Student and teacher talking time in a foreign language in a university: Balanced correlation in the learner-centered approach

The process of teaching a foreign language in the implemented learner-centered approach provides for the creation of a favorable atmosphere through a balanced correlation of teacher talking time (TTT) and student talking time (STT). The aim of the article is to develop recommendations in creating a favorable atmosphere of a foreign language class by balancing the correlation between student and teacher talking time in the university environment. The authors present the approach, which motivates students to speak more, show their individuality, and develop intercultural communication. Currently, the intensive adoption of digital technologies into the higher education emphasizes the importance of personal communication of the process participants and arises the issue of achieving this balance. The article presents the results of a pilot study involving 723 participants, in particular, 628 first-year students of nonlinguistic majors and 41 teachers of foreign languages. According to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, the university students who participated in the study were divided into Basic (A1), Pre-Intermediate (A2), Intermediate (B1-B2), and Advanced (C1) levels, whereas the majority of the respondents were of A2 level that presented the target group for perspective research. This study determines the presence of the problem set in higher education and identifies the percentage of teacher-student talking time, which varies from less than 30 up to 70 in the surveyed groups. The reliability of the research is justified by a set of survey modeling and qualitative methods. The authors prove the urgency of the research, analyze the survey results and provide sequential steps to balance STT-TTT ratio to achieve the best desirable effect. The authors developed recommendations to create effective communicative conditions encouraging university students to speak a second language more freely and fluently. In the framework of the learner-centered approach the teachers are recommended to use various techniques to increase student talking time, to pay individual attention to each student, to monitor individual interaction, to work with the group of students as a community, to create a story of student's personal success with the help of a success interactive board, and to value each student's opinion modeling alternative points of view, maintaining multilateral discussions, and demonstrating sincere appreciation of student's talk. The practical significance of the study consists in the possibility to apply the recommendations developed into practice in higher education institutions. The authors declare no conflicts of interests.

Keywords

Authors

References