students – The Life and Times of Ben Weinberg

When you are learning a new language especially one where you don’t have a lot of access to native speakers of that language, your ability to learn the foreign language can suffer as a result. Even if you are learning from someone in your country who speaks with advanced proficiency, there is still a discernible difference between a native speaker who also would likely be a qualified teacher for foreign students and one who is a teacher but is still a non-native teacher.

Now, there are a lot of great foreign teachers of second languages including the English language out there who are non-native speakers but I think that if a student has the chance to work with native speakers especially if they have taught before and are certified, your odds of getting better at the target language will increase exponentially. Most group classes or formal class settings for language learning instruction place an emphasis on a comprehensive strategy involving reading, grammar, vocabulary, and listening comprehension. However, while there is a little bit of speaking and writing practice, it is often not enough and there is also no time spent on the individual student and their own strengths and weaknesses.

If you are in a class of 25 to 30 students, one teacher will not be able to effectively work with each student as much or as effectively to improve either the speaking or writing skills in such a constrained time period. If you have four or five hours of English language instruction per week, the chances are high that out of that amount of time, there will only be 30 minutes to an hour dedicated to either speaking or writing instruction, which is very little.

While group or class settings can be ideal for addressing certain proficiency needs such as the aforementioned reading, listening, grammar, and vocabulary practice, such a large setting is often not conducive to conducting good lessons related to addressing speaking or writing practice. In order to boost a student’s proficiency levels specifically with regards to their speaking or writing needs, then you’re going to have to go smaller to get the best results. Any student of the English language must take it upon themselves to find one-on-one practice because that is the best way to help them achieve the best results when it comes to improving their English especially when it comes to speaking or writing.

Even if a student has no access to one-on-one practice, an admirable alternative would be small group sessions or roundtables of no more than five students so they can get as much individualized attention as possible. The key point to make is that one-on-one or small group practice will help the individual student advance a lot more in English than in a large classroom setting. Large classroom settings can benefit ESL students in some ways especially for socialized learning and group practice, but it lacks that kind of one-on-one correction and encouragement that a foreign language student often needs to succeed.

If the English student in question doesn’t have the funds or the time to research private options, it would be ideal for the school or learning institution providing his class study to provide him or her with some outside options for additional learning, especially online if the student is able to do so. While funding private one-on-one learning may not be possible for the academic institution, to improve their students’ performance, they should do their best to make one-on-one tutoring as cost effective as possible.

If it cannot be offered within the institution, then it should be subsidized as much as possible and referred back to other trusted learning centers or individual teachers who will do a great job in assisting the student in one-on-one tutoring. One-on-one learning, especially for speaking and/or writing purposes is extremely effective for a number of reasons. The greater amount of attention, the ability to correct the student quickly and show them how to fix their errors, and the ability to have a longer, more in-depth conversation or writing session is key to helping the student than they could receive instead in the classroom setting.

To have the ability to study the language on a one-to-one basis is a key part of becoming a better English speaker and writer. To have an hour or two of one-on-one practice will do wonders for the student’s self-confidence, their comprehension, and their ability to cover more topics than they would in a class with 25 other students. The next best option that the student has without spending any money is to attend a language exchange event if available in their city or town where they can practice English with another speaker in exchange for sharing their native language with another student or more. These language exchanges are a great way for language students to meet each other, practice their native and foreign languages, and build a community of like-minded students. While these are not specifically one-on-one practice events, you are likely to be speaking to one other person at a time as you rotate to talk to other people at the event as they likely go for a few hours each time.

By practicing one-on-one, you are not able to hide from your language ability and will put them to the test. Overall, that is an excellent way to develop your English proficiency and to do it more quickly. In a classroom, you can hide as other students answer questions and do work on shared projects but there is no hiding in a one-on-one practice session. While it can be intimidating to work with a teacher or a peer one-on-one, it’s not only good for the student’s English language skills but also for their personal development and socialization.

An added bonus to this is that the student can learn from a native speaker perhaps or a person from a country where the language is native to them. Lastly, with the advent of digital learning, it is now easier to work online with a native speaker from halfway around the world in English or another language for free with a peer or with a paid tutor for anywhere from thirty minutes to a couple of hours each week.

Group lessons and classroom learning are key to being better at English but if you really want to develop your proficiency to the highest level, you should consider learning and practicing on a one-on-one basis as much as possible. You’ll be putting yourself out there and may mistakes but that is a natural part of any learning process and you will definitely grow as a result of being accountable for both your failures and your successes as a language learner.

It’s natural to make mistakes. As famous English poet Alexander Pope once wrote, “To err is human.” To err or to make a mistake is unavoidable and the earlier you accept the fact, the faster you will be able to move on. If you can’t acknowledge your mistake, you won’t be able to fix it which will help you to become a better English learner. The 1st step in the process of improving your proficiency is realizing you are going to make mistakes and to be ready to correct them so that it does not happen again.

The ability to make yourself vulnerable is key when it comes to learning a new language. The vulnerability to put yourself out there and making yourself susceptible to making mistakes will do more for your English language learning than anything else. If you do not try at all or if you refuse to participate, you will definitely not improve at all. It is okay to be nervous, shy, and even worried about these mistakes but you should know that there are countless others who have come before you, made the same mistakes but they learned from them, and they were able to use these mistakes to fuel their improvements and use them as motivation to become better listeners, readers, speakers, and writers.

When you make an error, stop yourself and ask: ‘why is this an error?’ Also, realize ‘how could it be fixed?’ and then lastly inquire to yourself about ‘what can I do to avoid this mistake in the future?’. If you stop, answer, and process these three questions, you will be well on your way to avoiding further errors and helping also to allay your fears of making them in the first place.

An English teacher can only do so much for each student especially if they have 30 to 40 of them in the classroom. The individual student must take it upon themselves to face their fear head on, make the inevitable mistakes, and to learn from them through perseverance and practice. A teacher can only do so much to motivate his or her students but it is up to the student themselves how far they want to take their language learning. The classroom is a place of equal standing among language students but it is outside of the classroom where those who put in the most effort, who will likely make the most mistakes, but who spend the most time fixing those mistakes who will have the most lasting success.

Learning a language is hard work but it can be among the most gratifying things worth accomplishing during our lives. It can be messy, uncomfortable, and challenging process but that goes for life itself as well. There will be setbacks and obstacles laid in your way but you must not be afraid of making mistakes. Being able to make mistakes and to bounce back from them shows a spirit of character and determination that is not easily quenched. If the fire of learning is in you, you won’t be dismayed when you use the singular noun instead of the plural noun or you put the verb at the beginning of the sentence instead of in the middle.

Hopefully, you will have caring teachers to light your path forward along with friends and family at your side when you stumble and make those mistakes. Embracing your errors is not an easy process by any means but it’s a necessary part of the learning process. Looking back on your past mistakes, you will be grateful that you made them because they taught you a lesson and they made you a better learner. Without the chance to make mistakes, there is no true mastery. I hope that all of you English language learners reading this article to know that when you fail, simply brush it off, try again, and push forward until you succeed.