One of the main requirements for teachers at HALE – Practical English and The Little Gióng – Vietnamese Around the World is to minimize Teacher Talking Time (TTT) in all classes, not just speaking classes.
(1). In essence, this means that teachers should speak less and allow students to speak more. Students need to practice in order to ensure that their knowledge doesn’t remain stagnant in their heads, where they may know the answer to a question but not be able to use it in practice. It’s like having a fancy refrigerator that you never use and it eventually goes bad.
(2). When I first started training teachers on TTT, some were surprised because they had never heard of this theory before, while others were thrilled to learn that their TTT was higher than their STT (student talking time), which could explain why the teachers’ speaking skills were improving while students were not speaking as much. The danger was that the class was becoming a speaking class for teachers rather than for students!
One of the main requirements for teachers at HALE – Practical English and The Little Gióng – Vietnamese Around the World is to minimize Teacher Talking Time (TTT) in all classes, not just speaking classes.
In essence, this means that teachers should speak less and allow students to speak more. Students need to practice in order to ensure that their knowledge doesn’t remain stagnant in their heads, where they may know the answer to a question but not be able to use it in practice. It’s like having a fancy refrigerator that you never use and it eventually goes bad.
When I first started training teachers on TTT, some were surprised because they had never heard of this theory before, while others were thrilled to learn that their TTT was higher than their STT (student talking time), which could explain why the teachers’ speaking skills were improving while students were not speaking as much. The danger was that the class was becoming a speaking class for teachers rather than for students!
Improving these three things will definitely help to address the TTT issue.
That teacher eventually accepted leaving happily and thanked me for helping them realize their inherent personality and habits that require a long time to practice to control. They were born into a difficult family and had to provide for the entire family for a long time, so they had to do everything quickly and urgently to keep up. Now, even if they try to speak less and slower to give way to students, they still can’t do it.
Some teachers adapt very quickly, and it must be said that their students are lucky to be given many opportunities to speak English in a country that has little chance of communicating in English.
Note:
(1) Teacher talking time (TTT) is the time that teachers spend talking in class, rather than learners. It can be compared with student-talking time. 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. (TTT là thời gian mà thay vì học sinh được nói thì lại là GV nói. Một cách thức trong nhiều cách thức hiện đại là giảm TTT càng nhiều càng tốt để học sinh có cơ hội được nói và được học hỏi từ hoạt động nói.) (British Council, https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/…/teacher-talking….)
(2) https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/…/pros-cons-teacher…
This page provides an explanation for why TTT should be reduced:
- TTT limits STT. If a teacher’s TTT takes up half of a 60-minute lesson for 15 students, then each student only has 2 minutes to speak.
- Too much TTT leads to one-way transmission of knowledge and causes students to lose focus, become bored, and have poor retention.
- Teachers often use TTT to convey information that students could discover on their own, such as grammar rules or word meanings. The teacher’s explanations are often full of technical terms and lengthy, making it difficult for students to follow along, and it is uncertain whether students understand the lesson or not.
- TTT reduces the initiative and responsibility of students in the lesson because too much TTT makes them feel that the teacher is doing everything for them.
