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Tools For Teachers

The document discusses teacher talking time (TTT) in language classrooms. It notes that Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) emphasized reducing TTT to increase student involvement. However, TTT can be used positively through techniques like questioning, personal stories, and natural conversation to engage students.

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Karyna Vera
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45 views4 pages

Tools For Teachers

The document discusses teacher talking time (TTT) in language classrooms. It notes that Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) emphasized reducing TTT to increase student involvement. However, TTT can be used positively through techniques like questioning, personal stories, and natural conversation to engage students.

Uploaded by

Karyna Vera
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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The development of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT)

brought with it a methodology which emphasised communication in


the classroom, pair and group activities and student involvement in
the learning process.

A consequence of this was the belief that the teacher’s presence in the
classroom should be reduced.

 Why reduce TTT?

 Strategies for reducing TTT

 Positive uses of TTT


 Conclusion

 Why reduce TTT?

Many training courses based on CLT insisted that teacher talking time (TTT)
was counterproductive and that teachers should reduce TTT for a number of
reasons:

 Excessive TTT limits the amount of STT (student talking time). If the
teacher talks for half the time in a 60 minute lesson with 15 students, each
student gets only 2 minutes to speak.

 A large amount of TTT results in long stretches of time in teacher-to-


class (T/class) mode and a monotonous pace. Student under-involvement
inevitably leads to loss of concentration, boredom and reduced learning.

 TTT often means that the teacher is giving the students information that
they could be finding out for themselves, such as grammar rules, the meanings
of vocabulary items and corrections. Teacher explanations alone are often
tedious, full of terminology and difficult to follow. There may be no indication of
whether the students have understood.

 If the teacher takes the dominant role in classroom discourse in terms of


initiating the topic, allocating turns and evaluating comments, the student’s role
is only that of respondent. Opportunities for developing the speaking skill are
therefore severely limited.

 If the teacher is constantly dominant and controlling, the learners take


no responsibility for their own learning but learn what the teacher decides and
when. Student autonomy is thus limited.

 
Strategies for reducing TTT

The over-use of TTT is often the product of the under-use of communicative


techniques in the classroom. Many activities do not need to be teacher led –
pair work (PW) or group work (GW) can be used instead. An activity might be
set up in T/class mode, demonstrated in open pairs (students doing the activity
across the class), and done in closed pairs (all the students working at the
same time). Some mechanical activities need to be done individually (IW) but
can be checked in pairs. What is most important is that activities and
interaction patterns (T/class, PW, GW, IW) need to be varied. The amount of
time spent in T/class mode will depend on factors such as the students and how
much they know, the stage of the lesson, the time of day and what is being
taught, but a useful guideline is a limit of 30% of a lesson, and no more than
10 minutes at one time.

Other common strategies for reducing TTT include:

 Using elicitation rather than explanation. If students are presented with


clear examples and guiding questions, they often do not need to be “told”. This
kind of guided discovery leads to better understanding and more successful
learning. Organising activities as pair work also means that all the students
have the chance to work on the new language.

 The use of body language, mime, gestures and facial expressions rather
than words. The position of the teacher in the classroom can also indicate to
the students what is expected of them at a particular stage of the lesson.

 Getting students to give feedback on tasks to each other rather than to


the teacher. This is often done in pairs, but answers can also be checked
against a key. Student nomination, whereby one student nominates another to
answer a question, is also a useful technique. Feedback involving the teacher is
therefore limited to problematic questions rather than every question in an
exercise.

 Eliminating unnecessary TTT. Grading language is important, but over-


simplification can lead to unnatural models from the teacher. Instructions
should be kept simple, while explanations need to be carefully worded and
repeated if necessary rather than paraphrased. Simple concept questions
should be asked to check understanding. If explanations are clear and concept
checking is effective, there should be no need for re-explanation or interrupting
an activity to reteach or re-instruct.

 Tolerating silence. Inexperienced teachers in particular tend to fill


silences by unnecessary talking. Silence is important not only when students
are working individually, but also provides ‘processing time’ between
instructions, during explanations, while waiting for a student to respond, and
during monitoring of activities. Prompting, providing clues and rephrasing the
question are often counterproductive when the student merely needs time to
answer.

Positive uses of TTT

In recent years, approaches other than CLT have suggested that TTT may not
always be counterproductive and can be used to good effect. The teacher
provides good listening practice which is not inhibited by the sound quality of a
tape or CD player and which is accompanied by visual clues to aid
comprehension. In a monolingual teaching context overseas, the teacher may
provide a valuable source of authentic listening, exposing learners to a limited
amount of new language, and ‘roughly tuning’ input to assist comprehension. In
some circumstances, the teacher may be the only source of models of good,
natural language. Some forms of TTT are clearly beneficial:

 Personalised presentations. Language should be presented in context,


and this can be provided by the teacher rather than through a reading or
listening. Listening to the teacher talking about real issues is more motivating
than listening to or reading about complete strangers talking about people,
places or events which, for the students, have no personal interest. Students
are also more likely to pick up knowledge which is content rather than language
based by listening to the teacher introducing a topic.

 Questioning. Every teacher question asked during a lesson demands a


student response. Questions need not be language related, and are often the
basis of ‘brainstorming’ a topic with the class. Frequent questioning holds
students’ attention and increases learner involvement in the class.

 Natural conversation. Conversations taking place during pair and group


work are often loaded towards certain language items or based on an imposed
theme. Natural conversation initiated by the teacher encourages questioning,
asking for clarification, commenting and changing the subject as well as
introducing functional and everyday language which is often overlooked in
course materials. Chats outside the classroom are also valuable and often more
memorable to students than lessons. In these circumstances, teachers should
remember to continue to use graded but natural language rather than to use
simplified language to ensure understanding.

 Anecdotes. These can be the basis of a presentation, but can also be


used at the start of a lesson, rather than using a ‘warmer’ activity, as a natural
way of engaging the students. Anecdotes and jokes may also be used to
stimulate interest during a lesson. Anecdotes do not need to be monologues,
and students can be encouraged to interrupt and ask questions.

 Storytelling. This can be the basis of a lesson or an ongoing theme


throughout a course and is as appropriate to adult classes as it is to young
learners. There is a whole methodology surrounding storytelling, which is often
a stimulating alternative to the use of a graded reader in the classroom.

Conclusion

There are advantages and disadvantages to TTT. It is not easy to reduce TTT
when talking to the students is a natural thing to do and when there is
inevitably a theatrical side to language teaching. In certain cultures, there is
also a tradition of ‘chalk and talk’ which influences the expectations and
behaviour of both teachers and students. However, bearing in mind the nature
of the communicative classroom, teachers should perhaps be aware of the
quality of their TTT and how it is used rather than trying to reduce it to a bare
minimum.

Further reading
Dellar, H. Rethinking Teacher Talking Time, TESOL Spain Newsletter, 2004.
http://www.tesol-spain.org/newsletter/hughdellar.html Lynch,
T. Communication in the Language Classroom OUP, 1996
Scrivener, J. Learning Teaching (2nd Edition), Macmillan, 2005
Zaro, J. & Salaberri, S. Storytelling, Macmillan, 1995

Written by Steve Darn, Izmir University of Economics, Turkey

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