This week and next I’m continuing my series of writings on Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL), using more material taken from assignments I did for my TESL course. Today’s post was written back in mid-December, and is about teacher vs. student talk time in the language classroom. I should add that there’s quite a bit of student talk time in the Japanese class I’m taking now. This is a good thing.
There is a big difference between accuracy and fluency. This is an idea I have thought about frequently during both my private Japanese-language studies and my teaching English course.
I have studied Japanese off and on for a few years now. If tested, I would probably discover that I have a fairly large vocabulary. I also know the basics of Japanese grammar and pronunciation fairly accurately. However, I am far from fluent. In fact, it is a struggle for me to carry on even the most basic of conversations in Japanese.
So what’s missing? It is true that I could (and should) spend a lot more time studying. But probably the thing I need the most is more practice actually using what I already know; I need more talk time. I heard someone point out recently that in real, every day conversations, it’s actually more important to be fluent than it is to be accurate. In other words, getting an idea or message across to the person we’re speaking to should be our concern, rather than making sure we get every word and grammar use exactly right. I think this is true. Of course we should always aim to improve, but real communication can still take place even while we’re still learning. And in the process of trying, failing and trying again, we learn more than we could have without trying at all.
If practice is so important in learning a second language, then in ESL conversation classes it is important that we as teachers give the students ample opportunities to put into practice what we have been teaching them. If we’re going to do this, we need to be willing to talk less. Teacher talk time is important, especially as we introduce new concepts. But without actually putting these new language items to work, students are less likely to remember them when the class is over. If the students do not get talk time in class, they will not improve in their ability to actually communicate in English. This is especially true if we are living in a non-English speaking country, where students don’t get many opportunities to use English in their lives outside the classroom.
For these reasons, I think it is important for teacher talk time to be limited so that student talk time takes up a large part of each lesson. As for an exact ratio, that it would depend on the size of the class. In smaller classes, there can be more teacher-to-student interaction without any students being left out. In larger classes, students will have to talk to each other more and to the teacher less. In either case, though, the teacher should err on the side of speaking less (20-40% of class time). Teacher talk time should always be less than half of the lesson, with that percentage being lower the more students there are.