Discoures

In a discussion on training methods the other day the topic came up of how best to remove concretised errors from language. In the 10 years that I have been teaching, I have perversely enjoyed helping students rid themselves of those ingrained slips and errors that pop up on a frequent basis. I see it as an easy thing to do, particularly in one to ones, and it is something that the student frequently asks for and appreciates.

So how do to it? The key is awareness; making the student aware of the slip and keeping them focused on it over a period of time. A simple method is that you keep track of the number times they make the mistake during a session, explaining this to the student beforehand. Each time the student makes the error, ensure that they see you pick up the pen and make a mark in your notes. They will soon be stopping mid utterance and self correcting the moment you reach for your pen. Keep this up for a few lessons and I’m pretty sure the error will drop away.

It’s a simple and effective principle, and one that we can apply to different situations; presentation training being a case in point. Love it as a trainer or hate it as a participant, videoing a course participant giving a presentation provides a wealth of information on which to give feedback. It also provides that essential self awareness that we need to get rid of our bad habits. Focus the participant on their slip or bad habit and then hit play; cringes may result, and groans of embarrassment, but I’m sure there will be fewer slips in the next delivery.

Mike Hicks

Good attendance can be a problem in an in-company language course; deadlines, business trips and the thought that it is „only English“, can conspire to drag attendance down to 60% sometimes. Does it have to be this way? Is there anything we can do as trainers to get higher attendance rates?

Most important is making sure that the class is engaging and does actually address the needs and wants of the students. If the relevance between what they do in the course and what they have to do at work is clear, and the content is presented in an interesting and engaging way, then half the battle is won. We can also let our students get more involved in planning and running the course; a negotiated syllabus gets buy-in at the beginning, and having the students themselves update those who missed a lesson via email etc keeps them on their toes.

Making clear the obvious link between regular attendance and progress is the next logical step when talking with the students. I often make the analogy to them that attending the course is just like going to the gym; if you do it regularly you will see results, skip a lesson then it gets easier to skip the next… and the next… and then not much improvement occurs.

From a different angle, I think we also have a responsibility to advise the company what they can do to ensure attendance is kept high. I suggest to companies that they make an agreement with staff that they must attend at least 75% of classes or pay part of the course costs themselves fair enough; I think. When you couple this with good record keeping of who is absent and why, along with reporting back to HR on a monthly basis, it acts as a good motivator and also allows you to get on top of any problem cases early on.

Mike Hicks