ttt.++Teacher+talking+time

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. Example A teacher monitoring students working in groups completing a discussion will probably do fairly little talking, limiting themselves to clarification of the task and offering language when requested. The same teacher leading an **inductive** grammar presentation will probably talk more, as they explain, illustrate and check understanding. In the classroom The relative value of TTT and STT is a complex area. Learners need to produce language in real time conversation; to give them a chance to notice their own mistakes, and for the class to be student-centred. They also need input from an effective language user in order to form hypotheses about language rules, and the teacher may be one of the main sources of this input. A teacher can start exploring this area by taping themselves and finding out when, why and how much they and their students talk.