Dear Hugh,

Many thanks for raising a very controversial but fascinating issue. Based on the available abstract on your presentation, you are making a very strong argument against low rate of TTT and to the best of my knowledge; teachers are mostly advised to minimize their talking time to presenting new materials, giving instructions, managing class activities, lubricating ongoing interactions among sts through making temporary interventions and finally providing constructive feedback. As you did in the past, I recommend novice teachers to practice more silence in their classes. I was wondering whether all teachers, experienced and novice can make an effective use of increased TTT and for what purposes they are better to employ more TTT. What is the optimal balance/ratio between STT and TTT? And should we make a distinction between EFL vs. ESL contexts with regard to TTT rate?

I would be very grateful to have your power point presentation file and if Cardiff Online Team can make the recorded session available. I am very eager to learn more on the topic.

Regards,

Javad Gholami

Urmia University, IRAN

Hello,

 I second Ahmed's query.  Could you please upload your slides or some notes for those of us who could not make it to your session?

 I think that we are taught to keep TTT to a minimum and as we progress as teachers, we can achieve a better awareness of what aspects of TTT are beneficial to students.  Too often novice teachers go off on tangeants and do not let students get a word in for fear of losing control.  In comparison, I often tell my novice Turkish students to avoid using "because" at the beginning of a sentence.  Later, when they have mastered the concept of subordinate clauses, they are ready to use "because" in the first clause.  Once teachers have learned how to handle student speak, they can move on to learning to use their own 'teacher speak' effectively.

Dear Mr. Dellar,

The session sounds interesting. But I'd like to know more about it as there is only an outline.