Teaching is demanding, both physically and emotion! ally. Our minds can be so busy as we monitor, manage, and teach our students that sometimes we don’t look after ourselves properly.
Voice is one of the most important teaching tools we have.
If we over stretch our voice, it adds to stress and fatigue – and in the end reducing the teaching efficiency
Here are a few ways, you can take care of your voice –
- Keep Silence for some time everyday
- Never raise your voice above the background noise
- Don’t spend much time in cold dry air, it puts strain on the neck muscles
- Avoid irritating chemicals and over spicy foods
- Stay Hydrated – Lubricate your throat – carry water
- Remember – Caffeinated and carbonated beverages dry you out
- Posture also matters – stand tall with your shoulders back.
- Open your chest and keep the chin up. It helps projecting our voice with less efforts.
- Rest – not only your voice, but your body and mind as well
Another important aspect of voice is- Speaking clearly! It is a requirement for good teaching.
If a teacher doesn’t speak clearly and with authority, it’s difficult for students to understand and remain engaged.
Beginning teachers can tend to rush their speech, as they don’t want to be the center of attention.
They’d rather be working with individual pairs or small groups because this is less intimidating.
It may have to be more modulated and more intentional in tone, though not patronizing or unnecessarily deliberative. However, the positive wash back effect will be immediate and will lead to an increase in coincidence.
However, sometimes silence is also the best approach.
Have you ever attended an interview where the interviewer asks a question, lets the interviewee answer, and then says nothing?
What happens?
There’s a pause, maybe even a pregnant pause – and then the interviewee just keeps on talking, very often revealing something s/he never intended to reveal. People just can’t stand silence!
But in a learning situation, silence can have another truly beneficial effect. Your students are running while you’re walking. They need silence sometimes, to catch up, to reflect, to rest, to process. Those ten seconds of silence, or thirty seconds or two minutes, may be far more valuable to them than yet more TTT!
I can’t do better than to recommend Thomas Topham’s required reading: Six Ways to SHUT UP: –
“Well-timed silence has more eloquence than speech.” -Martin Fraquhar Tupper
As a trainer, one of my ongoing issues in preserve courses is with teacher-talking-time – how much is coming out of the teacher’s mouth, the proportion of time the teacher is talking vs. the students, and how to get this ratio as high as possible in the students’ favor.
Whether this is actually something worth striving for is a whole different debate. Let’s just take it as a given that less teacher-talk is a good thing, and get on with the list:
1. Don’t Echo
Here is a common classroom script:
T: So, what are your ideas, where shall we go?
S1: Mumbai.
T: Mumbai, yes, great, we can go to Mumbai. Where else?
S2: The Andaman & Nicobar Islands.
T: Ooh, the Andaman & Nicobar Islands, yes, we’ll put the Andaman & Nicobar Islands on the list, ok…
Even though the lesson is to some extent interactive, the students have no reason to listen to one another – the teacher is repeating everything that needs to be heard. “But they might not hear each other!” Tell them to speak up. Or better yet, if a student can’t hear, she can ask the other student to speak up.
“But how do I work in open class, if I am not supposed to speak?” With the above scenario, the teacher needs to say exactly four words:
T writes on WB “Places to Go”.
T holds WB pen, ready to transcribe. Waits. If nothing is forthcoming…
T asks, “Where should we go?” … and waits for answers.
2. Wait
It takes time for learners to hear and process what you have said and adding more teacher talk doesn’t help. Shutting up and waiting does.
“So where should we go? (1.5 second pause)
Let’s make a list, we’ll write down our ideas here, what do you say guys? (1.5 second pause)
How about Rameshvaram, is that a good place, should I write that? Yeah, OK…”
The only way for student voices to enter the classroom is by the teacher allowing the space. After you ask a question, wait. Wait a long time, if need be.
3. Don’t Answer Right Away
Chances are one of the students knows the answer, if the teacher shuts up. Compare:
S1: Why is that?
T: Ah, yes, you see here we have the auxiliary, so blah blah blah…
—
S1: Why is that?
T: Hmmmm…. (pauses, looks around the room, waits…)
S2: I think because, is question…
T: (pointedly shuts up, open body language, waiting…)
S3: Yes, “Do” because it is question, same like in yesterday lesson…
Here not only do we have students speaking and the teacher shutting up, but as an added bonus the students are doing the thinking and are showing evidence of their learning! Big Win!
4. Group work Is Better, Always
Because when the students are working together in groups it is impossible for you to speak. Well, not impossible – resist the urge to interrupt the group work for “just a second” to “just explain this one more thing” …
5. Ask Open-Ended Questions
They require more from the students, and therefore require less talk from you. Compare:
T: Is it a boy, or a girl?
Ss: Girl.
T: Yes, a girl. And what do you think, is she happy?
Ss: Yes.
T: Ooh, yes, she is. Maybe she got a good mark on her test, do you think so?
Ss: Yes.
—
T: Look. What’s this? (shut up. wait)
S1: A girl.
T: (continuing to shut up)
S2: She is schoolgirl.
S3: She is going to school; she has book bag.
S4: No, she is going home, she is happy. (laughter)
6. Make Use of Your Written Materials
If the instructions are already there in the coursebook, why are you spending valuable class time blathering on about how to do a gap fill?