Current thinking within education circles suggests that if students are not engaged in class discussions they might not be learning. And if they are not learning--students and teachers--are wasting their time. The Teacher Effectiveness in Language Learning (TELL) Project spells out within its planning domain that teachers should plan lessons "that contain learning experiences designed to keep all learners engaged all the time." Himmele and Himmele (2011) explain that "unless you intentionally plan for and require students to demonstrate active participation and cognitive engagement . . . you have no way of knowing what students are learning until it's often too late to repair misunderstanding" (p.4). Author Greg Duncan points out that the very clear message seems to be that if the teacher cannot see that students are engaged, learning is questionable. And, as TELL reiterates, it's not one or two learners engaged but ALL learners and ALL the time. How can a teacher validate that has all of her students are engaged all of the time? In their well-known book, "Total Participation Techniques," Himmele and Himmele suggest many ways that teachers can check for understanding and have all students engaged in the learning process. In this brief article, Duncan presents a few of the strategies they discuss that could be used by teachers during and following a classroom activity.