Teacher-talk in the language class

Teacher-talk in the language class

1. The Myth of the Silent Teacher

   • The less the teacher talks, and the more the students talk, the better.
     • It is just as important to assess its quality. It is not 'how much teacher-talk is there in a lesson?' but what kind of teacher-talk is there
       • It is not about that good teaching consists only of talking interactively with the class. The students has to talk and produce their input.
         • I think that students learn not only through 'comprehensible input' but also their own output.

2. There are stages of language- development in which good teacher-talk is probably the single most important kind of input.

   • It is often better to have no teacher at all rather than a bad or foolish one.
     • The person providing the input is important

3. Ellis's 'eight conditions favourable to language acquisition

   • A high quantity of input directed at the learner
     • The learner's perceived need to communicate in the L2.
       • Independent control of the propositional content by the learner
         • Adherence to the 'here and now' principle, at least initially.
           • The performance of a range of speech acts by both native speaker/teacher and the learner
             • Exposure to a high quantity of directives.
               • Exposure to a high quantity of 'extending utterances
                 • Opportunities for uninhibited 'practice'

4. Learners typically go through 'silent periods' while they are learning. It is especially during these 'silent periods' that 'good teacher-talk' of the kind I have in mind is especially useful.

   • Teachers should 'elicit' information from the class, get them talking in pairs or groups.
     • There are students struggling with the simplest elements of the language.

5. Comprehensible input is essential. The teacher is usually the best and sometimes the only person who can provide comprehensible input.

   • Comprehensible input is the fuel, not the engine of language acquisition.

6. Classrooms and the uses and limitations of formal teaching.

   • They do not and cannot offer the same natural profusion of daily occurrences that life in the streets outside offer

7. Questions of degree and interpretation

   • The 'high quantity of input' occurs through interaction between teacher and learner or teacher and class.
     • learners perceive their own need to communicate
       • students have independent control over the input
         • The learner needs the opportunity to listen to and to produce language

8. When, then, is teacher-talk helpful? when the following conditions are met.

   • It is broken into sense groups
   • It is simplified but not unnatural
   • It is more redundant than 'ordinary speech' and words and structures are naturally repeated or 're-cycled' at regular intervals
   • It is broken into 'short paragraph' segments to encourage or invite students to interrupt, comment and ask questions.
   • When new vocabulary or structure is taught, typical examples are given
   • The teacher gets regular feedback through questions
   • Teacher uses other devices to get feedback
   • Variety of elicitation & explanation techniques are used
   • It is between 95% and 85% comprehensible

9. The question of 'authenticity'

   • The only way to prepare students for authentic language is to expose them from the very start to 'authentic language'
     • Students learn to engage in authentic discourse outside the classroom only be being engaged in completely 'authentic' language' inside the classroom.

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