I watch people teach for a living. It’s my job. I am a university professor who supervises student teachers. I watch them as they fumble through their very first lessons. Teaching is hard. There are only, like, um, a thousand things for them to do all at, um, the same time. They don’t even know what half of them are.

There are a few things that they often do, that they shouldn’t. I probably did these things too when I was a schoolteacher but didn’t know at the time, things that I see their mentor teachers do, as well. These things are not covered in the teaching methods textbook. Only in the practicum do things like these come out. Good thing we have the practicum.

One of these is an interruption their own speech with a verbal pause, like um, so, aah and like.

The Crucible is like concerned with the um presentation of the ummm, truth. Various ah, characters show their, ah, true natures as the plot is, like developed, and, so, um, truth can actually be, ahhh viewed as like a character in this, um allegory. Truth is not merely, um, a theme.

Their students most certainly notice. In fact, this can be quite distracting to students. More importantly, this habit signals a lack of confidence, which sends two messages A) this teacher can be taken advantage of, and B) he or she doesn’t know what he or she is talking about.

Speech experts have a term for these expressions. They call them “discourse markers.” They say that people do this when they are trying to recall what they want to say. This occurs more often when they think stakes are high. People get anxious when they are doing something new, when they are being evaluated and when they are in front of an audience. My student teachers are experiencing all three of these at the same time. And experts say that the reason people do this in these situations is because they do not remember to breathe. Why don’t they breathe?

They fail to take in enough air, because they are talking faster than they usually do, trying to get through the lesson. Part of teaching is making presentations, which requires teachers to be animated, articulate and focused, in addition to being succinct. All this and the teacher has to be aware of his or her audience/class, which only makes the teacher more nervous. Sounds hard? It is. But, in all truth it actually might be the easiest part of teaching.

Consequently, new teachers make presentations, too often. Because managing group work, project-based learning, experiential learning and other student centered methods is more challenging than talking, new teachers tend to rely on lecturing the whole class more than any other method and more than their experienced colleagues, inadvertently, only increasing the probability that they will become habitual verbal pausers.

These “discourse markers” are sometimes intentionally employed by experienced public speakers to show that they are about to say something important and that the audience should pay close attention. But, for new teachers and um student teachers, these verbal pauses happen unconsciously to allow these less experienced presenters’ minds to catch up to their tongues.

And, once the pattern of verbal pausing is set, it can be hard to break this habit. We all remember the teacher or professor or know a person at work who um verbal pauses more than most. They seem to lack confidence, and sometimes we don’t consciously think that person’s just nervous. Instead, we unconsciously tell ourselves that person doesn’t know what he or she is talking about. Then, the workmate, client or boss senses our lack of confidence, and likely, because he or she is anxious, gets even worse.

Now, for the teacher, multiply this effect by 25 people, because that’s how big their classes are. And then, make the audience a bunch of impatient adolescents who have been in classes all day long. These students will neither be polite nor forgiving of this idiosyncrasy.

The veteran teachers who have been in the habit of verbal pausing for years, might have a reputation around the school for being competent, despite the verbal pausing, and might be known for expertise in their subject area or for going the extra mile to help students succeed, so they are given a pass.

Their students may notice they are verbal pausers, that they use “so” more than occasionally or “ummm” more frequently than normal, but they are less distracted by this than they are when a student teacher who has no established reputation in the community. In fact, a new teacher or student teacher is such an unknown entity in that culture that the the verbal pauses stand out significantly to the students. It’s one of the few things they know about their teacher.

MOTHER: How is your new teacher, honey?

DAUGHTER: She “ummm’s” a lot. She’s not even a real teacher. She’s just practicing.

Even if the teacher did actually say something useful about The Civil War, during the lesson, maybe explain photosynthesis or discuss The Great Gatsby, most of the students will only remember a personality trait about his or her speech. Instead of remembering the content of Gatsby or photosynthesis, they will retain the verbal pauses instead. These distractions not only prevent the students from learning the content but subtract from the teacher’s credibility, especially if he or she is inexperienced and even more so if he or she is a student teacher.

The students need to believe their teacher is competent. They need to trust their teacher. But, the teacher perceives they don’t and gets more nervous when he or she realizes the students have little faith. This in turn causes the teacher to verbal pause even more often. I suggest that the student teachers who are starting develop this habit to try some of these things to reduce their verbal pauses.

1. Record yourself (probably using your phone’s audio recorder) while you are teaching, and then listen to the recording on your way home in the car. You can erase the file afterward to make space for the next day’s recording when you are done listening. Just being aware that you do this will help you to stop. And, hearing yourself doing it will most definitely make you aware.

2. Slow down. The reason you are becoming a verbal pauser it is because you either can’t breathe or can’t think or both due to your pace. You are rushing whether you know it or not. A pace that is too fast has other liabilities for teaching, as well, so if you slow down, you might solve other problems too. Most new teachers who talk too fast either have planned too much to say or have a classroom management problem and they are trying to get their whole speech in before their students mutiny. Remember: Less is more. So, talk less. And, say it slower. This could help your classroom management as well as your verbal pausing habit.

3. Try meditation before the school day starts. Just five to ten minutes a day will help to relax you. Other methods include mindful walking, yoga and other breathing exercises. Being relaxed will reduce the number of verbal pauses you inject into your speech and will slow your pace, too.

4. Use your face to communicate. This takes practice. You can try it in front of a mirror or in little experiments with your students and see how they react. Facial expressions can be compelling. Think of a stand up comic or an actor who uses his or her face to communicate. Think Harrison Ford or Meryl Streep.

5. Then, there are the unintentional facial cues as well. These are called microexpressions. Finnish researchers used computers back in 2011 to study their subjects’ microexpressions. Their research showed that people unconsciously transmit emotional signals to other people while neither party is aware that this is happening or of what is communicated. Yet the message does get through. So, be careful not to send the wrong message. This requires knowing what’s in your heart. Your face might give you away, especially if you don’t know what you are feeling.

You would be better off staying silent for five seconds than inserting an ummm inside your pause. Silence seems awkward, but it’s actually one of the most powerful techniques that professional speakers use.

When I go out to schools to observe my students teaching their lessons tomorrow, I will be thinking about A) how impossible teaching is as job. It’s so demanding, so overwhelming and so scary. I will understand why my students fall into the trap of committing verbal pauses, and I will be sensitive when I tell them that’s not something they want to become a pattern.

For more information on “discourse markers,” read Christopher Mele’s article in the NYT 2/24/17 titled So, Um, How Do You, Like, Stop Using Filler Words?