Three Tips to Improve Your Teacher Talk

Want to improve your tutoring and teaching practice starting today? You can, simply by putting some conscious effort toward improving your teacher talk. Here are three tips to get you started: 

1. Less is more. When teachers and tutors talk less, space opens up for learners to talk more, creating more practice time. It also reduces the mental load on learners who may be feeling the weight of all the input they hear in the classroom. You can reduce your teacher talk by modeling activities rather than giving oral instructions and by incorporating a lot of pair and group work. You can also work to eliminate unnecessary talk, if you have a habit of thinking out loud.
2. Speak authentically. Teachers and tutors have good intentions when they over-enunciate, pause between words and eliminate contractions. While educators do these things with the goal of being more well-understood by learners, they are in fact, providing language that is not authentic. As a result, learners have trouble understanding anyone outside the school, like their supervisor or their child’s teacher. When speaking to learners, speak as you normally would, but at a slower pace, and follow the next tip below. 
3. Choose your words carefully. Teachers and tutors may sometimes use vocabulary and grammar above the learner’s level or incorporate too many idiomatic expressions. Take a moment before you speak to choose your words carefully to ensure you are using words and grammatical structures familiar to learners. 

Work on one of these tips at a time. It will take effort, but remember that you require learners to do the same type of self-monitoring of their speech as you must in order to improve your teacher talk!

For questions and comments about this Tutor Tip, contact training coordinator Meghan Boyle at mboyle@literacymn.org.