Resumen de Improving teacher talk through a task-based approach
Jason Moser, Justin Harris, John Carle
This article reports on a teacher-talk training course for Japanese primary school teachers, who are preparing to teach �communicative English� for the first time. The article argues that teacher-talk training is important for communicative classes with young students because most of the input and interaction is by default teacher centred. In our course, through a task-based approach including the use of digital recorders for self-transcribing, teachers were able to practise providing rich comprehensible input as well as scaffolding in English through role-playing classroom tasks. The before and after performances of two teachers doing a listen-and-draw task is analysed to demonstrate the importance of training in teacher talk. In concluding the article, we review the participants� survey feedback for the course. Our hope is that the article provides a convincing argument for teacher-talk training as well as offering a model for similar courses.
