Planning your lessons for more Student Talking Time Teachers’ Seminar 2011

TEACHERS’ SEMINAR – 2011 Planning your lessons for more Student Talking Time SESSION PLAN STT x TTT Typical Classroom Discourse The role of the teacher: a few tips Lesson Planning and STT. How / When / Why do I make my students speak? Looking at a few lessons – HANDS-ON

Teacher talking time versus Student talking time “Teacher talking time (TTT) is the time that teachers spend talking in class, rather than learners. It can be compared with student talking time (STT). One key element of many modern approaches is to reduce the amount of TTT as much as possible, to allow learners opportunities to speak, and learn from speaking.”

“ It's best to consider talk time in the following percentages. Students should speak for 70% of the lesson. Teachers should speak for 30% of the time. ” STT versus TTT “For students, the most effective use of their time occurs when they are actively using the target language. This can come in the form of drills early in the lesson or as part of a meaningful conversational activity later.” “TTT often means that the teacher is “telling” the students things that they could be working out for themselves - for instance grammar explanations and corrections.” “If the teacher is constantly dominant and controlling, student autonomy is minimised. Students take no responsibility for their own learning but learn what the teacher decides and when.”

A typical piece of classroom discourse might go something like : T : Right. (indication of change of topic) Can you turn to page 99 and look at the picture (instructs) What sport is that? (initiates discourse topic) Paola? (allocates speaking turn) S : Tennis (responds) T : Yes, tennis. Good. (evaluates). Classroom Discourse

Used intelligently, TTT is a great tool to facilitate student learning. (a) Elicitation and concept work can be used effectively to lead students to make their own discoveries about the language (showing, not telling). (b) TTT may also be the most efficient way, in terms of time, to get a point across. Instructions and set-ups for activities are an obvious example, but also some language explanations. (c) Students, especially at the beginning of a course, may expect lessons to be entirely teacher-led. (d) Teacher talk can be an excellent source of listening practice, what Stephen Krashen has called “roughly tuned input”. THE TEACHER’S ROLE: How to use TTT more effectively

A FEW PRACTICAL TIPS: Develop the following abilities Your ability to monitor your own TTT. How much time do YOU speak? (ask a colleague to help you with this). Your ability to fade in and out in the classroom environment. Where should I stand in relation to my students? (leave the board alone! It won’t go away!) Your ability to create a conducive atmosphere / environment. How do my students feel about my lessons? (ask / monitor your students to get concrete feedback). Your ability to plan lessons that will privilege student interaction. How much time do my students actually speak / hold the floor during my lessons? (look at your LP. Look again – do the math)

Planning your lessons for more STT LESSON PLAN MAIN AIMS SUBSIDIARY AIMS ASSUMPTIONS PERSONAL GOALS CLASS PROFILE TIMETABLE FIT ANTICIPATED PROBLEMS MATERIALS USED communicative

STAGEPROCEDURESPATTERN OF INTERACTION AIMSTIME LESSON PLAN

HANDS-ON:

THANK YOU!

STT versus TTT: SUMMING UP  It's best to consider talk time in the following percentages:  Students should speak for 70% of the lesson.  Teachers should speak for 30% of the time.  In a 90 minute class, if the teacher is talking for 75% of the time (that’s roughly 68 min), that leaves 22 minutes left for the students. If there are ten in the class, they’ll get about two minutes each to speak.  A large amount of TTT inevitably means long stretches of time in T/class mode, which often is uninvolving for students and is likely to lead to a drop in concentration and in pace. The lesson becomes boring and students “switch off”.  Apart from the fact that concentration wanders half way through long explanations, the teacher has no real clue as to whether the students have understood. Use elicitation rather than explanation, allowing the students to formulate the rules for themselves. If students are presented with clear examples and guiding questions, they often do not need to be “told”