The Syntax of ESL Teachers' Classroom Language: A Preliminary Report.

In recent years, increasing attention has been paid to teachers' classroom language as a variable in the formal learning process. The language used in class by teachers assumes additional importance in formal second language learning situations, where the target language as used by the teacher is not only the means for conveying content, but also a product of the underlying linguistic system to be acquired by the learners. The present paper reports on research which attempted to determine whether foreign language teachers' classroom speech is syntactically different from their speech among linguistic peers. The syntax of samples of the classroom language.of eight TESOL teacher-trainees teaching adult. ESL courses was analyzed. Six measures of syntactic complexity were used. The subjects' classroom language was compared with samples of their speech among peers. In addition, the effect on syntactic complexity of two variables---the level of the classes and the times during the tenweek courses at which samples were collected---was examined. Implications of the findings for the formal second language learning process are discussed. In recent years, increasing attention has been paid to the role of language in the formal learning process. The ratiaaale for this research activity was state effectively by Aschner (1961) and is worth