1. BALANCING TEACHER TALK TIME AND STUDENT
TALK TIME IN THE ESL/EFL CLASSROOM
Sudharani Subramanian
Department of Western Languages and Linguistics
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
Mahasarakham University
7 September, 2012

2. WHAT IS TEACHER TALK?
Language used in the process of teaching
According to Parish(2004) Teacher Talk falls into these categories:
• Warm-up chats
• Direct Instruction
• Giving Directions
• Giving Feedback
• Making transitions
• Checking Understanding

3. TEACHER TALK TIME HAS INVERSE RELATION
WITH STUDENT TALK TIME

4. A cause and effect scenario
Teacher Talk Time Student Talk Time
• Students listen most of the time
• Teacher talks most of the time( Active (Passive learner)
teacher)
• Boring classes/ no scope for talking
• Only explaining and lecturing
• Encouraging students to talk
• Balanced teacher talk
• Increase risk taking/ less intimidating
• Tolerate silence / increase wait time
• Scope for students communicating
• Pair/group work/role with each other and the teacher
play/debates/discussion
• Students talk about what they know
• Use more referential questions and the teacher doesn’t know
• Limit display questions • Give them importance
• Take a back seat • Let the story roll
• A picture is worth a thousand words

5. Does it mean?

6. • Teacher talk Student Talk
INCREASE IN STUDENT TALK TIME

7. Something to think about…………………
• It’s not the amount of teacher talk
time alone that matters
• It’s what kind of teacher talk do we
engage in?

8. Observing and reflecting on one’s own teaching
TTT !!!!!!!
TTT !!!!!!
Oh no!

9. It’s time for a change