چکیده:
How language teachers talk is a key factor in organizing and facilitating learning specifically in language classrooms where the medium of instruction is also the subject matter. This study aimed to examine the extent and ways of teacher talk adaptation to students’ proficiency levels in the Iranian EFL context. Two EFL teachers who were teaching three different proficiency levels were observed and recorded. They were also interviewed to see if they would make any conscious effort to adapt to their students’ proficiency level. Furthermore, the students of the same classes were interviewed for the comprehensibility of their teachers’ talk. Data were analyzed for four major areas of adaptation including speech rate, vocabulary, syntax, and discourse. The results showed that teachers’ adaptation to students’ level does happen clearly for elementary students, but the adaptation boundary between the intermediate and advanced levels is fuzzy. The findings also indicated that in spite of what they think, teachers’ talk is not tuned to elementary students’ understanding
خلاصه ماشینی:
EFL Classroom Discourse in the Iranian Context: Investigating Teacher Talk Adaptation to Students’ Proficiency Level Fatemeh Hemmati Associate Professor, Payame Noor University f.
However, in the Iranian context, some EFL teachers still continue to dominate the teaching/learning process (Kiany & Shayestehfar, 2010) and do not provide opportunities for students to communicate (Kariminia & Salehi, 2007) leading to taking up a great deal of time in many language classes to provide comprehensible input.
In such studies, the linguistic characteristics of teacher talk shared in various second language classrooms are described and the prominent role of discourse and conversational analysis both in teachers’ monologues and their interactions with the students have been scrutinized.
The results indicated that, similar to other studies reported in the literature, questioning has different functions and serves various objectives such as encouraging the learners to interact in English, although in the case of lower proficiency students the class participation was limited to answering the questions posed by the teacher.
As the reviewed studies show, there is evidence in the related literature that teacher talk adaptation to learners’ understanding level does occur in English language classrooms.
While this may be the case, evidence for the extent of adaptation and how properly and in what ways teachers gear their language to learners’ understanding level seems to be scarce; therefore, the present study aimed at investigating these aspects of teacher talk to answer the following questions: 1.
Descriptive Analysis of the Opening Talks Given by the Female Teacher Proficiency level Elementary Intermediate Advanced Speech rate for each word per second 11.