Teacher Talk Time and Student Talk Time

Teacher Talk Time / Student Talk TimeBy CotterHUE Most teachers readily agree that the students should receive as much opportunity to speak as is possible when learning English as a fore

Teacher Talk Time / Student Talk Time

By CotterHUE

Most teachers readily agree that the students should receive as much opportunity to speak as is

possible when learning English as a foreign language This idea is especially true in the EFL

classroom, where students don't live in an English-speaking country In such cases, the students may only have the chance to practice English as a conversational tool during the sixty or ninety minutes of the lesson But whatever the situation, the more students speak in English, the better English speakers they become

But what should the balance be between teacher talk time and student talk time?

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 Of course, some lessons may require longer explanations on the part of the teacher Or other lessons may only require a minimal amount of

explanation, and 90% or more may be devoted to conversational activities But this 70/30 figure workswell as a goal in most classroom situations Consider the following positive and negative examples as well:

Positive:

1 The teacher praises students.

2 The teacher provides feedback, correction, and possible guidance.

3 The teacher presents information or gives instructions.

4 The teacher sets up and/or demonstrates activities.

Negative:

1 The teacher offers personal anecdotes that don't connect to the lesson.

2 The teacher speaks too quickly (or slowly) for the level of students.

3 The teacher offers too much correction.

4 The teacher explains the target language for too much.

5 The teacher excessively uses slang and fillers.

How does the 70/30 figure get affected by specific activities?

Listening activities, examples from the teacher, demonstrating an activity all can affect talk time Let's look at some of the following examples to better highlight good use of talk time

Effective:

1 The teacher reads a paragraph as part of a listening activity The teacher speaks most of this time, as

he reads the monologue several times and asks comprehension questions However, his talk time can

be deemed effective because the students get to practice their listening and comprehension skills To increase the effectiveness, though, the listening activity could segue into another activity Maybe the students could pick out idioms and try to use them in subsequent conversations Maybe the students could imagine subsequent events from the monologue, or rewrite it as a dialogue Maybe the students could summarize the monologue in their own words.

2 The teacher provides examples before eliciting a few more sentences from the class on a particularly

difficult grammar point Although his talk time is quite high here, the class can better use the form andfunction of the language In other words, they know the structure of the target language, how to use it, and why to use it This translates into better and more accurate usage both later in the lesson and out inthe real world

3 The teacher explains an activity's directions step by step, then demonstrates the activity with a

student Last, he checks confirmation with a few questions, such as "What will you do first?" and

"How about after that?" Again, the talk time is high, but students can immediately begin the activity without confusion

How about student talk time?

A lot has been said so far regarding the teacher's talk time 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 Be careful of the following negatives, though

Ineffective:

1 Students drill the target language throughout much of the lesson, and don't have the chance to use

the new grammar or vocabulary with previously studied material Drills are great to set the pattern of the target language, but students won't know how to use the language outside of these narrowly

defined parameters If students are still practicing with drills towards the end of the class, then the teacher may have introduced too much in the lesson Retention will drop, and talk time will be

rendered ineffective

2 Students don't practice the target language enough in drills, and so make numerous mistakes with

the grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, and so on If this continues during the whole class, then students may not understand how to correctly use the target language They will continue to make the same mistakes outside of the class Although the students may have spoken a lot during the lesson, they used the target language incorrectly Again, this translates into ineffective talk time

3 The teacher talks or calls on students one at a time Although the talk time for the class may be

roughly 70%, individual talk time is quite low In a class of ten during a one-hour session, answering questions one by one translates to six minutes of talk time for each student This isn't enough of an opportunity to speak and practice the material! A better course of action would be to pair up the students, have them practice in drills and free(r) activities throughout the lesson Two students

speaking in pairs for one hour would mean roughly thirty minutes each of talk time, which is a huge difference!

http://www.eltnews.com/discussions/thinktank/2009/10/

what_are_some_ways_to_maximize.html

If I use the dictionary function on MS Word, I get these definitions for “maximize”: enlarge; and then also make the most of.

I don’t always want students to talk more Sometimes, I want them to listen, or to summarize briefly,

or to respond in writing However, I do want to “make the most of” their talking time; in essence, to talk better

These days, many textbooks are set up to give students “communicative tasks,” where they speak English to exchange information Often, there is some sort of deed to be done—A has the information that B needs, and B has the information that A needs, and they speak to exchange their information and fill in their charts or solve the puzzle or whatever end goal there is.

Those can be enjoyable tasks, but the downside of overdoing them is that students get used to seeing every speaking task as a sort of info gap: That is, there is information that must be exchanged, and so once it is exchanged, the task is over It’s a fine method for completing one’s “Find Someone Who” worksheet, but it fails miserably for a discussion Discussion questions look like they’re asking for information (that is, students’ opinions on a topic, or answers to some questions), but so much more goes on in a good discussion Participants might make or respond to jokes, show off, show

understanding or sympathy, address new topics, search for new vocabulary, let off steam, learn and teach information about the topic, express frustration, and so on

Students get used to seeing every speaking task as a sort of info gap: That is, there is information that must be exchanged, and so once it is exchanged, the task is over

I remember one lesson in particular with a small group of trainees at Sumitomo Electric Industries (SEI) whom I’d had in class for about six months They had a good command of vocabulary and grammar, they were lively and engaged, and of course they were happy to be in English class instead

of back at their desks

We had a unit in the textbook on receiving visitors, leading up to office and factory tours; quite

relevant for these trainees, since they used English primarily for receiving overseas visitors and then showing them around There was vocabulary to be learned and dialogues to practice and functions to employ, but first there were (as there often are in textbooks) some warm-up questions In my mind, they’d spend about 15 minutes on these warm-up questions (though I was prepared to go longer), during which they’d bring up the necessary vocabulary that they knew, as well as signal to me what they didn’t know Also, I’d get a feel for their past experiences and needs

There were two questions, more or less like this:

1) Have you ever received a visitor at your company? Who?

2) Where did you meet him or her?

As it turned out that day, I had four trainees in class, so I put them in pairs And in each pair, the

“discussion” went like this:

A: Ah … B-san, “Have you ever received a visitor at your company? Who?”

B: “Where did you…” Ah, so ka “No.” (both laugh)

They looked at me expectantly Time for the listening! Epic fail, as the gamers would say I sighed The students were perplexed They asked if they’d done something wrong “It wasn’t what I was expecting,” I said

A nodded in understanding “ ‘No, I haven’t,’ right?”

No, I said, it wasn’t the grammar, it was the information True confusion now “But … I only met

Sato,” said B, a bit apologetically And I laughed Naturally, they wanted to know what was so funny Well, we had time, so I thought, why not talk about it?

“What is the purpose of these questions?” I asked

They had the look of students expecting some sort of trick “To know what visitors we met?” asked A No! Here was our problem I explained that I actually didn’t care how many people they’d met, or who, or where The purpose of the questions was to bring up vocabulary and functions and grammar necessary to talk about receiving visitors, and to talk about issues concerning visitors, particularly international visitors, and to practice meeting visitors in English over and over again until they could

do it comfortably on their own

Then, I modeled what I had been hoping for I went over and sat with the students and role-played the discussion myself, taking the part of both students, like this:

A: Hi, B-san Receiving visitors I don’t have much experience with that topic

B: Really? I do

A: Oh? Have you ever received any visitors?

B: Yes, only one time But I think I’ll meet more in the future, because it’s part of my job now

A: Who did you meet?

B: Mr Sato from the Head Office

A: Did you already know him?

B: A little I hadn’t met him before, but I speak to him on the phone almost every week

A: How did you know who he was, then? Did you make a sign with his name?

B: No, I knew his picture from (checks with imaginary teacher for vocabulary help, and gets it) the Intranet

A: Did he look like his picture?

B: Actually, not really His hair was longer But you know, he was carrying a blue SEI shopping bag

So I knew it was him

And so on The students looked amazed Truly They’d had no idea, no idea at all, that this was what I might want; just as I’d had no idea that they didn’t know They weren’t being uncooperative; they didn’t lack vocabulary or grammar or energy; they weren’t bored They just didn’t know what my expectations were, or even the purpose of the exercise Once they knew what to do, they put the books down and had a good 20-minute discussion on the topic, and ended energized for the rest of the lesson

I’m a huge modeler now, and I don’t wait for things to go wrong first.

I’m a huge modeler now, and I don’t wait for things to go wrong first Whether I want brief, focused answers or a meandering discussion, I never want to turn students loose on a task if they don’t know what its purpose is or how to do it

Dorothy E Zemach is an ESL materials writer, editor, and teacher trainer from Oregon She is a frequent plenary presenter at conferences, a columnist for TESOL’s Essential Teacher magazine, and has written over 15 ESL textbooks, including Sentence Writing,Paragraph Writing,Success With College Writing, and Get Ready For Business(Macmillan) and Writers at Work: The Essay

(Cambridge University Press) Current interests include the teaching of writing, EAP, business

English, testing, and humor in ESL materials and the profession

Chuck SandyIt's Not About Technique

Although I do have a variety of techniques that help maximize talk time for everyone in my classes, those techniques really are not very important They’re just little tricks I’ve developed over the years and are hardly worth mentioning I’ll share one of them with you, but I want to tell you right now: it’s not about technique.

In my bag there’s always a small ball made of fabric It’s colorful and soft and could never hurt anyone Whenever I ask a question in class I wait a few seconds and then toss it out to whomever I seemaking eye contact with me That person catches the little ball, answers the question, and then tosses the ball on to someone else It’s then that person’s turn Sometimes I gently clap my hands and gesturethat I’d like the ball back for a moment to clarify something or make a comment or redirect the flow ofthe work The key here is playfulness and a spirit of fun

The key here is playfulness and a spirit of fun.

I do this in small classes where students sit in a circle and in very large lecture classes where students sit at desks arranged in long rows Whatever the class size or situation, I usually find that after awhile the physical ball becomes unnecessary Until it does, I teach little strategies such as having the throwermake eye contact with the person he or she wishes to toss the ball to and say that person’s name with arising intonation before throwing it

As the catcher catches the ball, he or she holds the eye contact and says uh huh Then the thrower goes

on to ask the question In classes in which the focus is on oral communication this almost always involves some sort of personalized language practice In lecture classes it usually involves a response

to some sort of discussion question and so the strategy taught might be having the thrower say

something like What do you think about that? after making eye contact and saying the person’s name

Then of course the catcher is going to need some hesitation device to use while figuring our just what

it is he or she thinks about that, so I teach students how to use Hmmm, let me think about that or well

Now, just imagine you’ve thrown me the ball:

You: Chuck?

Chuck: Uh huh?

You: Do you think it's enough to just get students talking in English?

Chuck: Well

to tell you the truth, no I don’t I’ve been to plenty of classrooms where there’s a lot of talk going

on, but nothing much being said In these classrooms the focus is on language rather than on people Lessons are built around the dialogue, the meaningful drill, the little role-play, and the fun game There’s a lot going on and it looks like communication but it really isn’t It’s just craft and practice

I wouldn’t encourage anyone to work at maximizing this kind of thing Too often language teachers see themselves as practitioners of a craft or facilitators of practice, armed with activities and tasks, exercises and games all designed to maximize talk time Too often, though, these very things designed

to maximize output, become a wall that blocks real communication

In a recent study conducted by Anne Burns it was shown that output actually increased when students were off task and communicating freely with the teacher

I’ve been to plenty of classrooms where there’s a lot of talk going on, but nothing much being said.

This is not to suggest in any way that teachers should dispense with activities, games, and tasks, but to point out that it’s often the less structured moments of a class which prove to be the most fruitful and that teachers should be aware of them and ready to follow such moments to where they lead It’s also

to say that a good language teacher is no different than a good teacher of any other subject, for as any

good teacher does, a good language teacher creates a comfortable classroom with positive group dynamics where spontaneity is valued and everyone has a chance to be heard.

In addition, like all effective teachers, the effective language teacher uses relevant, intriguing materials

as a springboard and not as a means to a particular end Such materials allow for digressions and leave room for spontaneity and allow both teacher and students to ask real questions of value which go as far

as possible beyond the simple comprehension questions most of us rely upon

Therefore, the effective language teacher, like all effective teachers, thinks about the types of

questions he or she asks and realizes that it’s not the teacher’s voice in the classroom that’s central, butthe voices of students

Finally, like all the best teachers, the effective language teacher is approachable outside of class as well as in I’ve found that one of the most effective ways of increasing communication and

maximizing talk time has been to arrive in my classroom early and to stay late then later to leave myoffice door open

If you want to maximize talk time, just remember this: it’s not about technique Now, would you please toss someone else the ball?

Chuck Sandy is a teacher, teacher trainer, ELT author, essayist and poet who has most recently

coauthored the Active Skills for Communication series with Curtis Kelly He also recently completed work on a second edition of his popular upper-intermediate level series Passages Second Edition with Jack Richards, and is coauthor (with Jack Richards and Carlos Baribsan) of the junior / senior high school level series Connect He is a frequent presenter at conferences and schools around the world where he most often speaks about the joys of project work and the need for materials and practices thatpromote critical thinking

Got Facebook? Then, join Chuck (and Curtis) and over 1800 dedicated teachers from around the world

on the global teachers discussion page for an ongoing conversation about education

Curtis KellyFrom Task Analysis To Reward Analysis

This month’s question, “How do you maximize student talk time?” is an interesting one I am going to make a few assumptions I’ll assume a) the talking is done in pairs or groups (otherwise a choral reading is the best answer) b) the talking is interactive (otherwise speech-giving will suffice), and c) the talking is communicative, meaning that the listener does not know beforehand what the speaker will say (otherwise, the best answer is dialog reading) In short, we need to think about how to keep students talking in conversation or discussion activities

The traditional answer for this question, and still a good one, is to do a task analysis Task analysis means analyzing what the students are instructed to do by breaking it down into its parts and

examining each For example, how many steps or actions are needed to complete the overall task? Are the instructions clear enough for the learners to know exactly what to do? Is the task comprehensible

in their culture? Are the graphics relevant? Do students have the language needed to complete the task? Is the environment conducive for doing so, such as the seating arrangement, noise level, etc.? Are there any other factors that might interfere with task completion, such as a task that embarrasses a learner, or problems with partners?

Usually, when an activity fails, the cause can be explained by one of the reasons above The students

might not know what to do because the instructions are vague, or because they never did anything like this before They might start in English but slip into Japanese because the activity is poorly scaffolded,

or because they can’t see what the teacher wrote on the board

There are dozens of possible flaws that can bring an activity to a halt, and in my experience they are hard to predict That is why I insist on testing each activity in class before putting it into a textbook I remember trying an activity once where students were supposed to discuss which of their classmates they thought was the “smartest.” Most of them tried to find the “thinnest” member of the class More recently, I asked students to talk about their favorite foods with a partner I modeled the activity and wrote a few of my own examples on the board I later noticed that about a third of the students were just using the phrases I had written on the board, thinking that this was the task, presumably because they almost never talked about themselves in high school English classes

However, there are other times when the mechanics, instructions, and all the other task bits are good, but the activity still fizzles out The students just do the minimum and quit At times like these, it is easy to blame the students for not engaging, but the real reason for the halt is that the activity doesn’t have enough “pull.” They just comply with the “push,” and do the minimum necessary to get it over with In this regard, task analysis is a bit weak at determining the level of engagement an activity will engender It occurred to me recently, while studying the neuroscience of learning, that we need

another means of evaluation as well, which I like to call “reward analysis.” Because of the way our brains work, the inherent reward of the activity not only “maximizes student talk time,” it also

So, how can we use reward analysis with Japanese high school and college students to maximize talking? Assuming the level, instructions, graphics, and all the other task components are right on, what kinds of topics will keep students engaged?

Knowing that our learners like sports, shopping, movies, etc, is a good start, but these topics alone are not the end You can just as easily put a class to sleep by having them discuss the French movie John bought for his hockey player friend Instead, knowing why they like sports, shopping, and movies, etc

is the crux And the reason is that they are going through what developmental psychologists call

“moral development.” As I have discussed in other Think Tank articles, moral development is the greatest sociological/psychological task all teens face It means finding themselves, establishing their identities, by determining what they think is right, who they like, finding goals, etc It is driven by their intense biologically-based need at this age to gain autonomy We can do better than just saying they like sports, shopping, and movies; we can say they like these activities because they have a need show their competence, to express themselves, and to figure out the rights and wrongs of the world This is also why many of them are so attracted to English, because it represents a counter-culture of independence (… and classes taught by native speakers, not because they are non-Japanese, but because of the types of activities they tend to use lets students interact.)

So, with reward analysis, we can identify the topics that sustain student interest: those that let them share what is personally meaningful However, even more important than “topics” for satisfying their deeper psychological needs – the need to bond, to gain self-esteem, to discover, and others – are the activities themselves In my 30 years of teaching Japanese learners, I have found that having students make something, solve a problem, figure something out about life, and most importantly, share

something meaningful with peers, gets the most mileage In concrete terms, that might mean having them discuss something that changed their life, explain a childhood experience, propose a class party, discuss the kind of partner they want, solve an information gap mystery, negotiate a fashion remake, and so on

Making students feel creative, smart, cared about, or self-aware, is the basis for every activity I write.

Indeed, making students feel creative, smart, cared about, or self-aware, is the basis for every activity Iwrite, whether for a textbook or for just my own use in class

Curtis Kelly (EDD) is a specialist in adult education, writing and speaking instruction, and brain-basedlearning He has given over 250 presentations and written 17 books, including the Writing from Within and the Active Skills for Communication series Got Facebook? Then, join Curtis (and Chuck) and over 1800 dedicated teachers from around the world on the global teachers discussion page for an ongoing conversation about education

Peter VineyMaximizing Student Talking Time

Twenty-five years ago I was at a conference in Germany I was speaking, and one of my fellow speakers was something of an ELT guru, who shall be nameless Then any lesson observation notes in teacher training kicked off with Student Talking Time vs Teacher talking Time Now this particular guru was a great advocate of paired and group activities, and on minimizing the intervention of the teacher into all that communication in English which was naturally taking place in his imagination About three hundred people attended his talk and three minutes in, we were told to get into groups of four Seven or eight minutes later, we’d assembled our groups of four amidst much confusion We couldn’t agree which handout we’d been told to work our way through, because we’d all forgotten it during the fuss of assembling a group and noisily shifting our metal chairs So we argued about that for a few minutes It was too noisy for us to be able to ask our guru We argued in English, we were, after all teachers of English Handout settled, we worked ten minutes before we were stopped, and the guru spoke for two minutes Incredibly, given the size of the audience we were told to assemble in new groups Five minutes more of shuffling chairs and negotiating ensued We then went through a list of questions about maximizing student talking time Five minutes before the end of the talk, we were told to assess what we had learned today … in the groups, of course

My group of German high school teachers were furious They had paid to come to the conference, and they had travelled a long way They had not come to talk to each other, like they said, but to listen to native speakers and hopefully to glean ideas from the experts They had taken the trouble to read the guru’s book in advance, and had discussed it They all taught at the same school and had travelled together in the same mini-bus They wanted to hear him talk They were kind enough to say they were lucky to have been in a group with one of the very few native speakers in the room (me), but they dismissed the guru as “a really bad teacher.” I admired their confidence So often in similar situations, I’ve watched teachers being perplexed, worried, and finally dismissive of the experts, but still feeling glad to have basked in the light of the guru’s presence The German teachers simply saw that the Emperor was wearing no clothes

The most appropriate medium for communication between one and three hundred is a lecture It’s not impossible to do pair work with three hundred, though group work is really too complex to set up unless you have a “cabaret” seating arrangement where people are already seated around tables in small groups When I was teaching in Britain in the 70s and 80s, my students had four lessons a day inclasses of fifteen, plus two supplementary “lectures” a day These lectures would be with ten classes assembled together, and they took place in a lecture room We didn’t actually do “lectures” but we used to have short acted out dialogues with two teachers; students listening to and then singing Englishpop songs; or the BBC “On We Go” video series We did repetition, drills, questions and pair work with one hundred and fifty The proportion of pair work to teacher-centred work is the important factor My ELT guru had it around 10 to 1 With very large numbers, I’d reverse that.

Maximizing Student Talking Time (MSTT) has become a mantra, often repeated without

analyzing the content.

Maximizing Student Talking Time (MSTT) has become a mantra, often repeated without analyzing the content It is a given that MSTT is a “good thing.” But, as usual, you should question all received wisdom Does it mean Student Talking Time, or Student Vocalizing Time? I’ve seen very teacher controlled classes with lots of student vocalization (repetition and drilling) but I wouldn’t call that

“conversation” though it is “talking.” Teacher controlled interaction questions are Student Talking Time (Do you like tea? Ask him Ask me Ask her about coffee Ask him about hot chocolate, etc) More often, it means pair work and group work

The main question though is how to deal with “talk about what?” Students won’t hold forth in a foreign language without a model, a clear task, and motivation This should be self-evident At one point, I had to watch and evaluate twenty or thirty people teaching every summer I still laugh at the memory of the most highly-qualified candidate, fresh from earning an Applied Linguistics doctorate Confronted with a class of Arab beginners, his task was to introduce adverbs of frequency for the first time in his life, and with material of his own choice Among the things he said in the first ten minutes were “Let’s brainstorm some adverbs of frequency! Get in pairs and make a list” and “Ali, What do you think about adverbs of frequency?” He then asked them to underline the adverbs of frequency in

an authentic piece from The Guardian newspaper He didn’t have a clue about who he was teaching, and was singularly insensitive to student looks of total incomprehension At the end of this, one of the few lessons where I had to fight the urge to just stand up and take over, he asked, “Any questions?”

With remarkably good inflection and with a hint of bitterness one student just said “Are you a

teacher?” The candidate was even more perplexed when I said I’d been introducing adverbs of

frequency to beginners for years, and had only used the words “adverbs of frequency” a few times in initial lessons

Talking won’t ‘just happen’ and it is but one factor in lessons that should involve listening, reading, moving about, doing things, writing a few words, getting involved in the content of a text, listening to grammar explanations, looking at pictures and diagrams, watching things acted out, watching things demonstrated, singing, maybe yawning a bit, and laughing sometimes too

As a postscript, Total Physical Response (TPR) suggests that beginner students benefit from a silent period of comprehending, and responding to instructions, before being exposed to potential ridicule and embarrassment while getting your tongue around those weird foreign noises I’ve often said that TPR is akin to becoming an expert footballer by sitting on a couch watching football on TV rather than playing it Even so, some TPR activities will boost confidence, and learning will be taking place without vocalizing, but with a classroom we can do better

Peter Viney is the co-author of IN English:, Survival English / Basic Survival, Handshake, Grapevine, and Streamline He has written thirteen video courses, and has recently finished work on a major video

self-study project He lives in Poole, UK Peter and Karen Viney’s website is at www.viney.uk.com　Peter’s forthcoming book is Fast Track to Reading published by Garnet Education

Marc HelgesenHow do we maximize student talk time?

There a French proverb that I like a lot:

The way to become a blacksmith is to be a blacksmith

If you want to become a blacksmith, you don’t read about blacksmithing, you do things blacksmiths

do The same holds true for becoming an English speaker – the students need to speak English to learnEnglish English is not only the goal, it is also the pathway to that goal Of course, nothing is as simple

as it is sometimes made out to be Students need comprehensible input through reading and listening, including comprehensible input from the teacher And we know that giving a minute or two of “think time” before a speaking task increases fluency, linguistic complexity, accuracy, and vocabulary variety And, of course, not every English class is a speaking class But in conversation classes, the students should be doing most of the talking

If you want to become a blacksmith, you don’t read about blacksmithing, you do things

blacksmiths do The same holds true for becoming an English speaker.

A couple years ago I was on sabbatical One of my projects was to observe classes in a range of situations around Japan, Korea, and Thailand My publisher organized these so, in most cases, the classes were using textbooks I had written It was fascinating and delightful to see the ways teachers took my materials and made them their own Well, usually fascinating and delightful In a very few cases, I observed classes where it was clear the teacher really didn’t know how to organize a speaking class In most of those classes, there was a constant babble from the teacher – if comprehensible input

is i+1 (the learners current level plus a slight increase), this was more like i+50 The students were left clueless about what to do They also got very little practice actually using English It was a shame These were teachers who I know wanted the learners to succeed and, in most cases, were students whodid, too

It made me want to do what writers to: write something I wrote a couple skill sheets about ways to maximize student speaking time I wrote them so the publishers rep’s would have something to give toteachers, especially those teachers who were new to teaching English or who may not have had much training I’ve revised the skill sheets here to make them less tied to any particular textbook

I’m leaving them in “skill sheet” form, rather than the usual prose of this blog because I thought the

“bullet point” approach may be more useful for busy teachers Have a look at them here:

Maximizing Learner Speaking Time

How to Maximize Learner Speaking Time

The first suggests the basic ideas The second one (How to maximize…” gives more step-by-step” suggestions I hope you find them useful If you do, feel free to copy them to share with colleagues

Marc Helgesen is professor at Miyagi Gakuin Women's University, Sendai and adjunct at Teachers College Columbia University MA TESOL Program - Tokyo He is an author of over 100 articles, books, and textbooks including the English Firsthand series and has lead teacher development

workshops on five continents Marc also maintains the ELT and the Science of Happiness website to distribute ELT/Positive Psychology downloads and a website for various presentation handouts

http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/knowledge-wiki/teacher-talking-time

Maximizing Student Talk Time

Mid Year Conference January 22nd, 2007

Presented by Masahiko Mikami & Brett Stendell

 Warm-Up

 Theoretical Considerations for Successful

Speaking Activities

 The Basics—Phonics!

 A Look at Suggested Activities

 Assessing, Tinkering & Presenting

 A Room Full of Teachers

 Conclusion

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Warm-up: Find Someone Who………….………1 Why Encourage Speaking? ……….2-3 Some Basic Theory……… 4-6 Phonics……….7-11 (Suggested Activities)

Warm-Ups……… 12-16 Short Activities, 15-20 minutes……….17-24

Extended Activities (Over Several Classes)…………25-28

Contact Information:

Brett Stendell @ Atago Junior High School

Phone: 022-225-7458 email: tsuki_lover@yahoo.com

Masahiko Mikami @ Atago Junior High School

Phone: 022-225-7458 email: masahiko@sendai-c.ed.jp

Formulate questions which will solicit affirmative answers to the prompts provided below (for

example, “Do you have a blue bicycle?”) Continue asking the question until you find someone who can answer “yes” and then write that person’s name in the space provided Add two more questions of your own at the bottom of the list

has a blue bicycle

can play the guitar

teaches in Matsushima

has a birthday in the fall

has lived abroad for more than one year

has children (or a child)

ate at a restaurant last weekend

has taught English for more than 10 years

commutes to work by bicycle

has been to more than 10 countries

is the youngest child in the family

can speak Spanish

II Why Encourage Speaking?

Oral Communication and Japanese students: Evidence of a Problem

 (Non)conversations with students outside of class

 “How are you?” (Same response.)

 “How old are you?” (Lost look.)

 “What are your hobbies?” (Looks to friend.)

 Students’ inability to form questions (“What do you like colors?”)

 Outside of the “target grammar” structure of the JHS classroom, students are generally unable to carry the most basic conversation I believe that one reason for this is because they have been taught to rely too heavily on form (accuracy) and not enough on communication (fluency)

 Long-term vs Short-term memory Retention…Dangers of Flashcards

 Reading Aloud as “Speaking”

So how can we as English Language Teachers change this pattern? What are the

components of a “successful” Speaking Activity? With a partner who is NOT your ALT/JTE, please list three things that you feel are important when designing Speaking Activities.

Possible Reasons for the Communication Breakdown:

1 Teacher-Centered Classes

Solution: Create student-centered activities

Students should be doing most of the talking

Teachers should step back and monitor

2 Low Motivation for Students

Solution: Use English everywhere: in the hallway, in the teacher’s room, with other English

teachers Show students that English is real!

3 Real Life Situations in Class are Rare…Adherence to Textbook

Solution: Make English tangible, not just another textbook to study

Do role-plays & skits

Include a cultural context

4 Adherence to Form and Practice Patterns

(“Repeat after me…” “Read this sentence…”)

Solution: Give students a chance to use the grammar by doing more communicative activities

Continual isolation of the grammar prevents students from incorporating it into a larger context

5 Students Never Create Language

Solution: Let the students be in charge of creating language

Do more free-talking

Begin each class with a conversation topic

Other possible reasons…

 Few Opportunities to Use English

 Emphasis on Standardized Tests

 Students’ belief that English is 無理！

III Points to Remember When Teaching Speaking

Speaking Activities should ideally allow students to use any and all language at their command, not

just a prescribed sentence pattern or grammar point.

WHY?

 It allows students to “get the feel” of communicating in a foreign language Simply reading atarget sentence off a piece of paper is NOT communicating (nor is it an effective SpeakingActivity as it does not activate the long-term memory)

 It provides feedback Speaking Activities allow the teacher and the students to discover whichpoints need review and which points have been successfully learned

 Good Speaking Activities should be motivating and should build confidence in the students Thiswill encourage them to try harder

FOUR things students need when being introduced to new language:

1 They must be exposed to it— hear it used in context by the teacher.

2 They must understand its meaning— know when to use it.

3 They must understand its form— know how to use it.

4 They must use it And use it again…and again they must activate it.

 From How to Teach English Harmer, Jeremy Longman 1991.

ARC: Authentic, Restricted, Clarification

Authentic… Activities where language use is not restricted

Students have an opportunity to use all of the language they know to really communicate

Restricted… Activities that offer opportunities for language practice,

for improving accuracy, for testing, for display

Clarification… Teacher explanation; reference to a grammar book; etc

 From “ARC: a descriptive model for classroom work on language” in Challenge and Change

in Language Teaching Scrivener, Jim Ed Willis, Jane Macmillan Heineman 1998.

Further Considerations for Assessing Students’

Communicative Abilities:

1 Accuracy… How well is the language produced in relation to the

rules of the target grammar?

2 Complexity… How ambitious is the language which students produce?

3 Fluency… How well can students produce language in real time without undue pausing

or hesitation?

 It is important for us as language teachers to create situations which maximize thechances for a balance between these different goals when planning speaking activities

Argument in Favor of Targeting Fluency:

If too much attention is paid to specific language forms (i.e targeted grammar) a particular mind set will be induced in students When pressure is applied to students to (a) conform to the use of certain structures and to (b) use these accurately, the less likely it is that students will achieve acceptable levels of fluency and use “riskier” language structures (26)

However, the problem is…

…that relying too heavily on a “communicative approach” gives students greater fluency but may be limiting in the long-term Students gain the ability to solve communication problems quickly using chunks of readily available language, but may be unable to make measurable language progress in terms of language precision over the long-term (22)

The biggest challenge….

What do we do with the low-level learner? How can we apply this to them?

 From “Second language acquisition research and task-based instruction” in Challenge and

Change in Language Teaching Skehan, Peter Ed Willis, Jane Macmillan Heineman 1998.

IV Phonics…to help with Pronunciation!

The 1-nensei textbook jumps from the ABCs to “Hi, I am Yuki” with no intermediate step in between What this insures for students is an inability to spell and an inability to pronounce new words when they are encountered An understanding of phonics is crucial for good reading & writing and will certainly help students when speaking I would propose incorporating phonics into your lessons as a 5 minute warm-up, 1-2 times per week It could be as simple as one new sound per week This is a