What Is TTT When Teaching English?

English teaching no longer means long grammar lectures or vocabulary lists that fill an entire class. Teachers who minimize teacher talking time (TTT) and increase student talking time (STT) in ESL classes change how much practice learners get, both in the physical classroom and online. This article answers the question, “What is TTT when teaching English?” and covers the benefits of reducing TTT along with techniques that get your learners speaking more in class.

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What is TTT?

A student-centered classroom depends on how much a teacher lets learners participate during a lesson. Teacher talking time (TTT) is the amount of time a teacher spends speaking in class, such as when giving instructions or taking part in discussions. Teachers who stay aware of TTT can manage that balance.

TTT covers more than the parts of a lesson you plan to speak during. Teachers also talk while they set up activities, and many rephrase an instruction that students already understood the first time. These unplanned stretches rarely appear in an ESL lesson plan, and they add up across a 60-minute class.

TTT measures quantity, not value. Six minutes spent setting up a role-play that then runs for twenty minutes is time well spent, while six minutes restating what the coursebook already explained is not. Teachers who audit both the amount and the purpose of their talk get a more accurate picture of their lessons.

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What is STT?

Student talking time (STT) refers to the time during a lesson when a learner speaks. ESL students use that time to practice the new language and apply what they’ve learned in class, whether they’re reading a text or commenting on a particular topic.

Not every minute of student speech does the same work. Choral repetition and reading aloud produce sound without asking learners to choose their own words. Describing their weekend or disagreeing with a classmate makes them build language themselves, and that is the speech that shows what a learner can produce independently.

STT also hides a distribution problem. A class can reach 70% student talking time while three confident learners produce most of it and the rest of the room stays quiet. A high STT figure is only meaningful when the talk is spread across the group.

What is the appropriate level of TTT vs. STT?

Teacher talking time is not entirely negative, but an English lesson should give students as much time as possible to use the language. Teachers should therefore cut their own speaking time as much as they can in class.

No standard ratio of teacher talk time vs. student talk time exists. Still, teachers should speak for around 20 – 30% of the entire class time. This means:

• You speak for 12 to 18 minutes in an hour-long class.
• You take on a facilitator role most of the time and let students learn on their own.

The 20 – 30% range describes a typical lesson, not every lesson. English language learner levels shift it in both directions. A class of A1 beginners needs more modeling and more teacher talk than a B2 conversation group, and a lesson introducing a new tense will run higher TTT than one built around a debate. Judge your figure against the aim of that specific lesson.

Most teachers underestimate how much they speak. Record 10 to 15 minutes of a lesson on your phone, then play it back with a stopwatch and time only your own speech. Teachers who run this check once a term usually find their TTT higher than they assumed, and the recording shows exactly which stages of the lesson caused it.

Why is it important to reduce TTT?

Your English classes should give students more talking time than you take yourself. The reasons below explain why that balance matters to the success of your lessons.

• You encourage students to participate every time you minimize TTT. The space you leave open during the lesson shows them that they can talk as much as they want.
• Lengthy lectures and excessive comments from the teacher make a class boring and monotonous. You keep your class dynamic and your learners more involved by getting them to speak more.
• You get to know your students better the more you let them talk in class. You won’t find out what their favorite dishes are or what their childhood was like unless they share these during class time.
• You can check whether students have fully understood and applied what they’ve learned once they speak more. A comprehensive description of the present perfect tense tells you nothing about their grasp of it until they start telling the class about their experiences, using that particular grammar concept.
• Students who speak more recognize and correct their own mistakes, either alone or with help from their classmates. Fixing their pronunciation, vocabulary, or grammar errors on the spot could make it easier for them to remember rules and improve their speaking skills on their own.
• More space for student talking time leaves learners with a sense of fulfillment after each class. A lot of students enjoy having conversations even if they’re about trivial topics. Learners who haven’t picked up new words in class still value the part of their day they spent practicing English.

What are some classroom strategies to manage TTT?

Are you ready to build your English students’ speaking skills further? The tips below show you how to reduce TTT and let students do most of the speaking:

1. Elicit, elicit, elicit

You reduce TTT when you replace explanations with intelligible examples and guiding questions that let your students learn on their own. Show sentence examples when you teach a grammar concept, then ask the class what they notice about verb forms and other details. Students who discover the answers themselves will better comprehend even the most difficult concepts.

Start from what the class already knows. Before you present the past simple of irregular verbs, ask students to tell you three things they did yesterday and write the verbs they produce on the board. You then build engaging ESL grammar lessons from their language instead of your own.

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2. Ask open-ended questions

The kind of questions you use determines how much learners talk. Asking a student, “Do you like your school?” will not generate as much information as asking, “What do you like about your school?” Move past questions that only require yes/no or one-word answers, and make queries that demand more information or explanation from your students.

Find out how to use concept checking questions (CCQs) in the ESL classroom.

3. Incorporate more speaking activities

English teachers often worry about which activities to add to their lesson plans. If you ever have this dilemma, just remember that anything that gets your students speaking works.

You can incorporate many ESL icebreakers, games, and conversation activities into your English classes, from guessing games to debates. You can also turn pronunciation drills into ESL pronunciation games, or add speaking tasks to classic board games like Snakes and Ladders so students give mini-speeches in a fun way.

You can also hand students the tasks that you usually do as a teacher. Have them read the instructions for an activity, for example, or let them answer their classmates’ questions.

Activities that create an information gap generate the most speaking. Give one student a picture the other cannot see and ask the partner to draw it from the description, or hand two students different halves of a train timetable and ask them to plan a trip together. Learners have to talk because neither of them can finish the task alone.

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4. Organize pair or group work

Classes of two or more students become more interactive when learners practice and do activities with their classmates. Ask them to role-play as a pair or group, for instance, or set up interview and presentation activities that they can do with a partner.

Stay out of the conversation while it runs. Move between pairs and note the errors you hear instead of correcting them on the spot. You can put four or five of those errors on the board at the end and let the class correct them together, which keeps your own talk to the final stage of the activity.

5. Replace words with non-verbal cues

Non-verbal cues reduce TTT, so use as many of them as you can in class.

• Total Physical Response (TPR) keeps you from making unnecessary comments or giving long instructions. The technique makes learners react to a teacher’s body language, gestures, and facial expressions.
• You can also point to particular words during a reading activity, or underline them in online classes, to let a student know that they mispronounced something and that they need to say it again.
• A simple thumbs-up boosts learners’ confidence while they speak in class, and even just a smile shows them you’re proud of their work.

Aside from TPR, here are more ESL teaching methods that you can apply to your classes.

6. Don’t be afraid of silence

Silences are inevitable in English classes. Learners may need time to organize their thoughts, formulate sentences in a different language, or even process what you’ve just told them. You don’t need to fill a sudden silence by talking. Give your students time to think and answer, and only resume speaking if they ask for your help.

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7. Ask for feedback

Ask your students for their opinions instead of assessing your own lessons and their progress by yourself. You can get their thoughts on the activities you assigned or ask them how they feel about their speaking performance at the end of the class. Their answers increase their talking time and make them practice commenting in English.

Shape questions to get longer answers. Ask each student to name the part of the lesson they found hardest and explain why, or to summarize what they learned in two sentences for the person next to them.

Want your end-of-class questions to go further? See how to master the art of feedback for ESL students.

8. Plan your instructions before the lesson

Teacher talk expands fastest during instructions, because teachers who are unsure whether the class understood the lesson say the same thing again in different words. Write each instruction before the lesson and keep it under ten words. Demonstrate the first exchange with one student, then check understanding with simple instruction checking questions (ICQs) such as “Are you writing or speaking?”

Need help planning? Explore ways to structure your online ESL lesson plans.

9. Stop repeating what your students say

Many teachers repeat every student’s answer back to the class without noticing. The habit doubles your talking time and teaches learners to wait for your version rather than listen to each other. Replace the repetition with a nod, or turn the answer over to the class by asking whether everyone agrees.

10. Track who is doing the talking

Keep a seating chart beside you and mark a tally each time a student speaks. Ten minutes of this usually shows that two or three learners are carrying the lesson while others have said nothing since the warm-up. Use the chart to decide who to bring in next, and change pairs so the quieter students work with each other rather than beside a dominant partner, which helps build confidence in ESL students who avoid speaking in front of the whole class.

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When is it okay to use teacher talking time in the ESL classroom?

Teacher talking time benefits an ESL class in a few specific situations:

• You may have to model pronunciation and vocabulary use for beginner students, then make necessary corrections while they read words out loud.
• Storytelling activities may require a teacher to share their own anecdotes or experiences as an example before students tell their own stories.
• A teacher may have to provide further explanations to help students comprehend concepts.
• You may need to react to what a student has said or participate in a discussion, especially when teaching English one-on-one.

Reducing teacher talking time changes what your job looks like before and during a lesson. You spend less time delivering language and more time designing tasks that produce it, then deciding when your own voice adds something the activity cannot. Learners get the practice they came for and stay involved in the lesson, and you get a clearer view of what they can actually do with English.

Start with one lesson rather than your whole timetable. Record yourself and find the stage where your talk ran longest, then replace that stage with one technique from this article. Teacher talking time is one of the first things an observer or a director of studies will pay attention to, so the habit improves your classes now and also supports you in any lesson observation that follows.

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