Sebuah Kajian Pustaka: ELTIN JOURNAL: p-ISSN 2339-1561 Journal of English Language Teaching in Indonesia e–ISSN 2580-7684 21 ANALYZING TEACHER TALK DURING MICROTEACHING: A STUDY IN PRE-SERVICE ENGLISH TEACHER EDUCATION IN INDONESIA Ika Wahyuni Lestari ikawahyuni_11@umy.ac.id UNIVERSITAS MUHAMMADIYAH YOGYAKARTA ABSTRACT Teacher talk used by pre-service teachers in their microteaching or practice teaching require investigations to identify whether the language pre-service teachers use in teaching is effective. This descriptive qualitative study was conducted to analyze the features of teacher talk uttered by a pre-service English teacher during a microteaching. The subject of the study was Karen (pseudonym), a purposefully selected pre-service teacher who was conducting a 35-minute microteaching as a part of assessment on Microteaching course in one teacher training institution in Yogyakarta, Indonesia in the academic year of 2021/2022. The data in the form of teacher talk’ utterances were collected through Karen’s video-recorded microteaching. The data were analyzed deductively based on FLINT’s analysis model on features of teacher talk. The findings have shown that Karen’s teacher talk aligned with direct and indirect influence. Interestingly, of the features under FLINT system, Karen’s talks did not indicate the use of teacher talk to make requests to students during the learning process. Conclusions and implications are drawn for future directions on studies on classroom analysis and teacher talk. Keywords: Classroom Analysis, Microteaching, Pre-service Teacher, Teacher Talk A. INTRODUCTION Interactions in the classroom and the analysis of its language commonly called classroom interactions have gained attentions in plethora of past studies. Classroom interaction is the interchange of ideas, emotions, and thoughts between teachers and students in a classroom context (Afriadi & Hamzah, 2021). As an instrument of classroom interaction, teacher talk is the language teachers uttered to interact with students during teaching and learning process (Azhar et al., 2019). Teachers’ language use during the learning process – teacher talk – is worth analyzing, particularly those used by trainee teachers who are in the process of becoming future teachers. Studies on teacher talk used by trainee teachers in their teaching practice may lead to implications for betterment of teacher education in relation to how they make use of the content language as a medium of instruction. Skinner (2021) highlighted that trainees who will eventually teach a second language have a responsibility to employ effective classroom language, also known as "teacher talk," lest the prospects for second language learning be diminished. However, trainees frequently lack an awareness of how Lestari: Assessing the Use of Teacher talk during Microteaching… 22 the language used by their teachers affects the opportunities for language development that are presented in the classroom. Prior studies have shown the benefits of teacher talk. Azhar et al. (2019) stated that learner achievement in an English as a Second Language classroom is directly influenced by how well the teacher handles classroom talk time, which in turn dictates how much interaction occurs between the instructor and the students. Topalov & Radić-Bojanić (2019) pointed out that a teacher's talk can be an effective means of providing intelligible input, and it also has the potential to foster a communicative atmosphere in the classroom and the use of authentic language. Listening to a teacher talk has the potential to aid in the acquisition of vocabulary, both for individual words and for collocations (Jin & Webb, 2020) and is beneficial for students' thinking and learning, as well as their active participation in the classroom (Handayani & Umam, 2017). In addition, the students' ability to construct grammatically accurate sentences is facilitated by the use of Teacher Talk, which contributes to the students' advancement in their language skills (Alkhazraji, 2018). These studies showed that teacher talk can be beneficial for students and are worth applying as classroom interaction. Various aspects of teacher talk in English as a foreign language classroom can be analyzed through different aspects. Because teacher talk makes up such a significant portion of classroom speech, its significance in ensuring successful acquisition of a second language should be rather evident. Control, elicitation, modification, and repair have been identified by Walsh as the four most important aspects of classroom discourse (Skinner, 2021). Control deals with the IRF (Initiation-Response-Feedback) pattern as a way to manage interaction during the learning process. Elicitation has something to do with teachers' efforts to elicit learners' knowledge and understanding through the use of teacher's questions. Modification relates to scaffolding teachers make in response to their learners' language, for instance, a teacher rephrases students' incomplete utterances. At last, repair is employed as a way teachers make correction on students' accuracy which may interrupt their fluency. Reviewing on the classifications of teacher talk by Brown (2001) cited in Handayani & Umam (2017) explained teacher talk classification into direct influence and indirect influence. The purpose of the direct influence is to increase student participation in the teaching and learning activity on a more direct level. The features which fall into this category are making correction to students’ mistakes, giving instructions/directions/commands/requests, and criticizing students’ behavior to manage misbehaviors and classroom discipline. The indirect influence, on the other hand, aims to create pleasant and non-threatening classroom atmosphere and environment. The features of teacher talk which belong to this indirect influence are dealing with feelings, giving praising and encouragement, rephrasing students’ ideas as a sign of recognition on their participations, and asking questions. Many studies have been conducted to examine and analyze teacher talk. The studies varied from those on teacher talk in EFL context (Doqaruni & Khodadady, 2016; Wang, 2019) to those on teacher talk in non EFL context such as Sun & Verspoor (2022) who analyzed teacher talk in Mandarin language education. Prior studies were also carried out in different countries (Skinner, 2021 in UK; Sun & Verspoor, 2022 in Singapore; Wang, 2019 for Australian and Chinese English teachers; Kostadinovska-Stojchevska & Popovikj, 2019 in Macedonia). Many of those prior studies focused on in-service teachers’ teacher talk ELTIN Journal: Journal of English Language Teaching in Indonesia, Volume 11/No 1, April 2023 23 (Doqaruni & Khodadady, 2016; Kostadinovska-Stojchevska & Popovikj, 2019; Wang, 2019) including those conducted in Indonesian context (Handayani & Umam, 2017; Nurpahmi, 2017). As stated by Skinner (2021) that pre-service teachers who will eventually teach a second language have a responsibility to employ effective classroom language, also known as "teacher talk,", it is imperative to explore how pre-service teachers use English as a medium to maintain interactions with their students in the classroom during English lessons. Due to the discrepancy on studies focusing on the use of teacher talk among pre- service teacher, the present study aims to fill the gap by examining teacher talk used by pre- service English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) teachers in their microteaching practice. B. METHOD This qualitative study seeks to analyze the features of teacher talk used by a pre-service EFL teacher during her microteaching practice. The microteaching was a part of the assessment in a course offered to students of a private teacher training institutions in Yogyakarta, Indonesia during the academic year 2021/2022. The subject of the study was Karen (pseudonym), a pre-service teacher in the institution who was purposefully selected based on some criteria: (1) her microteaching had complete stages and met the assessment requirement, (2) she used English in maintaining teacher talk quite consistently throughout her microteaching, (3) she had unique characteristics in making interactions with other people. The object of the present study was Karen’s teacher talk she uttered during her microteaching practice which later were analyzed to answer the research question: “What are the features of teacher talk identified in Karen’s microteaching?” In Karen’s classroom interactions, her students also made responses (student talks) to her teacher talk; however, this study merely focuses on analyzing Karen’s teacher talk. Data of the study were collected through a video-recorded microteaching made by Karen. The video-recorded microteaching lasted for 35 minutes. Topalov & Radić-Bojanić (2019) argued that observations made in the classroom, as well as video recordings of the classes and interviews with the instructors, both have the potential to bring to light previously unknown information and offer invaluable insights. The role of the researcher was a non- participant observer which means that the researcher did not attend the microteaching and only watched the video recording after Karen finished her microteaching. The collected data were then analyzed using conversation analysis. Some steps were taken in the process of analyzing the data. First, the researcher watched the video-recorded microteaching. While watching, she transcribed the conversation Karen and her students made during the microteaching. All names were directly changed in the transcribing phase to maintain confidentiality. After the transcribing step was done, the utterances in the transcript were coded based on FLINT analysis on the features of teacher talk which consisted of seven features of teacher talk. At last, final coding was carried out by putting all similar codes together C. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION The objective of the present study is to analyze the features of teacher talk uttered by Karen, a pre-service English teacher in her microteaching practice. The findings have shown that the seven features were found in Karen’s talks in her microteaching. Those seven features were classified into two influences: direct influence and indirect influence. The detailed explanations on the features of teacher talk found in the study and the extracts of Karen’s utterances as teacher talk during her microteaching are presented as follows. Symbols of T and S are used in the extracts in which T refers to Karen’s utterances representing teacher talk, while S refers to students’ utterances as responses to Karen’s teacher talk. Lestari: Assessing the Use of Teacher talk during Microteaching… 24 1. Direct Influence Handayani & Umam (2017) explained that the features which fall into direct influence are (1) making correction to students’ mistakes, (2) giving instructions/directions/commands/requests, and (3) criticizing students’ behavior to manage misbehaviors and classroom discipline. The results showed that Karen’s teachers talk cover the three features based on the FLINT analysis model. Making correction to students’ mistakes. In her microteaching, Karen used English as a teacher talk to make correction to a student’s mistakes as shown in Extract 1. Extract 1: T: What is she doing? S: berbelanja T: eehmm… I am sorry, you’re wrong. She is buying a jar of jam. Look at the picture. In the supermarket, you can pick the thing alone, and the woman is picking a jar of jam. So, the answer is A. Extract 1 provides an overview on how Karen’s teacher talk was uttered in response to a student’s mistake in answering Karen’s question. Karen explicitly pointed out the student’s mistake followed by the explanation on the correct answer. Giving instructions/directions/commands. The result of the analysis on Karen’s teacher talk showed that Karen used English to give direction on what-is-so-called ‘today’s agenda’. Through her teacher talk, Karen explained what to be discussed, to which grade the lesson was addressed, and what the learning objectives were. Karen’s teacher talk utterances which resonated the feature of giving direction are presented in Extract 2. Extract 2: T: Today, Miss will explain about the daily activity. This lesson material is for 4th grade. But do not worry, I will teach you confidently and in detail. The learning objectives of this lesson are students can identify, analyze, and compose about their daily activities in real life. Also, they can implement the verbs in English. Besides giving directions, Karen’s teacher talk was also uttered when she was giving instructions to students as shown in Extract 3. Extract 3: T: Now, it’s time to make a sentence based of these cards. Miss akan membagikan beberapa flashcards untuk kalian, dan kalian..and then you should write a sentence based of the chosen flashcards. I will give you an example. Me, Miss as a student. Miss will close the card like this [placing the cards upside down] then I choose the card, one like this [picking and showing a card] and I got ‘writing’ [the picture of the card shows a writing activity] So, Miss should write a sentence use writing. I am writing the English notes. So, that is the example to do it. ELTIN Journal: Journal of English Language Teaching in Indonesia, Volume 11/No 1, April 2023 25 The Extract 3 showed that Karen was consistent in using English as teacher talk when she was giving instructions to students. She explained what the students would do and gave an example on how to do the exercise. Criticizing students’ behaviour to manage misbehaviours and classroom discipline. The last feature found in Karen’s teacher talk classified into direct influence was the use of teacher talk to criticize students’ misbehaviors and to maintain classroom discipline. Karen’s utterances as teacher talk aligning with this feature are presented in Extract 4. Extract 4: T: hey, please don’t sleep. [reminding a student to behave as he is laying on the floor while the teacher is explaining] The Extract 4 indicated that Karen used English as a teacher talk to respond to a student’s misbehavior. When Karen was explaining, a student was laying on the floor, so Karen reminded him not to sleep while studying. 2. Indirect Influence Handayani & Umam (2017) pointed out the features of teacher talk which belong to indirect influence were (1) dealing with feelings, (2) giving praising and encouragement, (3) rephrasing students’ ideas as a sign of recognition on their participations, and (4) asking questions. The indirect influence aims to create pleasant and non-threatening classroom atmosphere and environment. The results of the present study have shown that Karen’s teacher talk covered the four features of teacher talk. Dealing with feelings. Karen’s teacher talk showed that she used English to maintain emotional bonds to her students by asking how they felt at the moment the class was being held. Karen was asking students’ feeling in the beginning of the lesson as shown in Extract 5. Extract 5: T: Assalamu’alaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh S: Wa’alaikumussalam Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh T: Good afternoon, everybody! S: Good afternoon! T: Okay… How are you today? S: I’m fine. T: Okay. Besides in the beginning of the lesson, Karen also asked her students in English to show her expectations to her students’ well-being when she was ending her lesson as presented in Extract 6. Extract 6: T: Okay, so…thank you for attending and joining this class, I hope you always stay healthy and stay positive. Let’s pray together before we end this lesson. [praying] Alright, thank you! Wassalamu’alaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh Lestari: Assessing the Use of Teacher talk during Microteaching… 26 Not only dealing with students’ feelings, Karen’s teacher talk also showed how she expressed her expectations and feeling using English. Giving praising and encouragement One way of creating a non-threatening learning atmosphere is by giving praising and encouragement to students. Based on the result of the analysis, it was found that Karen used English as teacher talk when she was praising and encouraging students during her microteaching practice. Karen’s teacher talk utterances when giving praising and encouragement are shown in Extract 7. Extract 7: T: Okay, so.. We will ask you about the English and the Indonesian related the daily activity. Okay, Kak Al, what is playing kite? S: Bermain layangan T: Okay, good job! And Yura, what is studying? S: [long pause] T: What is studying in Indonesia? S: belajar T: Okay, good job! Asma, what is going to school? S: berangkat ke sekolah T: Okay. Zahwa, what is writing? S: Menulis T: Excellent! And Lati, what is playing badminton? S: Bermain badminton T: err… Good job! But, but, eerr.. Playing badminton in Indonesia is called bermain bulutangkis. You’re really good! Good job! The Extract 7 showed that Karen consistently used English when she praised students who answered correctly. Utterances such as ‘excellent’ and ‘good job’ serve as the utterances which show praising and encouragement Karen addressed to her students. Rephrasing students' ideas as a sign of recognition on their participation. Karen’s teacher talk showed that she used her teacher talk to recognize students’ responses and participation during the learning process by rephrasing or emphasizing students’ utterances. Extract 8 shows an example on how Karen rephrased her student’s utterance. Extract 8: T: repeat after me again. Playing kite S: playing kite S: playing kite… bermain layang-layang T: Benar… That’s right. Playing kite is bermain layangan or bermain layang- layang. As shown in Extract 8, Karen showed recognition to her student’s utterance by rephrasing the student’s utterance into a complete sentence. With Karen’s rephrased utterances, the students might indicate that his teacher, Karen noticed her contribution in responding to Karen’s teacher talk. ELTIN Journal: Journal of English Language Teaching in Indonesia, Volume 11/No 1, April 2023 27 Asking questions Karen used English when she asked questions to her students as presented in Extract 9. Extract 9: T: So, we will learn six vocabulary related to the daily activity. Alright, the first is [the teacher is showing a card to the student] what is it? S: kite, playing kite T: playing kite… what about the others? Bagaimana dengan yang lain? S: layangan T: layangan.. Okay, cara bacanya… this is should be pronounced ‘playing kite’. Repeat after me. T&S: playing kite The Extract 9 showed that Karen asked her students questions in English. She asked the questions to the whole class which resulted in a non-threatening environment for the students, particularly those who did not know the answer. Based on the Extract 1-9, it can be concluded that Karen’s teacher talk she uttered during her microteaching practice met the seven features of teacher talk as proposed by Brown (in Handayani & Umam, 2017). Three features fell into direct influence. The first feature which falls into direct influence was making correction to students’ mistakes. The response Karen’s student made was incorrect; thus, Karen pointed out the mistakes and explained the correct answer. Karen’s action by showing the correct answer was appropriate and necessary by which students can know the correct term. It resonates Jin & Webb (2020) who asserted that by listening to a teacher talk, students can come to the acquisition of vocabulary, both for individual words and for collocations. The second feature was giving instructions, directions, or commands. In her teacher talk, Karen used English to give directions on the agenda and the learning objective of the lesson she was about to give. By consistently using English, Karen may introduce new words to her students. In addition, Karen also gave instruction on the exercise that her students should do. Again, she consistently used English in giving instruction although few Indonesian words were identified. Her teacher talk was accompanied by some gestures she made while explaining the exercise using English. These findings resonated Handayani & Umam (2017) that teacher talk can give direct influence by giving direction or commands to students. The last feature of Karen’s teacher talk was managing students’ behavior. One extract in which Karen reminded her student to behave was identified. She managed her student behavior by asking him not to sleep during the learning process. Karen’s teacher talk was comprehensible and effective since the respective students made a prompt response to Karen’s reminder by returning to sitting position. It indicated that Karen’s talks was comprehensible and effective. Handayani & Umam (2017) asserted that teacher talk can be used to change students’ misbehavior through criticizing their misbehaviors or inappropriate responses. Besides the three features which fall into indirect influence, the study also found four more features of Karen’s teacher talk which belong to indirect influence. The first feature under indirect influence found in this study was dealing with feelings. Karen tried to get emotional bond with her students by asking how they felt in English in the beginning of the lesson. Her students made direct and correct response to Karen’s question (how are you today?) by Lestari: Assessing the Use of Teacher talk during Microteaching… 28 answering (I’m fine). This interaction indicated that Karen’s teacher talk was comprehensible and effective, and in line with the notion of indirect influence, Karen’s question may create a relaxing atmosphere to her students. This finding was in line with Topalov & Radić-Bojanić (2019) which stated that teacher talk have the potential to foster a communicative atmosphere in the classroom. By simply answering “I’m fine”, effective communication between Karen and her students were established. The feature of dealing with feelings was also found when Karen was ending her session. She expressed her expectation on her students’ well-being and positive mindset. It can be concluded that Karen used teacher talk to deal with feeling in the beginning and at the end of her teaching. The second feature of Karen’s teacher talk under indirect influence found in this study was giving praising and encouragement. Karen repeatedly used English to give compliments, such as ‘Good job!’, ‘Excellent!’, and ‘You’re really good.” to her students’ participations and responses. Handayani & Umam (2017) stated that teacher talk can create a non- threatening atmosphere when teachers through their teacher talk can seek to understand feelings, be it the past, present, and future ones. Regarding this finding, Karen tried to understand her students present feeling in the beginning of the lesson as well as her students’ future feeling addressed at the end of the lesson. The third feature of Karen’s teacher talk under indirect influence found in this study was rephrasing students’ ideas as a sign of recognition on students’ participation. Karen’s idea to restate her student’s response was a good sign of effective communication as by restating her student’s utterance, it showed that she acknowledged the student’s contribution in responding to Karen’s utterance. It is in line with the notion of classroom interaction that classroom interaction is used to exchange ideas, emotions, and thoughts between teachers and students in a classroom context (Afriadi & Hamzah, 2021). It also resonated real-life communication in which repetition may occur. Topalov & Radić-Bojanić (2019) pointed out that a teacher's talk has the potential to foster a communicative atmosphere in the classroom and the use of authentic language. The last feature of Karen’s teacher talk under indirect influence found in this study was asking questions. Karen repeatedly asked questions using English to her students. It is a good way to maintain classroom interaction through the use of IRF method (Skinner, 2021). Karen’s questions served as the Initiation, her students’ answers served as the Response, and Karen’s response to her students’ response served as Feedback. In Extract 9, it was found that Karen posed a comprehension question. It corroborated the findings of a prior study conducted by Yanita et al. (2016) who reported that the most frequently used type of questions was comprehension check, followed by clarification checking questions, and confirmation checking questions. D. CONCLUSION The present study sought to analyze the features of teacher talk uttered by Karen, a pre- service EFL teacher in her microteaching practice. The findings showed that Karen’s teacher talk were in line the seven features of teacher talk by Brown as cited in Handayani & Umam (2017). Considering that Karen was still in the process of developing her professionalism as a future teacher, the variation of her teacher talk she used in her microteaching and her consistency in using English as a medium of instruction showed a positive indication that she exposed her students with English words and that her teacher talk may serve as a source of input for her students. Some implications can be taken from the present findings. Although ELTIN Journal: Journal of English Language Teaching in Indonesia, Volume 11/No 1, April 2023 29 Karen showed consistent use of English in her teacher talk, the findings of the present study cannot be generalized to a wider pre-service EFL teacher context. 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