What's your average speaking rate (WPM)?

[Torsten]

Hi,

The Callan Method requires a teacher to speak at a minimum speed of 240 words per hour all the time during every lesson. I do think that it is much better if a teacher speaks fast rather than slowly. Callan says that researches have found that children want to be talked to at a rate of at about 200 words per minute, not less.

It is true that if a teacher speaks slowly, it is harder for the students to concentrate. Their minds start wandering off and they get bored. What's more, if a teacher speaks very slowly, the students have enough time to translate what is being said into their native languages. This process is totally counter-productive to learning English.

Now, this speech and language pathologist always speaking very slowly. Again, I don't think that speaking slowly makes much sense. Speaking clearly is good. Speaking slowly is not. Cheryl Posey, says "speaking slower is better". In opinion, the opposite is true.

What do you think?
Thanks,
Torsten
_________________
Test Of English for International Communication
TOEIC Preparation & TOEIC Vocabulary

[BikerBoy]

Hi Torsten,

I would say that it's not how fast or slow the teacher should speak but more of how he/she delivers this information to his/her students.
I've had an instructor who was so fast and the amount of information he was giving us was too much that we didn't understand much.
For the same course (Strategic Management) we had a different instructor, he speaks less, he has his own way of teaching, his own material, everyone understood and we were happy about it.

I believe Callan means that we should speak clearly as you said Torsten, otherwise we will look retarded. As you can see in her video, she is speaking clearly which makes her look more classy and elegant than speaking fast.

Average is the key I believe, too fast and too slow is not good.

Kind regards,
Zak

[Yankee]

Hi Torsten

I'd say that the speed at which people speak depends on what they're talking about, and it also varies from person to person. Too slow can put the listener to sleep, too fast can do the same thing. If you speak too slowly in a conversation, you may find yourself being frequently interrupted, or end up having people finishing your sentences for you, for example. If you speak too fast, you may end up losing your listeners entirely.

That said, I think it is advantageous for ESL students to practice listening to English spoken at various speeds, including very high speed.

I don't think you can really compare the Callan method of learning English with a speech pathologist. To me, Cheryl Posey focused on only two things: accent reduction and clear pronunciation.
.
_________________
Amy
.
ESL teacher, and native speaker of American English