My students are facing the problem of differentiating between sentences with verb form 'be' and those of simple present tense. They, after repeated drilling of two weeks, still mingle both structures and come up with sentences like 'He's come home', and 'Is he come home?'. Additionally, they have problems with recognizing and using parts of speech.
Another problem is that of retention. They learn and produce sentences in a class or on a day but next day they come to class with a clean slate. Probably the reason is that prep year being too intensive. All subjects hours added together come to about more than 30 a week. Their daily schedule is packed. They are stuffed with more than what they can digest daily. After 6-7 hours of lessons daily, they are saturated in the evening and probably never touch their books outside the classroom. I tried to motivate my class to study and revise their English Lessons for at least 45 minutes daily, hoping that it may lead to the habit of independent and autonomous home study. Hope they may start doing it.
Then I'm trying to give more attention to the students who are, let me call it '-1' level of the prep year. Meaning that they are not at the level of language proficiency where we expect them at the beginning of the university prep year. Among these students, we have three types. Type 1 are those who, though at a lower level of the language proficiency, are trying hard to catch up and learn English. They, at the begging of the semester, can hardly speak a word or understand the instruction of the teacher. But through persistent motivation and encouragement by the teacher, they achieve a metamorphosis at the end of the semester and start communicating in broken and basic English with the teacher, and also pass all components of the assessment. Type 2 of the level are those who have the capacity to be at par with type 1, but they have least interest in college studies, and one wonders why are they here as students. Such students need a consistent push by the teacher, towards the end of the semester some of them become type 1 and pass. Type 3 are those who genuinely want to improve and continue with their study. However, previous education has done little good to them, and they are even below level '-1'. They make a great effort and one can see them bewildered but struggling. Sometimes, in their moments of hopefulness and hopelessness, they will bring a translator to the teacher, requesting and invoking his kindness, and requesting to pass them. They hope that whatever marks they may get; the teacher will add something from his own 'kitty' to their marks and make them progress to the next level of the prep year. For such students the time of 16 weeks is not enough to improve. They never reach the finishing line of the learning, though they keep on running. They fail and ultimately leave the institution. I think for them the semester should be of 8 months rather than of 4 months, and they should take a start from the very very basic level (even below intro level).
Finally, language learning is not learning a maths sum or formula. Language learning is acquisition and the process is not abrupt and quick fix kind. Sometimes, teacher feels exasperated with students that they are not learning which in my opinion is not the right approach. A student may not display any visible or palpable signs of learning but still he/she has learned something at the end of the class. In language learning, it takes time to put all pieces together and come out with production. We should keep on working with the students encouraging them; motivating them; and lauding them -even for their mistakes as at least the student has made an effort, and effort ultimately leads to yielding some fruit.
(Ignore mistakes in the post as is not revised after typing)
Another problem is that of retention. They learn and produce sentences in a class or on a day but next day they come to class with a clean slate. Probably the reason is that prep year being too intensive. All subjects hours added together come to about more than 30 a week. Their daily schedule is packed. They are stuffed with more than what they can digest daily. After 6-7 hours of lessons daily, they are saturated in the evening and probably never touch their books outside the classroom. I tried to motivate my class to study and revise their English Lessons for at least 45 minutes daily, hoping that it may lead to the habit of independent and autonomous home study. Hope they may start doing it.
Then I'm trying to give more attention to the students who are, let me call it '-1' level of the prep year. Meaning that they are not at the level of language proficiency where we expect them at the beginning of the university prep year. Among these students, we have three types. Type 1 are those who, though at a lower level of the language proficiency, are trying hard to catch up and learn English. They, at the begging of the semester, can hardly speak a word or understand the instruction of the teacher. But through persistent motivation and encouragement by the teacher, they achieve a metamorphosis at the end of the semester and start communicating in broken and basic English with the teacher, and also pass all components of the assessment. Type 2 of the level are those who have the capacity to be at par with type 1, but they have least interest in college studies, and one wonders why are they here as students. Such students need a consistent push by the teacher, towards the end of the semester some of them become type 1 and pass. Type 3 are those who genuinely want to improve and continue with their study. However, previous education has done little good to them, and they are even below level '-1'. They make a great effort and one can see them bewildered but struggling. Sometimes, in their moments of hopefulness and hopelessness, they will bring a translator to the teacher, requesting and invoking his kindness, and requesting to pass them. They hope that whatever marks they may get; the teacher will add something from his own 'kitty' to their marks and make them progress to the next level of the prep year. For such students the time of 16 weeks is not enough to improve. They never reach the finishing line of the learning, though they keep on running. They fail and ultimately leave the institution. I think for them the semester should be of 8 months rather than of 4 months, and they should take a start from the very very basic level (even below intro level).
Finally, language learning is not learning a maths sum or formula. Language learning is acquisition and the process is not abrupt and quick fix kind. Sometimes, teacher feels exasperated with students that they are not learning which in my opinion is not the right approach. A student may not display any visible or palpable signs of learning but still he/she has learned something at the end of the class. In language learning, it takes time to put all pieces together and come out with production. We should keep on working with the students encouraging them; motivating them; and lauding them -even for their mistakes as at least the student has made an effort, and effort ultimately leads to yielding some fruit.
(Ignore mistakes in the post as is not revised after typing)
When Saudi students, fresh from high schools join the preparatory year, they carry with them a learning culture that has been described by many as spoon-feeding. They come totally dependent on their teachers to hand everything over to them. They even wait for you to tell them to write and worse they ask you where to write as if notebooks are not ripe yet! This is due to the way they have been doing things for 12 years and one cannot expect them to change overnight. As old habit do die hard indeed. That is also the reason they have to take a course called college study skills.
ReplyDeleteOne way to tackle the problem Hamid has describe and not give in to frustration is to make it a habit to use the first 15 minutes of the day to remind them of what was taught the day before. In addition, Saudi students only review their lessons and start studying for a quiz or a test. In my experience, giving them a quiz every Wednesday has proven to be effective as the students expect that quiz and pay more attention during the week. Another way of addressing the issue is by giving bonus marks to those who have done their homework. These marks could be added to their quiz marks. A +1 bonus goes a long way toward motivating students.
The fact of the matter is that the intake is not the best you can hope for and what we should do is to try and make the best we can with the students that we have.