Teaching C1 (Expansion level) Students at Twenix
Teaching those higher levels can be daunting, especially for new teachers starting out or those who have been used to teaching kids and lower level adults. What if they ask about a complicated grammar point I’ve never taught before or even heard of or know how to explain? Will I be able to teach them something they don’t already know? What if they can tell I don’t have much experience? I need to make sure it looks like I know what I’m doing. These are all valid concerns but let’s take a look at them from a different perspective, more student focused. You have the language that the student wants, now start thinking how to give it to them in a way they understand. Here are some top tips from Tim, who is part of our content team here at Twenix.
Tim’s Top Tips:
- Learn how to evaluate them well to identify areas to improve their speaking
- Focus on upgrading rather than correcting to encourage
- Play Devil’s Advocate to encourage more interaction
- Emphatic Structures — increase persuasive communication skills and other speaking skills related to their job (even life!)
- Discourse Management — how to organise their thoughts and ideas more coherently
Evaluate students to understand their needs better.
Arguably one of the most established and recognised forms of assessing students’ language skills is the Cambridge approach. When students are assessed on their speaking skills in a formal exam, assessors will focus on these 5 areas: grammar, vocabulary, discourse management, pronunciation and interactive communication. These are good markers to gauge your student’s abilities and help them during classes as per their individual needs.
Provide alternatives and upgrades for vocabulary and grammar issues.
Tim recommends having a list of banned words. These banned words or even phrases are the typical adjectives or expressions that students overuse because they feel comfortable using them, their ‘fall-back’ or ‘go-to’ phrases. The more they use them, the more comfortable and stuck in a rut they will get with their English. I mean, how many times have you heard the word ‘good’ or ‘beautiful’ when students talk about their weekend, a place they have visited, a new food they tried or even replying to “How is your day going?” It’s our job as EFL teachers to break this mould and get them into the habit of trying new phrases and broadening their lexical range.
Dig deep in your bag of tricks to get the most out of your C1 (Expansion level) students.
Whether a student is shy, self-conscious or maybe a bit distracted, they often provide one word answers and basic responses without much elaboration. These need to be nipped in the bud, quickly. This is where playing Devil’s Advocate helps. It not only encourages students to give more extended answers, they also have to justify their opinions and are often pushed to think about how to express an idea they’ve never articulated in English before and boom, there you go. You can start to feed in useful phrases, challenging them to justify their ideas and think outside the box. Gently nudging them outside their comfort zone will greatly improve their speaking skills.
Take advantage of every opportunity that presents itself to help higher levels form new habits when they use English. Changing the language they use in certain situations and giving them some alternative structures which emphasize what they are trying to say, for example, using adverb phrases to help them become more persuasive regardless of the context. From delivering a sales pitch to convincing colleagues which solution to try next. From dealing with problems at a hotel to deciding which restaurant to go to with friends/colleagues.
Now that we’ve given students a whole bunch of shiny new words they can use in an array of scenarios, we need to help guide them on how to structure everything they want to say. How to introduce the topic, express their opinions, describe something, talk about benefits and drawbacks and conclude in some form or another. Once you become a Tweacher, you can check out Tim’s extensive guide that gives you lots of pointers on what to look out for and how to help your students. He shares how to keep an eye out for organisational problems and provides a great list of discourse markers that teachers can impart with learners.
