Provider of comprehensible input An issue that confronts many teachers in classrooms is how much they themselves should talk, and what kind of talk this should be. Of course there are times when teachers have to take the roll or ask for quiet, or suggest that students should get into pairs and groups. But there are also times when teachers simply talk to groups engage in conversation with them, discuss the topic under consideration or ask them about their weekend, etc. On most training courses a distinction is made between student-talking time (STT) and teacher talking time (TTT). As we shall see in Chapter 8 it is the concern to maximise the former that leads many teachers to use pair and groupworki it has been assumed that on the whole we want to see more STT than TTT, since, as trainers frequently point out to their student teachers, You don't need the language practice, they do.