstration, enactment to convey meaning
- new information presented in context of known information
- heavy message redundancy
 the language used is entirely grammatical, appropriate to eh activity by:
- using simple structure, avoiding complex structure.
- Repeating the use of some sentence patterns or routines
- Using repetitiveness, using paraphrase for variation.
 the talk uses tailoring of elicitation questions to allow for different levels of participation form students.
 the talk has richness of language use, going beyond books, playfulness.
All of the studies and analyses are done for the sake of successful communication. The speaker can deliver his/her message to his/her interlocutors, in this case the teacher to the students. Finally, the effective teaching and learning process can be achieved well.