Lexical and syntactical modifications in teacher talk of native and non-native speakers in EFL classrooms

ABSTRACT LEXICAL AND SYNTACTICAL MODIFICATIONS IN TEACHER TALK OF NATIVE AND NON-NATIVE SPEAKERS IN EFL CLASSROOMS Arzu ÜNEL Master Thesis Dissertation, English Language Teaching Department Supervisor: Assist. Prof. Dr. Meryem MİRİOĞLU January 2014, 95 pages Classroom language in EFL classrooms consists the core of communication between teachers and learners. Teacher talk plays a central role in understanding the nature of classroom language in this respect. According to Krashen input hypothesis, teacher talk also constitutes an important source of comprehensible input for the language acquisition of the learner (Krashen, 1981). To make the input comprehensible, teachers may make modifications in their vocabulary, syntax, rate of speech or discourse. Accordingly, the aim of this study is to discover whether native and non-native speakers of English make any lexical and syntactical modifications in their teacher talk at elementary and pre-intermediate levels and to try to find out what kind of lexical and syntactical modifications they make if they modify their lexis and syntax during their speech. This study also aims to probe whether there is a lexical variety in teacher talk of native and non-native speakers of English in elementary and pre-intermediate level classrooms. The study was carried out with 8 EFL instructors (both NSs and NNSs) at Çağ University in Turkey using their audio-recordings and conducting a questionnaire and an interview. Antconc 3.2.1 Programme, Collins Cobuild Advanced Learner's English Dictionary – Fifth Edition and SPSS 17.0 Programme were used to analyse the quantitative data. The findings of the data were incorporated with the results of interviews forming the qualitative part of the study. The results of the data revealed that native and non-native speakers of English made lexical and syntactical modifications in their teacher talk at elementary and pre-intermediate levels. Regarding lexical modifications, there were differences in word tokens, word types, type token ratios and dictionary frequencies of 100 most frequently used content words at both levels. As for syntactical modifications, they ranged from words per sentence, types of verbs, verb moods, voice of verbs (passive and active verbs), the verb "be", subordinate clauses to the types of sentences. The findings of the study also demonstrated that the lexical and syntactical modifications in teacher talk of native and non-native speakers at both levels depended on the proficiency level of the learners although not all of these modifications formed a statistically meaningful difference. As for lexical richness, interestingly, no lexical variety was observed in the speech of native and non-native speakers of English at both levels. Keywords: English as a Foreign Language, Teacher Talk, Lexical Modifications, Syntactical Modifications, Comprehensible Input.