Workshop: Let's go over that once again - Teacher talk

In this workshop, Roger Hunt argued that rather than diminishing 'Teacher Talk Time', teachers should focus on building up 'Appropriate, Quality Teacher Talk Time'.

Teachers and question types: display, reference, and procedural questions
- Display questions: a display question is one in which the teacher asks the students to 'display' their knowledge of language.
- Reference questions: a reference question is a 'real' question - that is a question to which the teacher does not know the answer (ex: 'What did you do at the week-end'?)
- Procedural questions: a procedural question is one used to manage the class eg: giving instructions/checking understanding (ex: Could you open your books at p.17?).

Studies have shown that students are predominantly asked display questions (which seem to have little or no purpose) and the majority of the questions required little more than a nod or shake of the head by way of answer.

The other points that came out of these studies is that teachers find it difficult to give students enough time to answer questions.

Practical idea: teachers can record themselves in a class situation. They can then look at their own language and analyse it so that they can move towards using questions that are meaningful. They can also look at the colloquial expressions used in class, asking themselves if this language is adapted to the students' level (ex: 'You done?'-what does 'done' mean in this context?).

To get more information about this workshop, teachers can also read Roger Hunt's article at: www.ihes.com/bcn/tt/articles/teacher-talking.html