Supporting Learner Independence

Preliminary questions

• How does your learner use (or want to use) English?  In what contexts?  With whom?

• Which skills will your learner need the most to use English effectively in these contexts?

• Do the lesson activities and homework assignments align with the learner's contexts and needs?

Listening

Ideas to encourage learners to use and practice English listening skills on their own:

• Encourage learners to watch/listen to media in English (videos, music, radio)

• Suggest that learners set their driving navigator language to English

• Share easy-to-understand music (with lyrics, for reading practice)
  Example: Hello, Goodbye by the Beatles

• Make (or find) audio recordings of fun, simple poems to share with learners (with the words)
  Example: Poems by Ogden Nash and Shel Silverstein
  Practicing saying & memorizing the poems also gives speaking practice.

• Find short stories or children's books with audio or video presentation (with text, for reading practice)

• Record a humorous anecdote from your life for students to listen to (with text, for reading practice)

• Encourage learners to record themselves (video or only audio) and listen to themselves
  Students can use their cameras to take videos, and use a voice recorder on their phone or Vocaroo to record audio.  

• Suggest that learners to listen to a podcast, then discuss it in the next tutoring session/class.
  Good podcasts for beginners:
  BBC Real Easy English - British English, 5-6 minute discussions; website includes transcripts and worksheets with comprehension activities
  PodcastsinEnglish.com  - British English,  2-3  minutes long; website includes transcripts and  comprehension activities
  Learning English through Podcasts - North American English, 15-20 minutes long; website includes auto-generated transcripts

• Share links to short audio dialogs for students to listen to (and repeat, for speaking practice)
  ESL Cyber Listening Lab - North American English, short dialogs (1-2 minutes long) with some multiple choice comprehension questions.  The recording quality is somewhat inconsistent.  Extensive advertising makes this site hard to use  without an ad blocker.
  Some commercial language-learning websites have sample dialogs available.

• Youglish.com allows learners to search for a phrase and then find multiple video in which the phrase is used.  This could be good for hearing idioms used in context.  The playback speed can be adjusted.

Speaking

Ideas to encourage learners to use and practice English speaking skills on their own:

• Suggest that learners try the Tandem.net language/conversation exchange

• Challenge learners to do something in the community that requires them to speak. 
  Examples: 
  ordering a coffee at a coffee shop
  ordering food at a fast-food drive-through (may include challenging listening, too!)
  asking where to find something at a store (even if they know the answer)
  asking for directions (even if they know how to find the location)

• Practice friendly questions they can ask people that they encounter in the park or on the street ("What a cute dog!  What's your dog's name?  How old is your dog?")

• Practice responses to standard questions at the checkout counter at grocery stores ("Did you find everything you were looking for?  Do you need bags?")

• Practice responses to other common spoken encounters, such as responding to "Howzit going?"

• Encourage learners to make short how-to or other videos in English (how to cook a favorite food, how to buy a bus pass, how to change a tire)

• Encourage learners to leave you voice messages on WhatsApp reporting on something (what they did, what they ate, how's the weather, how was their day, etc)

• Show learners how to use common free voice-to-text tools to practice their pronunciation.
  Examples:  Learners can use Google Translate (or Microsoft Translate) on their phone, translating from English into their first language.  They say something in English and see if Google Translate correctly transcribes it in English and correctly translates it to their first language.  Email and messaging apps often have the option for voice-to-text dictation as well.

Reading

Ideas to encourage learners to use and practice English reading skills on their own:

• Encourage learners to practice reading signs in their environment (on the street, in the doctor's office, at the bus stop, etc.), and to send you a picture of any sign that they don't understand.  

• Show learners how to use the camera function of Google Translate to translate written text (signs, notices, billboards, etc.) into their first language in real-time.

• Encourage learners to read easy children's books with their children/grandchildren.  The learner can read to the child, and/or the child can read to the learner.  Easy books by Dr. Seuss and the Elephant and Piggie books by Mo Willems are especially good for this -- available at libraries.

• Encourage learners to try books and magazines at their library.  Some children's books include audio (tape or CD) with the book, so learners can listen as they read.

• Encourage learners to read (curated) news stories on ESOL News Oregon and to do the associated practice activities.  Many of the stories include audio recordings as well.

• Use the ReadWorks website to find and assign short readings relevant to the learner.

• See the listening section (above) for combined listening/reading activities.

Other ideas

• What will you use?
  Easier:  At the end of a class/tutoring session, ask the learner to identify two new vocabulary words or an example of a new grammatical structure that they will look and listen for.  At the next class/lesson, ask them if they heard or read the target vocabulary or grammatical structure, and if so, in what context?
  More challenge: At the end of a class/tutoring session, ask the learner to identify two new vocabulary words or an example of a new grammatical structure that they will use.  At the next class/lesson, ask them if they used the target vocabulary or grammatical structure, and if so, in what context?

• Create or show the learner how to create independent learning activities on Flippity.net, such as flashcards, spelling games, word magnets, and more.