Learning English is not always easy. At times, our students struggle with writing, get frustrated about their listening, or need help with speaking. In today’s article, we will take a look at the most common problems which learners face, try to come up with solutions, and suggest some activities and books.
„I listen but I don’t understand! Give me the script, please. I can’t answer these questions without it!“
Probably, you have heard it from your students. Let’s face it: listening is difficult. Students need to have the skills of listening for gist and detail, process information properly and be aware of the features of connected speech. A lot of learners have some kind of a psychological barrier which prevents them from doing a listening task well. They think that they need to understand every single word to do the task correctly. Such students always ask for the script and do not see the benefits of listening for gist. How to help?
Ask students to listen to the audio without answering any questions. Right, not a single one. When the track is over, invite them to share what they heard. This way, they might feel less stressed and more focused on general understanding rather than trying to get the right answers.
Another option is asking students to listen and write down some of the words and/or phrases that they’ve heard. Then, play the track again and ask to add more words. This can be done several times. After 2-3 listenings, a student is likely to be able to tell about the main ideas.
These tasks can be done both separately or as a listening for gist exercise. Students get really surprised when they move to listening for detail and realize that they know the answers to most of the questions.
„I know grammar, but I can’t talk! I speak too slowly and use only basic things!“
This one is another common problem for a lot of people. It usually depends on their previous learning experience. Generally, quite a lot of adult learners were taught through the grammar-translation approach. As a result of numerous translations and few speaking attempts, they both lack speaking skills or are afraid to talk. Even if you see that grammar tests are perfectly done, make sure that learners actually use target structures in speech. If not, it might be better to spend some more time practising. What to do?
Teach communicatively. Nowadays there is a wide variety of books which will provide you with a great selection of communicative activities on all topics, grammar ones included. Among them, there are such books as “Grammar Games and Activities” by P. Watcyn-Jones; “Grammar games” by M.Rinvolucri; “Games for Grammar Practice” by M. Zaorob and E. Chin; and “Grammar Games” series by J. Hadfield. Check them out – you are definitely going to find some activities which will help your learners.
Provide more opportunities for speaking practice. If it is a group lesson, you might use various interaction patterns: pairwork, group work, whole-class discussion. Ask students to change their speaking partners from time to time. Pyramid discussions might be a good combination of several interaction patterns within one lesson. First, ask a question or introduce a problem and let students think about it on their own. They can even make notes if they want. Next, put the learners into pairs and invite them to share ideas. Then go on to combine the pairs into threes or fours. Repeat up to the whole class, depending on the size of the group. Such activities will help students repeat the target grammar or vocabulary several times without getting bored or annoyed.
Practice makes perfect. When we teach communicatively, we usually practice all the new material, such as grammar or vocabulary, to make sure our students can use it both fluently and accurately.
“We are learning new words all the time, but I never remember them! My memory is terrible!”
Sometimes we notice that students ignore all the fancy vocabulary we are learning and get by just using basic words and phrases. It might be not the memory, though, but something else. Researches claim that it takes a student a minimum of 14-20 encounters with the word in meaningful contexts to start using it, not just recognizing. Here are some suggestions:
Use the spaced repetition system. This system is based on the fact that when we have a lot of items to learn, we’re much more likely to memorize them permanently if we review them not only repeatedly but at increasingly spaced intervals. What it means is that we should revise the vocabulary regularly: during the next lesson, in a couple of weeks, after three months, in a year. The idea is that learning is the most efficient when the vocabulary items are beginning to slip from our memory and require some effort to be recalled.
If you want learners to use the vocabulary in speaking at the production stage, you can leave them no choice. For example, provide each student with a card containing 2-3 lexical items and ask to cross out the word when they use it in their speech. Also, you can play experts. Prepare a set of cards with different areas of expertise: gardening, water sports, manga, Asian food. Prepare another set of cards with the words you want to practise or revise. Introduce one of the students as an expert: ‘This is Julie and she is an expert on…’. The student picks one of the cards and names their area. After Julia has been nominated as an expert on, say, Asian food, welcome other students to ask all the questions about Asian food that come to their minds. Julie needs to answer the questions, acting in a confident and serious expert-like manner. For each question, the expert should then pick one of the vocabulary cards and use the word in their answer.
Certainly, there are many more exciting activities for vocabulary practice and retention. For practical ideas, you can take a look at some books like “Vocabulary Games and Activities” by P. Watcyn-Jones; “Vocabulary Games” series by J. Hadfield. If you want to refresh and expand the theoretical basics, “How to Teach Vocabulary” by S. Thornbury might be worth your attention.
A small list of the problems mentioned above cannot be exhaustive or fit into one article. Each student of ours is a unique individual with their own strengths and weaknesses, learning styles, and level of motivation. However, some areas of language learning seem to be a bit more challenging than others. We hope that certain pieces of advice given in this article will help you boost your learners’ English skills.
Автор статьи: Надежда Попова, старший преподаватель английского языка CELT-S тьютор, Delta Module 1 with Merit, CELTA Grade A, CPE, TKT CLIL
