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This is not the sort of refrain you want to hear on the first Monday of your meticulously planned English language summer (or other) programme, but it does happen. It’s a phrase that I have heard from higher-level English language learners, who feel the class they have been placed in or the tasks they have been set are not challenging enough.  They might even feel some resentment: my English is good enough, why am I even on this course?!

There are many reasons why a student might raise this sort of issue to a teacher, Academic Manager or Director of Studies. However, this post isn’t going to delve into the reasons that lead to students complaining about their classes. Rather, this piece is going to focus on high-level learners and the classic “plateau” period they go through. In my experience, problems occur with B2+ learners because they often reach a stage where they are very fluent, but not that accurate. Left unaddressed, there is the danger that students don’t progress.

Some context

Many high-level learners who enroll on summer school programs attend international schools in their home country. These schools are English-medium or bi-lingual with many of them preparing students for IGCSEs or undertaking the MYP.  The advantages of these schools are clear for two main reasons. Firstly, motivation is high as there is a tangible need to learn English and, secondly, students are exposed to a broad range of vocabulary in each subject, which can only be a good thing.

However, research has suggested (Lightbown & Spada: 2012) that this approach does not necessarily lead to students really improving their language skills in the long-term. It is one of the reasons that many schools in the UK have EAL departments that supplement CLIL style learning. This enables students to focus on grammatical accuracy and a honing of the four skills of speaking, listening, reading and writing. That’s all well and good, but what if, for whatever reason, a school doesn’t have an adequate EAL provision or students don’t have access to one? Well, it’s for this reason that parent should seriously consider an Intensive General English course for their child as they enable higher-level fluent learners to really focus on the areas they need to improve.

Back to our summer school complaint: we find students who can communicate fluently in English, do not struggle to understand or be understood and are confident speakers. However, when we dig a little deeper we find that in actual fact they make various errors, slips and mistakes that have become fossilized and engrained. In short, a false sense of security has crept in in with their English language ability, with students convinced they are better than they actually are (!) resulting in limited further progression. In some cases, students tend to “switch off” and become frustrated.

A balancing act

I believe that students need a balance between communicative focused tasks and accuracy focused tasks. They also need to use language in communicative and meaningful contexts and that by ‘noticing’ language, rather than learning a million different rules, students can greatly improve their language skills. That said, I also believe that accuracy focused tasks have their place in the language classroom as this can really challenge students and meet their expectations, i.e. resolve the “it’s too easy” conundrum. The important thing in both cases is that the tasks the teacher gives them are one or two notches above their actual level (Hedge: 2000) and in this way we can appropriately challenge students.

Sometimes this does mean that students need to do intense work that focuses on accuracy. Students need to be aware that this might not always be the most communicative of events in the classroom but that they are being challenged appropriately. Crucially, in my opinion, there is an important balancing act at play.  Students need to be prepared to find tasks difficult from a B2 plus level onwards and recognize this is vital for their development. As for teachers, they need to ensure the lessons are engaging in order to motivate students.

Case study

I’ll give you a good example: in one course that I taught during my DELTA 2 Module, my students (B2 level) told me that they really loved reading English newspapers, but sometimes they struggled to follow the progression of the articles due to certain words. It was at this point that I realised a lesson focusing on accuracy – the ‘nitty gritty’ of reading newspapers - would be more appropriate in supporting students with their language learning rather than them only ‘getting the gist’ of the article. This is because to really understand a newspaper article, students need to have specific skills – and sub skills - at their disposal.

The week before the lesson, I asked my students what kind of newspapers they read and the articles, topics, and themes they enjoyed reading about. With this information, I was able to judiciously select something they all would enjoy. In this instance, my students told me they enjoyed reading the London Evening Standard whilst on the tube, so I found an article from the previous week that they would like based on their interests.

Without boring you too much, the aim of the lesson was to equip students with the right skills to be able to identify reference words, which can be quite confusing and challenging and, dare I say it ‘boring’ (!). However, by giving the students the opportunity to contribute to the choice of resources that would be used in the lesson meant they engaged with it on a personal level, which in turn ensured they were more likely to be able to retrieve the language they used in the lesson when they were alone and outside the classroom.  By doing this, students relied less on me the teacher and could be more autonomous readers outside the classroom, and therefore more independent and better learners. I won’t lie – this was a tough lesson for this group of students, but the feedback I got from them was encouraging. One or two students were completely dumbfounded and really didn’t enjoy the lesson (something for me as a teacher to consider), but the majority really enjoyed the challenge and understood the rationale – because they essentially requested it.

Students – listen up!

Students need to acknowledge that, in planning activities like this, their teacher has listened to their wants and has also taken a professional judgement on what they need help with. Teachers sometimes need learners to focus on accuracy or develop focused strategies in order to take that next step with language learning. This is something that a pure fluency based approach cannot offer. Crucially, students, this might not be something you love doing and, yes, it probably will be hard!!!! The important thing is that you know why you are doing what you are doing in class and that also you have had some say in the materials or choice of topic in the classroom.

The benefits of both fluency and accuracy-based tasks are as important as each other and they can co-exist within a holistic teaching programme based on the needs of the students, there just needs to be a good balance and the tasks need to be engaging as possible.

Bibliography

Hedge, T. (2000) Teaching and Learning in the Language Classroom Oxford: Oxford University Press

Lightbown P., Spada N. (2012) How Languages are Learned. 4th Edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press