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Be a coach, not a commander
Be a coach, not a commander
Adult beginning English learners have a long road to mastering English. Look for ways to nurture self-motivation, persistence, and independent learning.
Encourage immersion
Encourage learners to set their phone's language to English, watch videos and listen to music in English, and explore free websites designed for adult English learners:
Suggest active study tools
Learning a language requires building new neural connections.
The most effective ways to do this require active engagement by the learner, not just reading and highlighting.
Encourage learners to make their own flashcards, either paper or digital. Flippity.net is a free resource that provides various ways to study vocabulary , such as flashcards, memory games, quizzes, spelling games, word search, and word scramble.
Once learners build a deck of flashcards, they automatically have additional options:
Suggest/demonstrate free practice tools
Duolingo offers free versions of gamified English lessons with instructions in multiple first languages. However, the free version only allows a limited number of errors per day, so it's better for review than for learning new material.
Learning Chocolate includes vocabulary practice activities that learners can do independently. Each vocabulary set includes between 5-14 words, with 5 practice activities:
Matching the sound to the printed word
Matching the word to an image
Matching the sound to an image
Writing the word under the image
Writing the word in response to the sound
Unfortunately the website is dominated by ads and doesn't adjust well for use on a phone.
Encourage learners to keep an English notebook
Encourage learners to keep a hand-written English notebook, and to write down new vocabulary or expressions that they learn. Writing by choice (not rote copying) builds more neural connections than more passive practice such as reading or rote copying. And information that is written by hand is easier to remember than information written by keyboard.
More ideas
For more ideas, see this page for the results of a collaborative brainstorming workshop on ways to support learner independence.
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