thank you everyone
I went to see the final exams in English yesterday. I don't teach these students and they are two grades above my students. I wanted to see how they would do.
There were two girls I saw. They were asked to talk on a certain topic they picked via lottery. One got fashion, the other one got environment.
They both made a lot of mistakes. I am not blaming their teachers, I just
realized that the mistakes are the one I always try to stress in my lessons and hope that the students will take notes and remember.
This observation really boosted my confidence and my belief that the way I teach and what I teach is useful for all my students.
At the finals, they don't have to worry about grammar details and subtleties we have to go through, but they should avoid mistakes like
I don't want to wear what ANOTHER people wear.
The first girl got C and the second got C, too.
I am going to tell my students what I saw. I will stress the fact that I correct them most of the time if they make a mistake that is not tolerated at the finals and that they should take notes and remember and review at home.
They obviously cannot appreaciate what they can learn or how much from me. But I understand that for them it is confusing to decide which part of grammar or what kind of mistakes they should focus on / we are working on Upper Intermediate Level and this level deals with such grammar details and subtleties (colloquial British English - most expressions are usually new to me!) that I am afraid that it makes the advanced ones bored and the slow ones frustrated. Anyway, it is my job to go through this level with them at this stage, I am just going to tell them that they should really focus on what I would call B level grammar, which is the part of grammar that is required at the finals if they want A grade.
To sum it up, ladies and gentlemen,
the main point was what to do with the special girl.
I see there are two opposing views.
One is basically - don't pay any more attention to her than others, ask her to do what others do, she doesn't deserve any special treatment.
THe other one is - she is special, she is different, she needs different tasks.
I find this a very very difficult issue. WHich view is more professional, also what do we want to attain wit hthis girl and what does she want to attain?
We could call her selfish. We could call her special, advanced, excellent.
I know what she should and could easily learn from me if she is bored with
grammar and British colloquial English and British culture.
I could give her a writing task at the beginning of the lesson, for example,
write what you did on Sunday in details
Then I would correct her writing later that week and she could learn a lot from the mistakes she would make.
When you go through my own writing, you can probably notice a little mistake here and there but I wish she could write on the same level.
I hardly make mistakes in English because I have been studying it and teaching for more than 20 years. I once corrected her autobiography and there were lots of unnecessary mistakes. Unnecessary because she could really learn about them from me.
I could also ask her to do homework - record, using PC or voice recorder or something, her talking on a certain subject, then I would go through it at home and correct her mistakes.
Then she would clearly see how many mistakes she makes and how much I can help her rto improve her English . ANd she would have to stop whining.
