The increase of student talking time as a means to optimize speaking teaching

Abstract

The paper deals with some issues concerning optimization of speaking teaching, namely the impact of Student Talking Time on students mastering of such reproductive skill as speaking. Though methodological literature does not define the exact amount of STT and Teacher Talking Time and the correlation between the two, it is noted that the relation depends to a great degree in the level of a foreign language learning. Thus on the initial level it is quite obvious that TTT accounts for a larger portion of a lesson, including teachers explanations, pronunciation drilling, correction of mistakes, introduction of new words and grammar structures. In a group with A1 students it would be reasonable that a ration between TTT and STT corresponds to 50-50 %. In groups of A2-B2 students the amount of TTT should be about 30% with STT aiming at 70%. In advanced level groups (C1-2) a teacher should strive to the ration of 10% to 90% respectively. In addition, the amount of TTT also depends on a task or assignment and a form of a lesson.
 Besides, another important factor, i.e. Student Waiting Time (SWT) should also be taken into consideration, by this we mean, the amount of time a student waits in a group for their turn to give an oral answer.
 The paper presents some findings of an experiment which was conducted among 2 groups of 12 students at Samara branch of Moscow City Pedagogical University. The experiment was aimed at distinguishing the correlation between STT and SWT depending on an activity done at a lesson. It was proved that when students were asked to answer one question each their TT accounted for 12 minutes with SWT totaling at 11 minutes. When the students worked in groups of 3 and discussed 4 questions the STT increased up to 36 minutes and STW amounted at 9 minutes. When the students worked in pairs and were asked to discuss 6 question their STT was 36 minutes with SWT only 6 minutes, which showed that this form of work was the optimal.
 The increase of STT and reduction of SWT stimulates the students rising their satisfaction from the lesson.