The Talk Time facilitators I know are fascinating, well-read, well-traveled and highly educated characters. They’re brimming with personality and drama. They can take an obscure word and act it out, make it sing or walk it like a dog. They’re full of thrilling and hilarious stories.
All of this makes it extremely hard to stay quiet, so the equally fascinating characters who are the students can tell their thrilling and hilarious stories.
Pair work is miraculous in how it relieves the burden of keeping quiet and tips the balance in favor of student talking.
The students talk to each other independently of the facilitator. The students could choose from a handful of questions, or form their own questions and then talk directly to each other. At that point, the facilitator can back completely away and not even let the students catch his eye. If they catch his eye, they may start addressing their comments primarily to the facilitator!
Even with only two students, they can talk to each other without facilitator participation, praise or guidance. With four or more students, pairs can switch partners and talk to many students.
It’s much easier than trying not to talk. The facilitator just sits back, listens in unobtrusively, gives gentle reminders to take turns if needed and relaxes.
It is hard to remember not to talk too much as a facilitator. One way to avoid talking too much is to encourage participants to share new information that they have learned with one another. If I answer one participants question and then get asked the same question by a different participant, I will ask the first participant to explain it to the second. This removes me from the picture and allows that participants to engage each other.
Good idea. I love the image of “removing me from the picture”. I observed one Talk Time where after every participant comment, the facilitator said something like – “oh that’s great”, “cool”, “I’m glad you shared that”. The constant positive chatter meant the facilitator was always at the center of the picture distracting participants from each other!