English teachers, are you talking too much

in class?
Contact us
By Declan Cooley
03 December 2014 - 07:16
938 20 52 7 3589

'The first step to reducing teacher talking time is simply to be aware of it.' Photo ©
Mateus Lunardi Dutra, licensed under CC BY 2.0 and adapted from the original.

In what ways do English teachers talk too much in the classroom and how can they
'unlearn' this tendency? Declan Cooley, teacher trainer on the CELTA course at the British
Council in Poland, explains.

Reducing the amount teachers talk in the classroom is one of the most frequent issues teachers
deal with throughout a training course. The tendency new teachers have to 'lecture' students
probably comes from their own experience of learning at school. One of the tasks of a teacher
trainer is therefore to help new teachers ‘unlearn’ the idea that teachers are people whose job it is
to talk a lot.

Of course, there is teacher talking time (TTT) that can benefit students in the form of teacher
demonstrations, conveying meaning and telling anecdotes. Still, the thing with unhelpful teacher
talk is that it can leak out in many small, often unnoticed, ways. When added up, these leaks can
diminish the quality of the learning experience, giving students less breathing space to practise
the language in the classroom. And it’s not only new teachers who have this tendency. All
language teachers can get into the habit of talking too much in lessons, particularly in the
following four ways.

1. Repeating instructions

There are naturally very good intentions behind repeating instructions but students can get used
to teachers repeating themselves and may start switching off. For example:

'Read out the cards , don’t show each other and then, if they go together, sit down. So these
cards belong together, so this person needs to find this person and they need to sit down
together ... . I’d like you to read it to other people in the class. Remember: no showing, and when
you think you’ve found your new partner, sit down together, OK?'

A way to counter this is in the form of instruction-checking questions:

- 'Do you show your partner your card?' (No).
- 'What happens when you find your partner?' (Sit down together).

Here’s another example of unnecessary repetition:

'Stand up. If you could all stand up ... Yes, stand up'

Probably the more times the teacher says this, the less impact it has. Wouldn’t one ‘stand up
everyone’ and some gesturing carry more weight?

2. Saying much more than the students when receiving a contribution

Here is an example of teacher getting an answer to a question and then saying too much:

Student: (quietly) 'Ten years ago'

Teacher: 'Would you like to tell everyone the answer you were thinking of again because I don’t
think they heard it when you spoke so quietly and I’m sure we’d all be interested in hearing it if
you could, please?'

In the following example, the teacher is at the board and trying to clarify some language:

Student: 'I’ve lived here for ten years.'

Teacher: 'Well, that wasn’t really what I was hoping you’d say when I asked that question. I was
actually looking for the name of the verb tense, not an example sentence. But what you gave me
was fine. Only, does anyone, I wonder, have the answer I’m looking for?'

In this first case, the word ‘louder’ with a smile and a gesture will work well. In the second, you
can probably think of a way to say less. A good rule of thumb might be to say half as much as the
students, at a maximum.

3. Asking lengthy questions

This is an example from an open class discussion:

Teacher: 'If I were to ask you for your opinion on the topic of genetically modified food, what do
you think you might say to me in reply to that?'

Again, this may be a well-intentioned way to appear tentative and thus polite. However, the
possible benefit of this approach is outweighed by the confusion it may cause the student. A
shorter, more direct version of this question probably comes to mind.

4. Echoing what students have just said in answer to a question

In this case, the teacher is getting contributions in open class after students have talked about
favourite holiday activities in pairs:

Student: (giving their opinion) 'I like going to the beach, because it is fun.'

Teacher: 'OK, so you like going to the beach, because it is fun. Right, good.'

And here's another example of open-class feedback, but on this occasion, the answers to a
reading task are being checked.
Student: 'The answer is 'False'.'

Teacher: 'False. That’s right. False. Good.'

In both these cases, there is little reason to echo the student's answer if everyone in the class
has clearly heard it. If they haven’t heard it, try ‘louder’. If you are not sure if another student has
heard the answer, you can say ‘Tim, did you hear that?’ All of these prompts will send the
message that it is not just for the teacher to hear, but for everyone.

There are times when other types of repetition do make sense, such as when reformulating an
answer. An example of this is if the student says ‘I like go to the beach because is fun’. Repeating
a correct version of this could be a gentle form of correction. Reformulation is conversational
without breaking the flow -- you can lean on certain parts of the sentence with your voice and use
meaningful facial expressions to signal that you are making corrections in a subtle yet clear way.

Summing up

Each of these four examples of unnecessary TTT turn up even in the best of lessons from time to
time. Occasionally we can feel ourselves justifying our need for TTT as we return (unconsciously
perhaps) to the belief that ‘the teacher who talks a lot is teaching a lot’. But on reflection, we can
see that much of it may be motivated by the reassuring sound of our own voice, or clinging to the
spotlight of attention. We may even justify TTT as a way of exposing students to useful language,
forgetting what a deluge of words it often sounds like to students.

The first step to reducing TTT is simply to be aware of it. But once you become more aware, don't
be too self-critical. Simply noticing the tendency and stopping it in its tracks earlier and earlier
without self-reproach is a sensible path to follow. The result will be a classroom with more silent
space in which students’ voices can flourish.