ESL Term:

TTT and STT

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TTT and STT: Teacher Talking Time. The trend in ESL/EFL pedagogy has been to limit the amount of time that the teacher is talking and increase STT (Student Talking Time). TTT is often associated with a teacher-centered classroom and STT with a student-centered classroom.

However, there are some problems with the view that student talking is good for students. For one, communication should be meaningful. Two, at the lowest levels, students may not be able to communicate effectively with each other. Three students may teach or reinforce each other's bad habits or incorrect expressions and grammar. Four, students will lack pragmatic competence in English and will not be able to pick it up from each other. A lot of research has shown that language is for the most part input driven. That is students learn most when they are being given sufficient comprehensible input.