TEACHER TALK AND LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES (A Case Study of a Pre-Service Teacher in EFL Classroom).

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Teacher Talk And Learning Opportunities

Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia | repository.upi.edu | perpustakaan.upi.edu TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE OF APPROVAL

STATEMENT OF AUTHORIZATION ... i

PREFACE ... ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ... iii

ABSTRACT ... iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS ... v

LIST OF TABLES ... viii

LIST OF APPENDICES ... ix

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION 1.1Background of the Research ... 1

1.2Statement of the Problems ... 3

1.3Purposes of the Research ... 3

1.4Significances of the Research ... 3

1.5Research Methodology ... 4

1.5.1Research Design ... 4

1.5.2Participant ... 4

1.5.3Data Collection ... 4

1.5.3.1Instrumentation ... 4

1.5.3.2Procedure ... 5

1.5.4Data Analysis ... 5

1.6Clarification of Terms ... 6

1.7Organizations of the Paper ... 6

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Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia | repository.upi.edu | perpustakaan.upi.edu CHAPTER II

LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Classroom Discourse ... 8

2.1.1 Defining Classroom Discourse ... 8

2.1.2 Teacher Talk ... 9

2.1.3 Teacher Talk and Learning Opportunities ... 12

2.2 The Nature of Teacher ... 14

2.2.1 Teacher-Students Relationship ... 14

2.2.2 The Role of Teacher ... 17

2.3 Classroom Management ... 19

2.3.1 The Physical Environment of the Classroom ... 19

2.3.2 Voice and Body Language ... 20

2.3.3 Unplanned Teaching ... 20

2.3.4 Teaching under Adverse Circumstances ... 20

2.4 Previous Research ... 22

2.5 Concluding Remark ... 23

CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 3.1 Research Design ... 24

3.2 Research Site and Participant ... 25

3.3 Data Collection ... 25

3.3.1 Instrumentation ... 25

3.3.1.1 Video-taping ... 25

3.3.1.2 Classroom Observation ... 26

3.3.2 Procedure ... 27

3.4 Data Analysis ... 28

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3.4.2 Classification of Teacher Talk ... 29

3.4.3 Interpretation of Field Notes ... 30

3.5. Concluding Remark ... 31

CHAPTER IV FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 4.1 Findings and Discussions ... 32

4.1.1 Types of Teacher Talk ... 32

4.1.1.1 Construction ... 33

4.1.1.2 Obstruction ... 41

4.1.2 The Influence of Teacher Talk towards Students’ Learning Opportunities ... 43

4.1.2.1 The Influence of Teacher Talk towards Students’ Learning Opportunities from the Classroom Management Analysis ... 44

4.1.2.2 The Influence of Teacher Talk towards Students’ Learning Opportunities from Teacher-Students Relationship Analysis ... 47

CHAPTER V CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 5.1 Conclusions ... 49

5.2 Suggestions ... 50

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Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia | repository.upi.edu | perpustakaan.upi.edu LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1. The Influence of Teacher Talk ... 9

Table 2.2. The Types of Teacher Talk ... 10

Table 2.3. Role of Teacher ... 18

Table 3.1. Research Schedule ... 27

Table 4.1. The Overall Distribution of Teacher Talk Produced ... 33

Table 4.2. Extract 1 (Scaffolding) ... 34

Table 4.3. Extract 3 (Direct-error correction) ... 36

Table 4.4. Extract 2 (Content feedback) ... 38

Table 4.5. Extract 3 (Checking for confirmation) ... 39

Table 4.6. Extract 3 (Extended wait-time) ... 40

Table 4.7. Extract 3 (Obstruction) ... 41

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Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia | repository.upi.edu | perpustakaan.upi.edu LIST OF APPENDICES

Appendix A Video-taping Transcriptions

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Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia | repository.upi.edu | perpustakaan.upi.edu 24

CHAPTER III

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This chapter depicts the overall approach, techniques, and instruments used in the research. Not only does this chapter elaborate the related theory, it also gives the description and example on how the methods applied in the research.

3.1. Research Design

The research employed qualitative approach as the research design. The consideration of using qualitative approach was related to the objectives of the research which were aimed to find out the quality of teacher talk produced by a pre-service teacher during her interaction with students in EFL classroom. Qualitative research allows the researcher to go directly to particular settings to observe and attain data (Cresswell, 2009:175). It goes hand in hand with the research which was conducted in one classroom of a junior high school in Bandung.

The qualitative approach of the research was applied in the form of a case study design. For the research only focused on one single case happened in particular classroom, the design was classified as an intrinsic case study (Fraenkel et.al, 2012, p.434-435). The research did not merely aim to find out what happened in the classroom; what kinds of teacher talk produced by the participant. It also determined to get some insights related to the reason why the produced teacher talk occurred during the interaction in the classroom.

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3.2. Research Site and Participant

The research took place in one public junior high school in Bandung. This public junior high school was chosen due to several reasons: first, the school was where the participant became a pre-service teacher of English; second, the school authorities gave permission to the researcher to conduct the research there; third, the location of the school and the availability of the classroom made the research become practically easy to be conducted without having any schedule or accommodation issues.

The participant of the research was a student of English Education Department, Faculty of Language and Arts Education, Indonesia University of Education. The participant was assigned to become an EFL teacher in the chosen school as the fulfillment of teaching practicum program.

3.3. Data Collection

This section elaborates instrumentation and procedure employed in collecting the data of the research. The instrumentation explains in detail about the research instruments used during the research conducted, while the procedure gives more detail descriptions on how the instruments applied during the research conducted and the research schedule.

3.3.1. Instrumentation

The data of the research were collected through video-taping and classroom observation. Following sub-sections are detail explanation of each instrument employed.

3.3.1.1.Video-taping

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Through the video-taping technique, it was expected that the whole interaction in the classroom can be captured in detail. The video-taping session was conducted in the first grade of EFL classroom in one public junior high school in Bandung. The session was consecutively video-taped during five meetings in one month period. Each session was video-taped from the beginning of the lesson as the teacher came in to the class up until it was finished. The duration of each video tape was approximately 80 minutes, however the duration in each video tape collected was vary due to materials delivered and activities done in each session.

The data collected from the video-taping were used as the primary data to answer the first research question regarding the types of teacher talk produced. The video tapes were transcribed, and the transcriptions were analyzed by focusing on the teacher talk. Thus, the types of teacher talk which had been analyzed became the data for elaborating the findings and discussions of the research.

3.3.1.2.Classroom Observation

Observation has one distinctive feature in the research process: it provides the opportunity to gather ‘live’ data from naturally occurring social situations (Cohen, Manion, and Morrison 2007:396). In addition to that, observation also presents a reality check where it enables the researcher to look at behavior that might go unnoticed by the participant (Robson 2002:310; Cooper and Schindler 2001:374 as cited in Cohen, Manion, and Morrison 2007:396). In line with the research design which employed a qualitative research methodology in the form of case study, classroom observation is considered suitable to collect the data of the research. The classroom observation was conducted through field notes taking and teacher talk checklist.

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from that, teacher talk checklist (see Appendix C) had been prepared to provide more valid data for the analysis. Teacher talk checklist was formulated based on the classification of teacher talk from Walsh (2002). This teacher talk checklist was made to strengthen the data coming from the video tapes. The result of teacher talk checklist became the additional data to elaborate the analysis of teacher talk coming from the video tapes transcriptions.

The data from field notes were intended to answer the second research questions regarding the influence of teacher talk produced towards students’ learning opportunities. Through field notes, it was possible to have a deepening analysis on how the teacher talk produced influenced the flow of the classroom specifically related to the students’ learning opportunities. The result of teacher talk checklist was used to strengthen the analysis of teacher talk from the transcriptions. Thus, the findings and discussion to answer the second research question could be presented.

3.3.2. Procedure

The data of the research were gathered from five meetings of an EFL classroom in one public junior high school in Bandung. The more detailed description of the schedule of collecting the data was described in the table below.

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The research schedule above was arranged based on the availability of the participant of the research. As it can be seen, the data were collected from five different meetings of EFL classroom conducted in a first grade class of the junior high school chosen as the research site. The first and the third meeting were conducted in the afternoon class session, while the second, fourth and fifth meeting were in the morning class session. The morning class session was started at 7 am while the afternoon class session was started at 1 pm.

Having arranged the data collection schedule, the procedure of collecting the data was also managed as follows:

1) Preparing the video recorder, notes and teacher talk checklist. Each of the instruments should be ready before the observant coming to the classroom.

2) Finding a suitable place to put the recorder so the whole classroom interaction can be captured and making sure the voice of the teacher and student can be recorded clearly.

3) Taking field notes and filling in the teacher talk checklist simultaneously while the session was being conducted.

By applying the steps above, all data of the research were collected. The procedure was followed by transcribing the results of video-taping. Thus, all the

Date Data Collection

October 21st 2014

Video-taping 1 Field Notes 1 Teacher Talk Checklist 1 October 28th

2014

Video-taping 2 Field Notes 2 Teacher Talk Checklist 2 November 4th

2014

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transcriptions, field notes, and teacher talk checklist became the data for the research conducted.

3.4. Data Analysis

Having obtained the complete data from each instrument, the researcher started to conduct data analysis. The data of the research were gained from classroom observation and video-taping. The very first stage of the data analysis was transcribing the videotapes. Once the transcripts had been finished, the more in-depth analysis started to be conducted. Following are the detail descriptions of data analysis based on each instruments.

3.4.1. Transcribing

Transcribing was the first step taken after the data of the research had been collected. The transcriptions were used as the primary data to analyze the teacher talk produced in the classroom. The whole interaction captured was presented in the transcription in detail: the verbal and non-verbal interaction between teacher and students were described in words. There were total five video tapes gathered so there were also five transcriptions of video tapes developed.

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3.4.2. Classification of Teacher Talk

Through employing the CA (Conversation Analysis) methodology which adopted from Walsh (2002), the classification of teacher talk was developed. CA methodology is considered as the most appropriate methodology to deal with teacher talk analysis. It is based on the fact that CA methodology allows the researcher to describe how people involve in an ordinary conversation where there should be negotiate overlaps or interruptions and also how people open and end a conversation (Heritage as cited in Silverman, 2001).

Those characteristics were suitable with the aim of the research which focused on classroom interaction between teacher and students. After transcribing the video tapes consisted of the interaction, the classification of teacher talk was started. The categories of teacher talk occurred were classified as follows:

1) Scaffolding 2) Content feedback 3) Direct error correction 4) Checking for confirmation 5) Extended wait time

6) Teacher echo

7) Teacher interruptions 8) Turn completion

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3.4.3. Interpretation of Field Notes

As what had been mentioned in the first chapter, there were two research questions which had been formulated in the conducted research. The first research question was regarding the types of teacher talk which were answered through the classification of teacher talk. The second research question was about the influence had by the produced teacher talk towards students’ learning opportunities. In order to answer the second research question, the data had been collected through field notes.

The field notes were expected to discover the genuine interaction happened in the classroom. The field notes taking focused on how certain acts of teacher had particular influence towards students, specifically regarding the students’ learning opportunities. The field notes revealed how the students perceived the interaction coming from the teacher. Furthermore, the teacher talk checklist adopted from Walsh (2002) had become additional data to conduct the analysis of influence of teacher talk towards students’ learning opportunities. Hence, the analysis was done by narrowing the influence from two different perspectives: classroom management and teacher-students relationship. From the two perspectives of analysis, the influence of teacher talk towards students’ learning opportunities was able to be drawn to answer the second research question. 3.5. Concluding Remark

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Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia | repository.upi.edu | perpustakaan.upi.edu CHAPTER V

CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS

This chapter elaborates the conclusions and suggestions stemmed from the conducted research. The conclusions sections sums up how the research question of the research have been answered from the findings while the suggestions section portray the ideal recommendations for further research on this field. 5.1. Conclusions

Focusing on how the teacher talk produced in EFL classroom, the research relates the findings of the types of the teacher talk with the learning opportunities created by analyzing them through classroom management and teacher-student relationship analysis. During the five-week classroom observation, the conducted research has shown the expected types of teacher talk which are possible to occur in the classroom interaction. The categorization of the teacher talk was based on the Conversation Analysis (CA) methodology in which the features or types of teacher talk were adopted from Walsh (2002).

Two categories found were the construction and obstruction category of teacher talk. Each category came with different types of teacher talk. Even the number of occurrence was not significant; the teacher still produced the types of teacher talk which belonged to obstruction category. Teacher echo and teacher interruptions mostly found from the analysis. Teacher unnecessarily echoed the students’ answer which had no specific benefit for the students. Moreover, teacher interruptions also led students to have fewer opportunities as it resulted in the teacher took over the discussion which made students had no space to contribute.

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teacher succeeded to maintain the flow of interaction in the classroom by creating learning opportunities for students.

In addition to that, the good quality of teacher talk produced by the teacher was supported by other aspects of her teaching ability. Through the field notes taken during classroom observation, the teacher managed to show her ability in managing the classroom and developing a good relationship with the students. These two important aspects had successfully supported her ability in controlling the language use in the classroom. The three combinations of producing a constructive teacher talk, managing the classroom as a whole, and developing a good and supportive relationship with the teacher becomes the way for the teacher and students to have a good learning environment. Having a good environment of learning leads students to have more opportunities to learn which will have a good impact on their learning achievements.

5.2. Suggestions

Stemming from the findings of the research, here are some suggestions for teacher and those who are interested in this field:

5.2.1. Suggestion For English teacher in EFL Classrooms

It is very important to control the language use while doing the interaction in the classroom. Producing more positive feature of teacher talk which increases students’ learning opportunities such as scaffolding is highly suggested because it makes students keep going on with their contribution and participate in the interaction. However, it should be noticed by teacher that they sometimes produce teacher talk which unconsciously makes students have fewer opportunities such as teacher interruptions. It leads students to lose their willingness to contribute as the teacher keeps interrupting their contribution. Some are even becoming a habit which can be disadvantageous for the learning process as it disrupts the flow of

interaction and neglects students’ learning opportunities such as teacher echo.

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Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia | repository.upi.edu | perpustakaan.upi.edu 5.2.2. Suggestion for Further Research on This Field

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