By Andrew Carter
Strategies in Teaching English as a Foreign Language
Strategies imply a plan of campaign - how do I go about getting the best language training for my staff? First things first: you can do this in a number of ways, from 'cross your fingers and hope for the best' to a carefully considered winning option, which every time, if you can afford the investment, would be one-to-one tuition and 'total immersion.
This is the strategy I want to consider here, but bear in mind that there are excellent schools out these both at home and abroad, where the eager student can make good progress quickly. That does assume fairly small class sizes, so that individual students can get plenty of practise time: think about it - an hour in a class of ten, even if the teacher says nothing and an hour (which he or she won't, of course), means an hour is only six minutes each of speaking the language! This is reason one why one-to-one is the best strategy to employ - your student gets maximum talk-time in his one hour session. Reason two mirrors that - maximum listening time - in that the individual can ask HIS questions and receive answers he wants or needs. From the teacher's point of view, one-to-one means that lessons can be geared to the individual, both in terms of ability and pace, but, more importantly, character.
A person learns best when they are engaged in the learning process, when they really want to talk about something. Say my next client was a Japanese Automotive professional. I don't know until he arrives what his current level of English is. I do know that he'll be apprehensive, he'll have been sent here to learn (maybe reluctantly), and he, like me, will certainly be nervous. So the teacher has to break through the uncertainty and nerves and build a relaxed trust between him and his student before learning can begin.
Once established, lessons can be built around the individual, themed according to their passions. Maybe my Japanese Automotive executive is the top man in his field in a particular branch of engineering - but maybe he really loves soccer or music or girls or elephants: who knows? The good teacher finds out quickly and builds the teaching programme - his strategy - around those things: let the learning begin!
Strategies in Teaching English as a Foreign Language
Strategies imply a plan of campaign - how do I go about getting the best language training for my staff? First things first: you can do this in a number of ways, from 'cross your fingers and hope for the best' to a carefully considered winning option, which every time, if you can afford the investment, would be one-to-one tuition and 'total immersion.
This is the strategy I want to consider here, but bear in mind that there are excellent schools out these both at home and abroad, where the eager student can make good progress quickly. That does assume fairly small class sizes, so that individual students can get plenty of practise time: think about it - an hour in a class of ten, even if the teacher says nothing and an hour (which he or she won't, of course), means an hour is only six minutes each of speaking the language! This is reason one why one-to-one is the best strategy to employ - your student gets maximum talk-time in his one hour session. Reason two mirrors that - maximum listening time - in that the individual can ask HIS questions and receive answers he wants or needs. From the teacher's point of view, one-to-one means that lessons can be geared to the individual, both in terms of ability and pace, but, more importantly, character.
A person learns best when they are engaged in the learning process, when they really want to talk about something. Say my next client was a Japanese Automotive professional. I don't know until he arrives what his current level of English is. I do know that he'll be apprehensive, he'll have been sent here to learn (maybe reluctantly), and he, like me, will certainly be nervous. So the teacher has to break through the uncertainty and nerves and build a relaxed trust between him and his student before learning can begin.
Once established, lessons can be built around the individual, themed according to their passions. Maybe my Japanese Automotive executive is the top man in his field in a particular branch of engineering - but maybe he really loves soccer or music or girls or elephants: who knows? The good teacher finds out quickly and builds the teaching programme - his strategy - around those things: let the learning begin!
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