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