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      TeachingEnglish
      I need your help
      Submitted by Summersnowman on 27 November, 2008 - 13:31
      I am teaching advanced students of English. But recently I find that some of my students complain that they are not making progress in their English studies. They say the more they learn, the less they know. I know this is not true. But I don't know how to explain it to them.

      So please help.

      ‹ I want to work as an ELA in Austria for another year extensive reading materials ›

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      Amir A. Ravayee's picture
      Amir A. Ravayee
      Productive Activities
      Submitted on 30 November, 2008 - 06:22

       Dear friend,

      It seems as if they don't practice what they have learnt. Why don't you ask them to do something productive. For example, you can have free discussion sessions and let them use the language they have learnt. You can also give them some topics to write and ask them to try to use more complicated sentences.

      Students usually like to take part in classes where they think they have learnt something new. You must make them understand they have learnt a lot. If you use more productive activities, they will see thay have had improvement.

      Best wishes,

      Amir Abbass Ravayee

       

      lucyzy's picture
      lucyzy
      my opinon
      Submitted on 3 December, 2008 - 03:52
      Maybe it is a kind of psychological phenomenon.We ever studied this in our psychology class.It is called "plateau phenomenon".Some of us have this feeling in other studying fields.So do not worry about it.Just keep on studying.
      ol4ik's picture
      ol4ik
      I think the problem is not
      Submitted on 5 December, 2008 - 08:50

      I think the problem is not so complicated as it might seem. Why don't you try to exchange your roles during some lessons? You will be a student and some of your students will try to teach the others. They can make a lot of activities of their own which they consider to be the most useful for them. Your students can also create their small projects based on new vocabulary or new topics and demonstrate them to their groupmates.

      I hope you'll get rid of this problem very soon :)

      Best wishes.

      markenglish's picture
      markenglish
      Objectively Assess your Level of English
      Submitted on 12 January, 2009 - 20:01

      Very interesting discussion.  I believe that learning any language is an intensely emotional thing - you experience "peaks" where you feel like you understand everything and then a difficult conversation sends you into a "trough" where you think "I'll never understand this stuff".  Learning English, or any language, is simply tough and requires consistent effort... just like walking 20Km requires you to keep taking individual steps until you suddenly find that you have got there!  I think it's similar, except that when you walk it's easy to assess how far you've gone because you've walked many times before.  Learning your first foreign language is like walking a long distance for the first time ever - you would find it difficult to assess your progress.  When you learn say your third foreign language it's much easier to gauge your progress because you've done it all before.

      Bottom line in my opinion is to find ways to objectively assess your standard. Simply reading work you wrote or hearing something you recorded in the past is a very uplifting excercise because you clearly see the mistakes you have now improved!  Alternatively you can take a standard test - for example this <a href="http://www.ablalenguas.com/en/english-test">free English level test</a> gives you an objective result according to the standard European framework and if your students took it once and then a period of time later they would not be able to deny the difference in their results!

      Mark

      My Blog for Spanish people learning English: <a href="http://aprenderingles.blogspot.es/">Aprender ingles</a>.