1.

Introduction
There are four research questions for this mini project that need to be
investigated in order for it to yield an in-depth analysis towards the
teachings and how they would relate to the acquisition of the second
language. The first question is about the proportion of teacher talk to
students talk while the second question is about the proportion of
display question and referential question. The third one is about the
wait time for answering questions and the last one would answer the
question of the increase or decrease in the learning potential for the
students.
For the first question which is about the teacher talk and student talk,
there are several studies identified related to it. One of it is by (ZareBehtash & Azarnia, 2015) Zare-Behtash and Azarnia in the year 2015
on a study titled, A Case Study of Teacher Talk Time and Student Talk
Time in an Iranian Language School. In this study, the researchers are
bidding to increase the attention of teachers towards their classroom
exchanges and also towards how much the teachers need to speak in
the classroom by reviewing the amount of teacher talk time and
student talk time in the classrooms. For this study, the participants are
chosen from Isfahans Kavosh Language School in Isfahan City, Iran.
The lessons recorded for the purpose of the analysis are from the
classes taught by four of the selected teachers over the duration of five
weeks. The data is then quantified and broken into two parts; the
teacher talk time move and the student talk time moves. Based on the
data analysis provided by the research, it is clear that teacher talk time
dominated the classroom by the average of 75% of the whole class,
followed by students talk time at 19% and lastly by the time spent by
students on various activities in the classroom by 6%. This study shows
that teacher talk is very dominant in the classroom and teachers
should be aware of this so that their content of the lessons and also the
classroom objectives are not obstructed in any way.

The second article for the research question is a titled An Investigation

and Analysis of Teacher Talk in College English Class by Min Liu and Lei
Zhu in the year 2012. This study is intended to research on the teacher
talk pattern of which the researchers would study and analyse three
phenomenon of teacher talk which include; teacher talk time,
questioning pattern and also the feedback pattern. This research paper
is included in this mini project due to the fact that two of its research
questions coincide with the research questions proposed in the mini
project. The study is conducted to investigate the classroom interaction
of which four English teachers lessons are videotaped and transcribed
for further analysis. A questionnaire is also distributed among the
students with the help of their teachers. Based on the analysis of the
videotape transcription and also the results of the survey, it can be
concluded that the teacher talk controlled the majority of the classes
while student talk is lacking in every classes. The results of the
questionnaire also show that the most of the students who answered
the questionnaire come to an agreement that their teachers spend
more than 20 minutes talking in the classroom.
As for the second research question for the mini project which is the
ratio of display questions to referential questions that the teachers
employed in a classroom, the same study by Min Liu and Lei Zhu
revealed that more display questions are asked by the teachers rather
than the referential questions in all of the classes involved in the study.
Min Liu and Lei Zhu described this as a prevalence of one-way
communication in a classroom of which the teachers themselves
considered themselves to be the sole contributor towards interaction in
the classroom. This problem is also contributed towards the number of
students in a classroom where lesser number of students in a
classroom make it easier for teachers to control the classroom.
The next article for the research question is by Mohammad Zohrabi,
Massoud Yaghoubi-Notash and Sanaz Yousefzadeh Khiabani with the
title Teachers Use of Display vs. Referential Questions across Different

Proficiency Levels. This articles focus is on the effect of both type of

questions in different levels of proficiency which include the beginner,
intermediate and advanced level. In this study, the participants include
a teacher and 46 students where the students are made up from three
classes of different proficiency. The data is collected by means of
observing the teacher and recording the audio from each classes plus
the use of observation checklist for the occurrences of selected
phenomena. Both the teachers questions and the students responses
are transcribed and quantified to be analysed using descriptive and
inferential statistics. The result shows that the uses of display
questions are higher in the elementary classes but significantly lower in
the advanced classes. The teacher prefers to ask more display
questions to the beginners but lessen the usage of such questions as
the levels of proficiency increases. For the referential questions, the
teacher prefers to use them more in the advanced classes as compared
to the intermediate and elementary classes. The study also found that
the balances between the two types of questions are needed to boost
the students learning potential.
The next research question is on the wait time in a classroom. The first
article for this research question is a journal article by Parviz Habibi and
Bahman Gorjian in the year 2015 titled The Potential Impact of TurnTaking and Wait Time on Iranian Foreign Language Classroom
Interaction Enhancement. Based on the title, the focus for this journal
is investigating how wait-time and turn-taking strategies develop and
affect learners skills in communication. The participants for this study
are 60 English students from Dezful, Iran of which all of them are male
and are divided into two groups, the control group and the
experimental group. The experimental group has been given the turntaking and wait-time strategies to be applied in their classroom
interaction while the control group is using the traditional way of
communication in the classroom. The results show that those who use
the strategies of turn-taking and wait-time are more beneficial in the
assessment of the conversation rather than those who do not use the

strategies. Based on the study, the strategies employed in the

classroom are able to expressively influence learners developing
conversation skills thus increasing the values of such approaches.
2. Data Collection Procedures
The teachers who are involved in this project are two teachers that
teach

primary

school

students

and

secondary

school

students

respectively. The teacher who teaches the primary school students will
be referred to as Teacher A while the latter, Teacher B.
Teacher A has recorded the audio of his class while Teacher B recorded
a video of her class. Teacher As class consist of 24 standard 5 pupils
of SK Dato Kayaman. The recorded lesson is 59:55minutes. The
objective of the lesson is to improve students pronunciation and
fluency. The lesson requires the students to pronounce targeted words
properly and express their opinions fluently. The teacher recorded the
audio using an audio recording app of his cell phone.
Teacher Bs class consist of 25 Form 1 students, studying in SMK
Permatang Bonglai. The recorded lesson is 40 minutes which is
equivalent to the schools allocated one period class. The lesson serves
as an introductory lesson of verbs and the objectives of the lessons
require the students to list down at least 5 verbs and underline or
identify at least 10 verbs in an essay. The recording was done using a
camera and a tripod. The researcher sets up the camera at the back of
the class and record the whole activity during the lesson.
3. Analysis

Total Talk Time

Teacher
Talk
Time
Students
Time
Display
Questions

Talk

Teacher A
288

Teacher B
138

143

91

145

47

6/13

13/14 = 92.86%

Referential
Questions
Average Wait
Time

7/13

1/14 = 7.14%

2-3 seconds

2-3 seconds

Table 1
3.1
Total Talk Time
As seen in table 1, there is a vast difference between the total talk time
(TTT) between the two teachers. Teacher As TTT is 288 while Teacher Bs
TTT is 138. This may due to several factors. First, the school type. Teacher
A deals with primary students while Teacher B teaches in a secondary
school. Even though the duration of the two lessons are the same, the
input is varied because of classroom control. Primary students may
require more instructions and clarifications when compared to the
secondary school students. Second, the teaching model. Teacher B
deploys Co-operative Learning in her teaching and it has resulted in
groups work and discussion which has led to a significant loss of TTT
count to the whole class. The teacher did walk around and facilitate each
group personally and the interaction was not able to be recorded. Thirdly,
the content of the lesson. Teacher A teaches vocabularies to his primary
school students. His class requires drilling and he uses several games to
incorporate the targeted vocabularies. This factor alone has increased the
TTT significantly as students are required to practice the newly learned
vocabularies and the simulation of the games also contributed to the huge
amount of the TTT.
3.2
Teacher & Students Talk Time Ratio
The discussion about teachers and students participation in class is an
inevitable subject. Teachers should avoid excessive talk time and it must
be limited so that it will not take up the majority of the talk time (Tsegaye
& Davidson, 2014). In an ESL classroom environment especially, students
need ample chances practice speaking the target language. Hence,
teachers should try to reduce the time of their talk. Other than factors
affecting TTT as discussed above, this section prefers to discuss the
indication of the lesson conducted by the teacher. However, the final
analysis will be tied back to the observation made by the researchers.

Teacher As ratio is 143:145 while Teacher Bs ratio is 91:47. Teacher Bs

Students Talk Time is aligned with Cooks suggestion which says students
talk time should be at least 30% of the total talk time. This indicates that
the lesson allows the students to practice speaking in the class. This is
due to the fact that the teacher applies Co-operative Learning in the class.
Meanwhile Teacher As class has almost the same proportion of talk time.
This may indicate that the students practice speaking a lot, and in Teacher
Bs class, the students were given ample opportunities to practice their
pronunciation through drilling and game playing.
3.3
Display Questions
The uses of display questions are normally higher in the elementary
classes but significantly lower in the advanced classes. Teachers also
prefer to ask more display questions to the beginners but lessen the
usage of such questions as the levels of proficiency increases (Zohrabi,
Yaghoubi-Notash, & Khiabani, 2013). Contrary to the referenced article, in
this mini project however, the class taught by Teacher B (secondary
school), shows a higher number of displays questions compared to
Teacher A (who teaches in primary school). For Teacher As class, his main
objective of the lesson is to improve students pronunciation and fluency.
Therefore the class is focused on pronunciation and the students were not
required to display any known knowledge other than their pronunciation.
Teacher Bs class however requires the students to list at least 5 verbs
they know and also identify at least 10 verbs from a given essay. Hence,
Teacher B had asked more display questions compared to Teacher A
because she needs to constantly check her students understanding in the
targeted grammar lesson.
3.4
Referential Questions
The use of referential questions over display questions is likely to
stimulate a greater quantity of classroom interaction. Furthermore, the
turn of the conversation should not be the fixed pattern: teacher asks
student answers teacher responds. (Xuelian, 2009) Teacher A asked more
referential questions compared to Teacher B. This make a lot of sense in
the context of their main objective of their lesson. Teacher A aimed to

improve the students fluency whereas Teacher B focused more on written

grammar aspect. Teacher B had only asked 1 referential question
throughout her entire lesson and this may indicate that the teacher is too
focused on the written grammar aspect that she had totally forgotten to
allow students to practice their spoken language freely in the context of
the classroom interaction. It is vital for the students to be able to express
themselves in the L2 because they live in a rural area whereby the
classroom is their only chance and space to practice speaking English.
3.5
Average Wait Time
Teachers who take the time to wait for students answers will be more
likely to influence a learners conversations skill positively. (Zare-Behtash
& Azarnia, 2015) A good teacher should use turn taking and wait time
strategies to allow students to express themselves. Such approaches will
enhance students learning ability and allow them to have a better
experience in an ESL classroom. Both teacher As and Bs wait time is
really minimal and thus may have discouraged the students to participate
more in the class. Teacher A and B are both in their mid-twenties, hence,
maybe lack in patience in term of waiting for the answers from the
students.
3.6
Evidence of Construction
Teacher Bs class
Extract 1
5
T: Alright, what did you have
for recess? Did you go for
6

recess just now?

T: Did you go for recess just

now?
T: Did you go for recess just
now? She added the
gesture of eating; she
cupped her hand and
gestured the hand into
her mouth to simulate

the act of eating.

8
9

LL: Yes.
T: Where did you have your

10

recess just now?

T: Where did you eat? She
showed the gesture for
eating.

11
12

LL: Canteen!
T: At the canteen, right? So,
eat. What is that? What is
eat?

13
14

LL: Makan.
T: Makan, yes. Eat is makan.

It is also an action.
She took out a marker pen and started to write on the
whiteboard.
15
T: By the end of this class,
okay, after you go back,
after i finished with the
class, you can learn, you
can list 5 verbs, underline or
identify five verbs.
Negotiation of Meaning
Due to the nature of the class, which is a beginner L2 proficiency
class, the teacher speaks slower and uses non-authentic input in the
classroom. However, the students still face problem in
communicating with the teacher. As seen in turn 6, the students
kept quiet when the teacher asked them whether they had recess.
The teacher then deploys negotiation of meaning by paraphrasing
and use shorter question. The teacher uses hand gestures to
suggest eating as their recess. Only after the gesture, did the
students manage to respond and this opens a room for further
interactions for the teacher and the students. In Malaysian
classroom context, many students expect their English teacher to
translate the meaning due to the fact that the teacher and students
are Malays and therefore share the same L1. Translation however is
the component of style that has had the least effect on traditional
EFL teaching. (Cook, 2008).

Extract 2
16

T: Just then your friend.said, what

is verb? as she answered, she
showed the gesture of eating. eat!
what else? can anyone tell me what
else?

17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30

L: play.
T: play? very good. what else?
L: sneeze.
T: yes?
L: sneeze.
T: sneeze! very good!
L: sitting.
T: sitting. very good.
LL: / fishing! / reading! /
T: fishing, reading. very good.
L: swimming!
T: swimming.
L : running!
T: running. alright, enough. all the
verbs. right now we know the
verbs. are you in your groups right
now? alright, i will give you some
pictures with words. i want you to
identify or find the verbs. can you

do it? right, do it in your groups.

Checking for Confirmation
When the teacher asks a question to the whole class, she requires
multiple answers from various students. She makes sure everybody
else in the class understand the input by requiring answers from
various students. Teachers who are perceptive and keen to check
for confirmation and who do not always accept the first contribution
a student offers are more likely to maximize learning potential than
those who do not (Walsh, 2002).

3.7
Evidence of Obstruction
Teacher As Class

Extract 1
140

L: I like people who ((5))

T: who? ((3)) okay, did
you say everything?

141

Who.. wears black, who

has eyeballs ((2)) a tie,
((2))

142

L: Nametag
T: I like people who
wears nametag? What
colour is the nametag?

143

Like yours? Or like his?

((4)) or like that?
(Inaudible) so just say, I
like people who wears
nametag.

Extract 2
169
170
T: =who?
171
Extract 3
185
186
T: =I like
187
188
T:=people
189
Extract 4

L: I like people
L: who wears ((2)) red ((2)) tudung.
L: I ((2)) like..
L: I like..
L: =people white tudung.
L: I like people wears

T: =who wears
L: =who wears ((4)) (inaudible)
T: Okay, you say it.
L: I like ((2)) people who ((2)) wears
tie.
Teacher Interruption:
According to Walsh, 2002, teacher interruption happened when a teacher
interrupted the students while they are still mentally preparing their

sentences. This reduces the chance of them being able to complete their
sentences, resulting in various problems towards the students language
acquisition. For example, in turn number 140, before the student even
finished what they wanted to speak, the teacher cut in their sentence
production and gives more information about what the teacher thinks the
students wanted to say. Although this can be said that the teacher wanted
to help the students, but in doing so, the teacher actually interrupted the
students thinking processes and thus probably deter them from being able
to complete their sentences.
For the second example, in turn 169, the teacher interjected again with the
students, asking questions for the students when the students are trying to
form the sentences. By doing this, the teacher only manages to confuse
the students due to the fact that when they are making sentences, they
are asked questions thus flooding their head with possible distractions that
could be deterring their thinking processes. It is the same case as in
example 3 and 4 where the teacher completes the students sentences
rather than giving them a chance to do it so. These will definitely not going
to be helpful in the long run because of the fact that by doing so, the
students understand that in the future, their teacher is always going to be
helping them, spoon-feeding them all the information without them having
to search for it. This will resulted in a generation of learners that are overly
dependent towards their teacher.
In all of the extracts above, the teacher interrupted many students midsentence and before they even got a chance to finish their sentences thus
preventing them from; a) producing a complete sentence with possibly a
more complex language, b) expressing their opinion, c) becoming creative
with their language. According to Walsh in the year 2002, by reducing
interruption, using less teacher echo and a good use of silence, learning
potential would have been increased as opposed to what the teacher did.
4. Self-Reflection
4.1

Teacher A

Based on the analyses that are done on the research questions, it is

clear that I have so many improvements due. This is due to the fact
that by analysing the teacher talk time, types of questions and also the
wait time, I now confirm that I am indeed lacking in those area. It has
taken me aback due to the fact that because of my inexperience, the
students are mostly obstructed in their learning of the language and
the fact that this could be a major obstacle in their acquisition of the
language. My experience in the teaching world could only amount to a
very insignificant number, a merely 6 months time or 0.5 years.
Therefore, I have still in need of many self-improvements while
gathering more skills suited for teacher. In the area of teacher talk and
student talk, constructed by the analysis, I found out that in my
classroom, my talk as the teacher far exceeded what I think should be.
In my opinion, I agree that students should be able to freely talk with
each other in the targeted language so that they are able to advance
more in terms of language acquisition. But it seems that I have
unknowingly talk more so that the classroom would be able to progress
with going into total silence as in the lack of response from the
students. Though I believe that the teacher is the prime source of
language in the classroom setting, but the students should be able to
practice their language and at the same time even dare to experiment
with their language so that maybe they are able to creatively
manipulate the language so that they are able to convey their opinions
clearly. By having more teacher talk in the classroom, I may have
ignored the feelings of my students thus reducing their motivation and
interest level to learn. As a solution for the previous problem, I think
from this point onwards, I should research more on how to let my future
students speak more and able to convey their opinions freely in my
classroom so that their control of the language can improved to a
better state.
The second research question deals with the ratio of display question
and referential questions. In my lesson for this mini project, is seems
that I used more display questions rather than referential questions. I

used questions to test the knowledge of the students rather than

finding out their opinions. This can be detrimental towards the learning
progress as the students would subconsciously understand that the
teacher only care about the lesson and not about themselves. This will
lead them to be distance towards learning the language thus further
removing their level of interests towards the language and towards
learning in general. When they misunderstand that they are of no use
than simply getting good grades in their examination, their self-esteem
and confidence would plummet and the will lose the interest towards
learning.

This can be seen as a very extremely terrifying aspect of

their motivation level decreasing. In the future, in order for me to avoid

this this from deteriorating into unwanted territories, I should be able
to open up their minds and having them to think outside the ordinary
concept of classroom learning so that they themselves are able to
freely think beyond the classroom into the boundaries of their life. This
way, their minds can surely of a first class citizen that is surely
demanded as a person in the world nowadays.
The last part that I wanted to reflect on is regarding the wait time. Wait
time is simply the time needed for the students to be able to formulate
a correct use of the language. In my lesson, my wait time are simply
less or non-existent in nature. I admit that I certainly did not want the
classroom to be in total silence because in my mind, a silent classroom
is a sign of either; a) the students are not getting anything from the
classroom, b) they are bored with the classroom or c) they do not
understand anything at all. This is what I am afraid for thus prompting
me to be the one to continue the interaction in the classroom by being
the mediator in the interaction myself. Based on the studies shown,
this could be a misstep in my implementation as a teacher. Wait time is
actually very important as it allows the students to form their language
and cannot be treated as a sign of misunderstanding. This is very
crucial in a classroom due to the fact that the students perhaps do not
have a good control of the language thus requiring a longer time to
respond to when asked in the targeted language. If I am to teach again,

I have to bear in my mind that sometimes silence is not a sign of

weakness but simply a buffer in order for students to process the
language and I should be able to wait a little longer before interrupting
students language formation.
Based on the reflection, I can assume that within the criticism I have
given myself, it is a good thing that I have just started in the teaching
profession thus giving me more time to improve myself and my
teaching skills so that I am able to make a good difference in the hearts
of the students, thus propelling them to a greater heights in their lives.
4.2 Teacher B
I am an English teacher with 5 years of teaching experience. I have
been teaching in a rural area. The proficiency level of the students I
teach ranges from low to intermediate. I have always been struggling
in teaching because no matter what I did, the improvement my
students made were just small when compared to the effort I have
made. After doing this mini project, I have now realized that there are
still many improvements should be done to my teaching strategies.
When I began teaching, I applied almost all the theories Ive learnt
before I became a teacher. I told myself that the process of learning is
far more important than the result the students yield at the end of the
year. Then, reality struck me. A student is graded based on how well he
answered the exam, and a teacher is graded on how well his students
answered the exam. In the midst of everything, I started to focus on
the result instead of the process. I started focus on the exam paper
instead of the students communication progress. I taught the students
how to gain marks according to what the rubrics needed. However,
even though the students made some progress in term of the exam
paper, they cannot communicate with me using English. They always
use their L1 and no matter how I force them to use English, they just
dont want to. This mini project has made me realize what my mistakes
are.

According to Cook, students talk time should be 30% of the total talk
time. Students should be allowed to express themselves in the class in
order for them to have a better language learning experience. Due to
the fact that the classes I am teaching are low proficiency level classes,
I tend to use more non-authentic language in the class in order to get
the students to understand me. The students do communicate with me
in L2 but the language is almost pidgin or they may answer me in
incomplete sentences. I used to think that it is alright for them to do so
as long as they incorporate some English but now I know that I should
teach them to use the proper language. However, I am really glad to
know that my students talk time in this mini project is about 30% of the
total talk time. I know now the importance of limiting my own talk time
in order for my students to practice their English more; not just using
ungrammatical language, but a proper sentence with me correcting
them using the right strategies such as recast or other corrective
feedback strategies.