Hello!
I'm a native English speaker and my partner is a native French speaker. We both live and work in an Anglophone country. He took an intensive English course a year ago before coming here and now, besides using English in informal contexts on a daily basis with general ease, he must often use English at work, in an academic setting. He has often shared his frustration with me about not being able to fully express himself, and ends up feeling quite defeated when his peers do not understand her when trying to talk about complex subject matter. I would very much like to help him improve his (relatively advanced) level of English so that he feels more confident.
Please suggest some ideas as to how I can work with him to improve him professional English. I feel that helping one's partner demands some different approaches and skills than if I were just his teacher or an acquaintance. I have looked online elsewhere for resources on how people can help their partners learn a language but I haven't encountered anything. Your comments and suggestions are very welcome.
Cheers!
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I am, or rather will be, in the same situation. My partner is swiss- german, with German as his first langauge. When we met he had just passed IELTS at a respectable 6.5- that was two years ago and no english lessons later he has said he would like me to teach him.
At the moment, I am safely in another country so apart from sending him Guardian weekly articles, links to interesting things i've seen on the web, and chatting on MSN there is not much I can do.
But when I go back to CH I have promised formal lessons. I am dreading it. But I think that setting up formal lessons, by appointment, full on professional-with needs analysis, goals, testing and homework is a good idea. I've seen TEFL freinds get frustrated with partners/freinds who treat them like walking talking always there error checkers. Of course it's going to be different from with other 1-2-1's, but osmosis can only get you so far, so lessons (or guided learning?) are necessary.
One thing I am thinking of is doing exam prep with him. It gives us both a specific goal, it's measurable, and if you're using books/materials aimed at the cambridge suite say CAE/CPE there's lots of grammar/ vocab, and skills, which allthough its aimed at exam prep is all transferable skills.
I will follow this thread, to see if anyone else has ideas I can steal.
Good Luck,
Sa