What is Teacher Talking Time?
Ask yourself an important question. Why do you want to learn English? Over the years EC English language schools have interviewed thousands of students and usually the answer is that they want to focus on speaking English for university, their careers or just for fun. Is that how you feel? Whatever your reason, how do you know if your lessons are helping you get closer to your goal of speaking fluently? In English language teaching we talk about two opposing aspects to a lesson; Student Talking Time and Teacher Talking Time. At EC, teachers’ lessons are judged on how well a teacher balances these two important aspects. In this blog we are going to focus on Teacher Talking Time (TTT), explain what it is and give you some examples of effective TTT and some examples of ineffective TTT that doesn’t help students improve. So, what exactly is TTT? TTT refers to the amount of time a teacher talks in class. To put it simply, when a teacher is talking, the students are not! We know it is important teachers talk in class to explain the language but how can we be sure they are not robbing the students of opportunities to speak themselves? We can guarantee you have had lessons with many teachers over the years. Often the teachers we remember most are the ones we laughed with. But ask yourself if you learned a lot with these teachers. Having fun does not always translate into learning! Consider the six scenarios below. Which scenarios have the more effective teacher? Scenario 1 – On Monday morning your teacher arrives in class with a big smile. They stand and talk for 10 minutes about their weekend, where they went, a film they saw and a conversation they had. Their stories and dramatic … Read more