Reflexion

During all the time I have been teaching I’d always thought I was the kind of teacher who allowed students to participate actively in the class. I still think I provide them with opportunities tointeract and participate during the lesson but after discussing and analyzing how much time teachers speak I was shocked. I realized teachers tend to talk a lot. In my specific case I consider I’m tooconcerned about my students having clear information of the procedures and contents taught in class that I talk too much.

Teacher talk time (TTT) refers to the amount of time a teacher talks duringa lesson. It may vary depending on the type of objective stated for the day. This means that a teacher will speak more if the purpose of the lesson is to introduce a topic but will speak less time ifthe objective is to provide students with opportunity to practice the language. However, the teacher should roughly limit his/her speaking to 20% or 30% of the class time with the thought in mind ofletting the student speak and use the language. On the other hand, student talk time (STT) should be 80% during the course of the lesson. Their use of the lesson should also promote thoughtful andreal thinking.

As I mentioned before studying the importance of TTT and STT in class made me realized I tend to speak too much. I am always talking and giving directions to make myself sure thatstudents are really understanding. The problem is that the rely too much on the teacher and expect him/her to give them all the answers. This doesn’t encourage participation in our students; they willjust wait for us to give solutions to all their problems. When I evaluated myself in regard to this topic I found out I needed to change this aspect of my teaching. Students need to have cleardirections and guidance but they also need to challenge themselves and figure out how to solve their own problems.

I also discovered there are many advantages in letting our students participate more...