Introduction For me, the most key element of learning a language is awareness. I usually spend no more than three or four hours with a client in any given week, normally spread over two sessions or ‘classes’. For me, therefore, four hours is little more than 3.5% of the time during a week when a client is not asleep. If the client or ’student’ thinks that they only need to concentrate on what they are learning during the sessions, then what teacher can hope to succeed in improving their client’s ability to speak a foreign language? In my view, there is no teacher who can succeed this way. No teacher can succeed if the client is not engaged in the learning process. Teaching is not about feeding a client knowledge, it is about them using their skill, knowledge and personality to help the student overcome the barriers and complexities that lie in the way of the absorbing the knowledge. Awareness leads to becoming engaged, which should lead to a state in which the learning process becomes a self-perpetuating cycle where a new piece of knowledge leads the client to actively seek out at least two more other, linked, pieces of knowledge. Awareness transforms the learner into a sponge. How spongeyness works Simply put the idea is that if someone continually puts themselves into situations in which they are listening to, reading and watching English in action, then both their conscious and their subconscious will take in some of that information, sort it out and store it. The brain does an amazing job with all our daily thoughts and experiences of filing them and putting them in the right place. I’m convinced that it’s the same with language, after all, there’s a whole area of the brain given over to language. Use professional online essay checker services when writing some article to avoid mistakes. The road to spongeyness The first classes that I have with a new client are sometimes frustrating for the learner themselves. I have had complaints in the past from frustrated people who have looked at me suspiciously when they realise that I’m not teaching them any language, but am instead getting to know them, finding out who they are and what they want from our time together and lastly giving them some tips on how to improve their awareness. It is this last thing that I want to take a look at.
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December 2018
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