Interactional speech modification strategy use of teachers of young EFL learners

In light of the research finding that language learning is facilitated through the interactive and modified teacher discourse in the classroom (Thoms, 2012), this study aimed to examine teacher talk in the context of young English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners in Istanbul, Turkiye. With the purpose of investigating the types of specific patterns teachers may use to make input comprehensible and meaningful for the young learners, 10 EFL teachers' interactions with their primary school and preschool students were collected through lesson observations and audio-recordings of teacher talks. For primary school context, data were collected from two sessions of two teachers from each grade (the first to the fourth). This totally makes 16 sessions. Moreover, for preschool context, data were collected from two sessions of two teachers in kindergarten, four-five years old and five-six years old classes, as one lesson from each age group. This entirely equals four sessions. Furthermore, these data were also supported with semi-structured interviews with the same teachers to learn their conceptual understanding of using interactional language with young learners and whether they will report employing specific strategies of meaning negotiation. The study employed a qualitative case study design. The qualitative data collected in the study were analyzed through discourse analysis to learn the purpose of teachers' spoken interactions with their students. Content analysis method was also used for the interview data. Although discourse analysis is inductive in nature, specific patterns from the literature were also used as a guide to create a code scheme for the teacher discourse analysis. The results displayed that EFL teachers implemented various speech modification strategies in their lessons to make the input understandable while teaching their young learners. These strategies were categorized under seven themes: modifying linguistic resources, teachers' echo, teachers' scaffolding, teachers' conversational frames, teachers' interactional feedback, teachers' epistemic questions, and teachers' echoic questions. On the other hand, semi-structured interviews revealed that they consciously employed speech modification strategies in their sessions to make input comprehensible for young learners. Even though teachers' self-reported and actual uses of speech modification strategies did not match completely compared to the observations of the same participants during the semi-structured interviews, these speech modification strategies were mainly about the seven themes: elaboration, simplification, peer assistance, repetition, echoic questions, epistemic questions, and role-play. This study fills a significant gap by exploring the use of interactional speech modification strategies by teachers of (very) young EFL learners in the context of Turkiye. This study also proposed several implications for the field of teacher education and language teaching. Initially, it is clear that teacher talk has a facilitatory effect on language learning; therefore, schools should accept it and all EFL pre-service and in-service teachers of young learners should be supported via teacher talk training programs for their professional development. Secondly, these training programs may serve as opportunities for teachers to gain awareness of the strategy use, thus preventing communication breakdowns between teachers and young learners in the classroom. Hence, modified interactions can support meaning making mechanisms of young learners.