What's your T:S word ratio?

A key starting point for successful language training begins with this question: “What’s your teacher to student word ratio?” How many words do you speak in class compared to each student?  

I recently evaluated a class where the instructor probably had a 300:1 teacher to student word ratio.  I’m not exaggerating. This email is about 300 words, so it doesn’t take much.   And most of these students only opportunity to speak was when they answered yes/no questions.  “You got it?” “Any questions?”    This happens too much, unfortunately.  If the instructor is uttering more words than the each student when the students are trying to learn how to speak English... well, something is off.

Here is a task-n-tip for you:

Task: Record yourself in class with the voice recorder on your phone. (Yes, it will be hours!) Just by having it there near us we become more aware of how much we talk.  But listen back to it and mark down how long you talk versus how long the students talk.  If they’re working in groups, how many full sentences do you think each student speaks compared to how many you speak?

Tip: Create a self-awareness of how much actual time and how many opportunities students have to practice speaking.

Imagine if you went to tennis practice and only got to hit the ball 10 times in an hour.   If your tennis teacher did all the hitting and told you the biomechanical terms of how your arm was supposed to move but never gave you a chance to hit the ball, I think you’d find a new coach.  

Rethink your role: be a coach preparing your students to speak English accurately in their daily lives.   It requires a whole lot of practice.