Job Discussion Forums

[riverboat]

I've got an unusually high number of advanced learners at the moment. Generally these are adult professionals who have an excellent understanding of grammar and make very few grammatical mistakes when speaking. They are very comfortable speaking and working in English, and have few problems expressing themselves orally or following meetings/films/conf calls in English. Some have spent time living/studying in English speaking countries before returning to France, others have just acquired a good level through intensive study and use at work. Many of them also speak a third language to a high level.

So, the thing that nearly all these learners (who I teach individually) have in common is that they want to be able to use English in a more natural, native-sounding way - they talk about wanting to use idioms/fixed expressions, multi-word verbs etc. I agree that for most of them, this kind of "colour" is generally what is lacking in their speech. They want to be able to speak English in the same way they speak French.

The problem is...fine I can "teach" them idioms and phrasal verbs til the cows come home (then I can teach them to the cows) and facilitate practice of the items in class...but...I feel like whatever I teach them in their 40 hours of lessons is just a needle in a haystack at this level. And secondly, more than one of them has been asking me "yes OK I understand this expression, but what do I do now to make it stay with me and come to me naturally when I need it?" I think this is especially pertinent once we've amassed a certain amount of new vocabulary but they're not getting enough opportunities to use/hear it outside of class.

I am a little stumped as to how to progress given both of these problems. What I've been doing so far is trying to stress to them how much work is necessary to improve their level from the point they're at, e.g. reading/watching something daily in English and paying active attention to all vocabulary items, making an effort to use new vocabulary items learned in whatever situations they can etc. But most of them are hard-working professionals who don't have a lot of extra time to work on English outside their two-hour weekly class.

So...in brief, I wonder if anyone has any tips or can point to any sources about helping advanced learners improve their level (and I am talking mostly about spoken level) - strategies for assimilation of new language, the most useful types of vocab item to teach at this level etc - when they are not living in an English speaking country and not speaking English daily in a wide variety of contexts. I am loathe to just tell them from the outset "in real terms you're not going to make much progress with me in 40 hours" as it seems a bit demoralising but maybe that's just the truth and they need to hear it?

[Teacher in Rome]

I think a certain amount of straight-talking about objectives is helpful. At lower levels students can often see their progress, but this is far less evident at advanced level. Apart from the odd new vocabulary item, much of what you can achieve is maintenance. What are their expectations of the course?

I'd try stretching them in other ways, rather than trying to "feed" vocabulary. Perhaps some of the activities from a Proficiency coursebook would be helpful, or discussions based around news items (along with vocab notes) would also stretch them. I'm sure you're already doing this (and it's not directly what you asked for) but activities that train in collocations, recognising formal / informal are helpful at this level - so getting them to switch from summarising an article in neutral/formal English to one in informal / The Sun style using phrasals, idioms etc that you've pre-presented.

[artemisia]