Some students can find it difficult to keep motivated when they know that the journey to reach the next level in their English is a year a more in the future.
To help you overcome this mental hurdle, during our lessons, we will break your journey into small steps. Each small step being one weakness in your English. Each weakness will be strengthened before you take the next step. Each successful step will motivate you to keep pushing forward and your strengthened skill will help you immediately.
This is an extract from a student’s individual study plan.
| Skill | Weakness | Cause |
|---|---|---|
| Speaking. | Multiple simple *mistakes made during speaking. | Lack of control during speaking. |
| Strengthen | Assessment | Result |
| Classroom: exercises to focus on accuracy before speed. | Oral exercise. | Less mistakes, better experience for the listener. |
| Skill | Weakness | Cause |
| Speaking | Persistent *errors made during speaking. | Gaps in grammar/vocabulary knowledge. |
| Strengthen | Assessment | Result |
| Classroom: pause the speaking, ask the student to think about the error. Self-correction/Teacher’s explanation. Repetition will be needed. | Oral exercise. | Grammar/Vocabulary gap filled. Improvement will take time as the mistakes are ingrained. |
| Skill | Weakness | Cause |
| Speaking. | Increase in mistakes towards the end of a speech. | Difficulty maintaining the required level of concentration/control over longer speeches. |
| Strengthen | Assessment | Result |
| Classroom: begin with short simple exercises. Slowly increase the length and complexity of the exercises. | Oral exercise. | Able to concentrate on quality longer. Able to give longer and more complex replies. |
| Skill | Weakness | Cause |
| Speaking. | Gives yes/no answers when possible. | Lacks confidence in speaking. |
| Strengthen | Assessment | Result |
| Classroom: ask questions were yes/no isn’t possible. Ask supplementary questions. Less correction until confidence increases. | Elicit longer answers. | Able to give longer and more complex replies. |
| Skill | Weakness | Cause |
| Speaking & Writing. | Lack of advanced vocabulary. | Insufficient reading of/listening to the right material. |
| Strengthen | Assessment | Result |
| Self-Study: guidance on what to read and listen to at home. | Oral exercises to elicit more advanced vocabulary. | Increased use of advanced vocabulary. |
| Skill | Weakness | Cause |
| Speaking. | Tendency to ramble. | Lack of structure in answer preperation. |
| Strengthen | Assessment | Result |
| Classroom: give sample structures to follow in preparing different types of answers. | Oral exercise to elicit answers following the prepared structure. | Clearer more concise speech. |
| Skill | Weakness | Cause |
| Speaking | Overuse of because. | Lack of vocabulary/laziness. |
| Strengthen | Assessment | Result |
| Classroom: introduction of additional vocabulary: as, since, due to, so that. | Oral exercise prohibiting the use of because. | Able to express the small differences in meaning not possible only using because. |
| Skill | Weakness | Cause |
| Listening. | Unfocused listening comprehension. | Not listening for a specific purpose. |
| Strengthen | Assessment | Result |
| Classroom: tiered listening exercise. | Listening exercises with different purposes: overview, headings, true/false/not said, comprehension questions. | Not overwhelmed by long and complex listening. |
| Skill | Weakness | Cause |
| Writing. | Incorrect use of punctuation esp. commas & quotation marks. | Lack of knowledge. |
| Strengthen | Assessment | Result |
| Quizzes and simple writing exercises. | Simple writing exercises. | Easier to read and better organised written English. |
