To the adult beginner thing

My previous post had been written before a first lesson with an adult beginner (who finally decided to have lessons alone, supposing he was not good/fast enough to couple up with someone who might be more proficient and a better learner (?).

What I had expected turned out to be true. The phase when I try to find out of the learners aims, language learning history, somewhat of learning styles or attitudes and the length of time they can devote to learning English a day was 45 minutes!

Why?
Do you know why? It was all self-criticism, he told me repeatedly how slow he was, how old his brain was at his age (born in the same year as me, dammit!), how much worse men are at learning languages and what an anti-talent he was. Should I re-think my ambiguity tolerance mania and pushing learners out of their comfort zone project?

Good start:/

 Ban schools! Or someone please tell all the teachers that making sweeping judgements about their students abilities may turn into to self-fulfilling prophecies, hence this is NOT a valid tool!! Grrrr!!!

I believe in life on Mars but nay the existence of the zero beginner EFL adult learner

If I were told to play the part of a first lesson adult learner on the stage of an improvisation theatre, I would be sitting in the limelight, saying very bravely:

“I am a total beginner, I have never learned English ... OK, I’ve been taught hahaha ... but my knowledge of the English language is zero ... and I want to start the whole thing from the start line, teach me as if I were a kindergartener ... especially focus on grammar ... I want to start with a clean sheet ... and what book should I buy?”

I rather believe in life on Mars. And I believe there are false beliefs about language learning. It took me long years to recognize that I have two options as an English teacher:

• play the role of the big white magician who knows the secret, does the mambo jumbo, takes revenge on the homework-non-doers
• train learners how to learn and share responsibility

I’m not a good actress, opt for the second one and make sure I take the following precautions :

I usually explain the difference between skill and knowledge. 

I draw the attention to the fact that the (here) so popular grammar-translation method (which they were most probably exposed to as kids) is the one that has proven to be inefficient forthem. I try to convince them that in spite of their memories of the 5th grade Russian teacher this is not necessarily the way to learn English this time.

Typically they agree with me, very happy, enjoy the lesson without the book, but soon the regression comes along: they want a book, they want a text, they want to read and translate it sentence by sentence. Bummer!!

Ok, this is not typical, this is the extreme, but it’s still in the air.

If a student who has just decided to start learning English (again) insists on the clean sheet idea (stupid stage image above), I (pretend to) accept that. But also tell them that they are about to unlearn things that they already know, which requires more effort than making use of them.

Another thing to mention is my view that it is not the lesson where the majority of learning takes place. Somehow I’d like to show them that the ownership over their own learning is a great thing, it is simply a good feeling, rather than a weighty responsibility.

Years have shown that merely sharing my experience about language learning with students is not enough. I’m trying hard to find or device activities to make them feel how it works the more fun and efficient way.

Some rough plans for a first lesson, primarily aiming to bust the clean sheet myth:

Signs

As I  live in a tourist place, many of the signs are written in English.

I spent 15 minutes walking around and taking photos and I made some clippings (http://pic-collage.com/). The game is to guess where the photos were taken. Apart from proving that my learners do know some English, it is a chance for them to pick up names of places, learn or revise prepositions. (I bet they are false beginners :))

The second photo will reveal the places and you never know what else emerges.

Songs

Nearly everyone is exposed to pop music in English and nearly everyone has been a teenager with even more extensive exposure to pop music in English.  

Song lyrics are somewhere in our brains, so let’s get them out. The magic words are “doodle music videos”:

The task here is to collect language from the videos. Watch the videos twice and take notes of language that you understand. Then swap notes, discuss.

TV

This is not to show how much they already know, rather a link to the English speaking world. 

Soap operas and sitcoms are language acquisition boosters, that’s pretty well known. However many learners don’t watch them in English, they find them too fast, too difficult, they feel uneasy when they don’t understand every single word. Or they just don’t like them :))) But those who do usually attribute a huge part of their development to TV shows.

Extra English is a great bait, a sitcom designed for language learners, someone uploaded countless episodes on YouTube :O. I hope my new students will somehow get hooked on the genre by this.

First lesson first homework: watch the first episode and see if you want to watch the others.

If it should turn out to be unpopular, Peppa Pig is still at hand!

Cognates

Any language is a window to another language, L1 as well as a known foreign language. Many people use German here, a knowledge of it may be of some help.http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Transwiki:List_of_German_cognates_with_English

Another piece of homework: choose minimum 7 words worth remembering, check their pronunciation on translate.google.com and see how cool you are with so much you already know in English.

Student Appreciation Week? Hmmm? Hö?

Student Appreciation Week