How can we increase TTT?

[LarryLatham]

Teachers, it seems, and in particular teacher trainers, are always trying to find ways to reduce the time that teachers talk in class and increase the time that students are talking.

While there may be particular classroom circumstances where increasing STT is desirable, there are also, uncontroversially, I hope, many others where it is more desirable for the students to listen to the teacher talking. In the early stages of students' learning of English, listening is far more important than speaking.

What are some of the creative ways you may have found to talk with your relative beginner students (I, personally, am most interested in finding ways to talk to adult students, but ideas relating to young students would also be valuable) without "talking down" to them? What do you do with new groups of beginning students?

Larry Latham

[will mcculloch]

Hi,

Larry raises an important point here , I feel.

STT vs TTT

Isn't the real issue something like -
how much positive Interaction Time there is in a class?

Talking and listening might just be moving mouths and empty ears.....
and what does it really matter who is talking as long as communication and improvement are as present as possible.

Lots of STT can produce virtually nothing ( or nearly everything).
Similarly with TTT.

Effectiveness and enjoyment probably just depend on....
i) the appropriateness of the lesson....and
ii) the real levels of co-operation/motivation/enjoyment in the room.

TTT and STT should maybe just be based on a value judgement about what's best at that time - and as Larry mentions... listening is usually more important than speaking at the early stages. That balance will naturally change over time - together with the relative importance of reading, writing and all other activities.

There are, of course, no easily definable answers - but the goal of increasing STT has to be a good one. The teacher should ideally become less and less useful to the whole process over time - and more real learning hopefully take place within lessons that are increasingly driven by student input.

Then - one fine day - when the teacher has no more questions to answer (on the language learning front at least) - he (or she) can quietly slip away to do something else.

A leaving present would be nice though!

Best Wishes etc
Will

[LarryLatham]

Well put, Will!

I do, and wholeheartedly, agree. It is not enough to simply impose a lesson--any kind of lesson, whether it be largely based around listening or around speaking, or around any other theme--on a class simply because of a lesson plan. One must, if one desires to be maximally helpful to one's students, be able and willing to take the measure of the class every day, and act upon the results. Planning is good. Planning helps to keep moving in a general direction you think is providing progress. But being open to tossing your plans back in the briefcase and striking out in a new direction because something came up--a student question; a spectacular event; an unexpected result in a class exercise; whatever seems appropriate--may give your students a special opportunity to excel.

That said, I still would welcome suggestions from "the team", as Norm Ryder so aptly calls all of us, about what may be done with students who you want to primarily listen. How do you talk to them without too much risk of boring them to death?

Larry Latham

[will mcculloch]

Hi,

Larry asks...

"What are some of the creative ways you may have found to talk with your relative beginner students (I, personally, am most interested in finding ways to talk to adult students, but ideas relating to young students would also be valuable) without "talking down" to them? What do you do with new groups of beginning students?"

*** Well, I'm not sure if there is any magic formula or not... and just think that each individual teacher must find/discover/stumble across their own particular style/creative ways. The most important ingredient, in my opinion, is for the teacher to be true to themselves and the class or individual student. The "talking" has to be genuine rather than a false following of somebody else's style or suggested structure. And the teacher must be flexible enough to adapt to the changing situation.

Some teachers have amazed me with their ability to captivate groups of beginners.... by just talking slowly and simply about topics that I personally would never dream of copying in a million years - For example, the best teacher of adult beginners that I've ever come across just talks to her students about boyfriends and drunken nights in the pub.

It sounds like an awful and totally unrecommendable approach, but it works wonders for her and her students. They not only improve rapidly.... but also just can't wait for her lessons.

She entertains, has personality, "IT", call it what you will - she's a communicator.......... Of course, she's also a highly talented, intelligent friendly, caring person with a deep and genuine interest in her students. She uses her natural style to help students feel relaxed, to open them up, and encourage them to talk a little about their relationships, work, interests - or whatever.

She plays it by ear, there is often laughter to be heard - but she also has what Larry says is needed...a PLAN, a very serious plan - and the students really take notice when she feels that the time is right to introduce or revise an important grammar point.

She doesn't have any formal teaching qualifications....but she's a real teacher, the very best kind I'd say....and no-one could successfully copy her style. But lots more teachers could be as successful as her - just by following their own way.(I think)

Personally, whenever I do the odd bit of teaching to beginners, I tend to

- find out what topics individuals are interested in .... and concentrate on vocabulary expansion exercises in those areas
- do regular short dictations/ class reading exercises
- tell strange (and hopefully) funny stories from travels or the past
- tell the very occasional joke.....and just
- go down whatever line seems appropriate on the day ... which might include a little grammar... but probably not a lot.

The girlfriend topic and pub stories usually don't crop up ( unless asked)....and I don't encourage it within the group through fear of it all getting too personal and going horribly wrong. I really have no idea how the teacher I mentionned gets away with her approach - but she does..... and she's a brilliant, brillliant teacher.

What's the answer?...I don't know. Maybe to just encourage/let students express what they want to hear...and then give them a good listening exercise....full of you and a genuine interest in helping the learning process.

In short... if talk is genuine it'll probably work a treat...without boredom
If it isn't...it's probably a waste of time for everyone....with boredom+++

I don't think "talking down" has anything to do with age - but that the teacher has a responsibility to show respect to all students by tuning into their needs - and then operating on a level that is appropriate to their age and personality.

OK, apologies for such a wishy washy non-commital contribution on this one....and I'm also looking forward to any more definite tips from other people.

Best wishes

Will

[strider]

Larry, thanks for starting another stimulating discission. I think there are two issues I would like to respond to.

1. How to increase TTT. As we discussed before in other threads, all methods and ideas can be seen as tools in our toolboxes. Some time ago, I dug down real deep in my box and decided to try dictation. My students (French speaking, 18-22 year olds, lower intermediate) are well-drilled in this method in other subjects so I decided to give an exam correction by dictation, rather than by trying to discuss it. The results were very encouraging - the students made great efforts to get the right words. To correct the exercise, I simply displayed the text using an overhead projector slide, allowing the students to find their own mistakes. We then discussed how different words can sound similar, or even identical and how listening for individual words has to be linked to context.

Why not try it? You mentioned students who are just starting their training - why not dictate something to them that you would usually deal with in a different way - 'What to do in case of a fire' for example?

2. You also mentioned '...to talk with your relative beginner students without "talking down" to them' This is an important issue that I would like to discuss. Too often, I have seen exchanges between teachers and student along the lines of teachers telling students they need to act with more maturity and students reacting as, well, typical students and ignoring the advice. It becomes a kind of role-play and the well-intentioned advice is lost in the perpetual stand-off between the generations.

Years ago, in a non-teaching context, I learned a bit about 'Transactional Analysis'. I don't know if this thinking is still in vogue or not but I, too, would like to know about ways of not "talking down" to students.

What do you think?

[neil]

Hi, you guys seem to know a lot about teaching, but for what it's worth, here's my contribution....

I really don't understand why anyone would want to increase ttt, but as for making it more effective, I just feel that if the teacher is not interested in what he/she is saying, then the students certainly won't be.

I wonder if any of you guys saw my other post about ttt. If you have any ideas I'd appreciate hearing them.

[Lorikeet]

First of all, thanks for explaining what TTT means <grin>. I think I'm a little behind in the abbreviations department! I think there has to be a nice mix between TTT and STT.

When I started teaching ESL in 1968, no one was talking about too much TTT. Although we had students respond, repeat, and used creative ways to do that, there was never a point where the students worked together without the teacher. A few years after I started teaching, I remember setting up an activity, getting my students into groups of four, and letting them all complete the activity at the same time. Wow! They were all speaking English and I felt like I had nothing to do. Of course there was plenty to do, walking around from group to group answering questions and making comments, but I had given up some of my control and the results were very positive.

From that day on, I have always used pair and group work as part of my lessons, but only as part. I still think there is a lot to be said for teacher modeling. My students enjoy dictations, which I think are very underused these days. Of course, what you do with them is also important. I have used them in different ways, but the main part is always dictating first at normal native speaker speed, giving them a chance to look at their work (comparing with other students if they like) to see where problems might be, and then repeating again at native speaker speed, and then with a very slow unnatural (yet still with native speaker intonation, stress, reductions, etc.) repetition and then ending with a fast one. I have dictated sentences or stories, and in some cases I've had them make questions about the stories I've dictated. Most of them say their listening has improved after these exercises.

In addition, I tell them little funny stories about things that happen to me, as the topic arises. (Actually, every silly thing I've ever done has wended its way into one of my classes at one time or another. They all know about the time I locked myself out of the garage, fell in the bathtub, had to dive in the garbage bin looking for some books, etc.) There are also some silly stories that can help them remember things. (Like the time on the bus the man behind me said, "Kiss Me" and I had a momentary flash of anger until I realized he had said, "Excuse Me" in his Cantonese accent because he wanted to get off the bus. That one is always funny to my students.)

In terms of not talking down to adults--I've never had a problem with that, and I've taught students in mixed classes who have no English skills at all. If you realize they are adults and you respect them, they will feel it. I think the atmosphere in my classroom is one of mutual respect. I sometimes do a little slapstick to explain things, I admit, but laughter is a good way for students to learn. And I'm not afraid of looking silly. (I sometimes tell beginning teachers about the time the head of the school came into the room and saw me at the front holding a pencil inside of a straw in a cup on a plate on my head, while teaching "in" "on" and "under.")

Well I don't know if I actually said anything about the topic, but I had fun reminiscing <grin>.

[sita]

In any of my courses for 15 minutes one of my students is the teacher
(with prompts from me)
they are strict and love it

I always feel the less I talk the better
What I learned at Cambridge:
Never do what a student can do.....

I feel confident as a *guide* but I most of the time I talk as little as possible. The students are involved and are not bored to death. I subtly lead them in the right direction


Siân

[surrealia]

For some great reading related to this topic, read Guy Cook's article at The English Teacher Website:

http://elt.au.edu/

The article is called Old Dogmas, New Directions.

[LarryLatham]

Yes, a thought-provoking read, surrealia. And thanks for turning us on to the website.

Larry Latham

[stephen]

Neil

A high level of TTT can be extremely valuable in some situations. Take for example primary students. With Young Learners it is very natural that they should focus on reception activities before production. Indeed, lessons for YLs will often not go well if they are pushed into production activities too early. This is particularly true for younger and lower level students. For a guide to planning lessons for such students I would recommend Teaching English in the Primary Classroom by Susan Halliwell (pub. Longman). If you look at this book you will see that students actually speak in the latter stages of lessons not in the former stages.

Regards
Stephen