本研究主旨在探討教師在不同層級的兒童英語教室所具有語言的特徵。文中從二個角度來分析教師語言：句法及言談功能。藉著分析教師語言的形式及功能，期能暸解教師語言的內涵，幫助學生語言學習。

有三位兒童英語老師及三個不同層級的班級參與本研究,分別為初級，中級及高級。每位教師分別接受四節課之錄音，每一個層級選擇錄音最清晰的二節課予以轉成文字稿。經仔細檢視文稿後，每一層級選擇十五分鐘之語料做分析比較。以二項句法特徵及十一項言談功能來分析，記出其頻率，算出百分比及相關的統計方法。本研究的主要發現如下：

(1) 教師語言平均語句的長度隨著層級愈高而增加。教師在初級的兒童 英語教室之平均句長為2.95，在中級教室為3.47，在高級教室為4.53。此顯示，教師隨著學生程度的增加而調整其語句長度。

(2) 教師語言的語法正確率在三個層級都很高。教師在初級教室的語法正確率最高為99.52%，其次為中級教室96.20%，最低為高級教室為94.21%。此顯示，教師給予學生相當正確的語言輸入(Input)。

(3) 教師語言的言談功能隨著層級的增加而不同。在十一項言談功能中，初級教室教師最常用的是練習(Drill)，中級教室教師最常用的功能是講解(Informative)，而高級教室教師用的最多的是發問(Elicitation)。

本研究亦提據結果提供以下的教學建議：教師應依學生程度的不同，調整其言談功能，同時教師需提供學生更多語言溝通的機會，培養學生語言溝通的能力。

This study aims to investigate the characteristics of teacher talk in child EFL classrooms of different levels. Teacher talk is analyzed from two perspectives：syntactic and discourse.

Three child language teachers and three classes of different levels participate in this study: the elementary, intermediate and advanced levels. Four units of each level are recorded. After initial screening, two units of each level are transcribed on the basis of intelligibility. By careful examination, only a portion lasting about ten to fifteen minutes at each level is selected for data analysis.

Two formal characteristics--MLU (mean length of utterance) and grammaticality--are measured in syntactic analysis; and in discourse analysis, the function of teacher talk is analyzed. For syntactic analysis, teachers' MLU is counted; the grammaticality of teachers’speech is measured in the proportion of correct utterances to the total amount of utterances. For discourse analysis, teachers’utterances are categorized according to a discourse model adopted from Tsui (1985).

Three major findings are found in this study. Firstly, teachers’ MLU increases as students’ proficiency increases. Teacher’ MLU at the elementary level is 2.95, at the intermediate level 3.47 and at the advanced level 4.53. It shows that teachers adjust their length of utterances to the proficiency level of students.

Secondly, the grammaticality of teachers’ speech is very high in all the three classrooms. The grammaticality is 99.52% at the elementary level, 96.20% at the intermediate level and 94.21% at the advanced level. It shows that teachers provide students a very correct target language input.

Thirdly, the functions of teacher talk are different at different levels. Among eleven functions, teachers use the function “Drill” most frequently in the elementary classroom, “Informative” in the intermediate classroom and“ Elicitation” in the advanced classroom. Two factors may be attributed as the cause the differences of teachers’ functions：the learners’ stage of development and the teaching method.

Pedagogical implications are suggested according to the findings. Teachers are suggested to speak in such a way as to provide students with opportunities to speak in the target language if the purpose of teaching is to develop communicative ability.

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