The Role of EFL Teacher’s Talk and Identity in Iranian Classroom Context

Abstract

Identity is a comprehensive and complicated concept in the process of language teaching and learning. The present study attempted to examine the effect of teachers’ talk and identity in the classroom context on EFL learners’ achievements. The Conversation Analysis (CA) approach was applied to gather and analyze naturally-occurring spoken interaction. The teachers’ interactions with their learners were audio-recorded and analyzed in terms of the IRF cycle (Initiation-Response-Feedback), turn-taking and renovate. The findings indicated that the plenty of interaction was assembled and retained through dissymmetrical and privileged relations. The teacher identified, and regulated most of the social actions that happened in the classroom context, most of which were also completely designed on a goal-oriented basis .It was concluded that it is time to re-assert the role of teacher as a dominant individual who controls learning inside and outside the classroom; educators and teachers should develop an instructional design that focuses on incorporating active learning and student-centered pedagogy into the traditional lecture-based courses.