Korean Job Discussion Forums

[spidey112233]

Hi how are you? I'm teaching English to students and I have a question concerning one of them. The student is not a native speaker, BUT can speak VERY well, has great pronunciation and can communicate and understand everything well. The problem is, that the student can't make really long sentences while talking. When the student talks to me, the words and answers are correct, just NOT long and doesn't incluse a lot of info. What can I do to help?? The student is in high-school and has studied abroad as well. Any help/tips would be great! Thx!!

[jajdude]

Is your student shy?

[Hater Depot]

I have a similar student, she went to an English-only kindergarten and her father (who is nearly fluent) tutors her. Six months ago she had the same kinds of troubles but has improved to the point that if you spoke to her on the phone you would probably think she was American.

My advice is not to worry about it too much--some people just don't use long sentences, right?. In any case, a bright, motivated student will eventually overcome any difficulty. I'm sure you're doing this already, but have interesting conversations with the student every day, and ask challenging questions. Tell him/her to watch English-language TV and movies with no Korean subtitles. And it can't hurt to tell him/her that you'd really be proud to hear longer, more complete sentences and that you know he/she can do it.

[Rteacher]

I suggest that you give the student who has problems producing long sentences more practice working with subordinate clauses.

[deessell]

It sounds like she is overly concerned with accuracy and it's time to work with her on fluency. Give the class some activities that provide opportunities to speak using more than questions and answers.

Give them speaking activities where they are a character and they have to defend their choices. An activity like big brother. Give them all a character and some personality triats and they have to defend why they should stay in the house. These activities improve fluency. Also tell the students that these activities are to improve their fluency and that you will not be correcting their pron, grammar etc.

[diablo3]

show by example.

show the student how it is done, by saying and/or by writing a proposed answer. chances are that student, and others, will catch on.

[spidey112233]

well, if you were to talk to this student on the phone, you would ALMOST guess the student was American/Canadian. See, the student got picked from the class to attend some kind of test on Sunday, forget the name of it, along with hundreds of other students from other schools as well. Each student had to write a test along with oral speaking into a tape recorder. Over the intercom, the instructor told everyone to talk about a certain topic along with introducing themselves. Now, the introducing part was fine the student said, but the student froze up a little when having to talk about a random topic that was given to them. Making a long informative creative sentence was a problem and the student could only produce short sentences and was intimidated while looking around and seeing other people babble away. But the student is a VERY good speaker while having a conversation. No worse than friends back home, haha!

[spidey112233]

anyone ??

[Derrek]

She needs to start reading a lot of western books on her own.

Also, reading out loud to you part of the time.

If she reads a lot, and pratices longer sentences with you, the rest will come naturally.

You can also drill her on conjunctions and putting sentences together with them: and, but, or.

Also create lots of practice sentences using works like: with, by, since, until, etc.

Is your student still having a difficult time with articles, too? Most Koreans struggle with that one, because their system of articles is totally different. We use a, an, the. Print off some online drills (do a google search and you'll find tons).