Partner collaboration will definitely up your student engagement if you feel that students are sitting idle or appear "bored"!
When I find myself in a rut, or saying the same things over and over again to my class we can often sound like broken records and let's face it
I developed a "cheat sheet" that I can have right next to me while teaching so that I remind myself to use different ways for asking students to work with a partner, soliciting a response from them, responding to each other, and affirming their responses.
If you would like a copy to use in your classroom, click on the picture below!