This study was conducted in two second-grade Chinese classrooms at an elementary school in Southern Taiwan. The purpose of the study was to understand how a novice teacher and an experienced teacher used speech to help students in learning. The participants included an experienced teacher, a novice teacher, and ninety-two students.; The central focus of this study was to explore the patterns of these two teachers' talk during teacher-student interaction and to uncover their perspectives about their talk. The sociolinguistic research method and the naturalistic inquiry research method were combined in this study. Data sources involved primarily observations and interviews. Categories for analysis emerged from an inductive data analysis process.; The findings showed that both the experienced teacher's talk and the novice teacher's talk followed the traditional sequence of classroom interaction--teacher initiation, student response, teacher evaluation. However, they differed in their guidance for students and their degree of control. The experienced teacher's talk was inclined toward intensive management in which she provided students with clear guidance and attended to many subtle aspects of students' learning. However, she confined students' active exploration. The novice teacher's talk was inclined toward extensive management in which she did not offer effective guidance nor attend to subtle facets of students' learning. However, she allowed more room for students' active exploration.; The experienced teacher attributed her effective methods of guiding students to increased experience in the classroom. The novice teacher suggested that her teacher education program contributed to her progressive views toward teacher-student interaction but failed to provide adequate practical experience.
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