An Investigation into the Teacher Talk and Questions in English as a Foreign Language Classrooms

Abstract

In the present study, the quantity and quality of teacher talk and highly used question types in EFL classrooms were investigated. For this purpose, 3 English teachers working at a foundation university participated in the study. Data were gathered from the video recording of three different classes including 60 English as foreign language learners. Conversation Analysis was used to analyze the data. The findings of the study revealed that teacher talk takes most of the class time and teachers employ mostly display questions rather than referential questions in the language learning process. Even though teacher talk is essential in the teaching and instruction process, there should be a balance between teacher talk time and student talk time by encouraging students to participate in the learning process more actively and asking more referential questions, which can promote a more interactive classroom atmosphere.