Pre-Intermediate Student

Just conducted uma aula particular. One pre-intermediate student. I have been reading out ways to get the student more involved and I've been theorizing, in my spare time, as to how to keep the students attention and have him thinking. I decided to have the student write on the board all of his favorite foods and his family members, just to see how his vocabulary was. Then we dove into the lessons.

The lesson had to do with "if, then" statements and statements regarding frequency (e.g. "do you often, hardly ever, never go to the gym?") We did the entire lesson standing up. We had conversations in Callan style. I would say a phrase or sentence, pretty much in his face, and he would respond with the phrase or sentence I just said. We would repeat it until his pronunciation was correct.

Later came a listening section, in which the students was asked to listen to the stresses, or inflections of the language. I had his repeat, accenting "this", "music", and "english": "THIS is the MUSIC of ENGLISH!" This allowed us to touch on accent and to develop an ear for the non-syllabic aspects of the English language.

After repeating a sentence, he would often have a questions regarding some variation of the sentence. He would ask, "...but can I say...?" and I would have to explain to him whether he could or couldn't.

Paying particular attention to the feel of the class, I arrived at a the feeling that was was occuring was entirely mutual. I had the feeling that he had control for a moment, as he asked questions and guided the dialog. In our give and take, I percieved a the most learning opportunities. This is when I would have him repeat phrases or words. This is when we would act out a scenario and have a conversation to rehearse. This is where you explain the nuances of the language that do not have rules.

I think I tried to establish a scenario in which he had the opportunity to show me what he knew and to try to use what he knew in known and unknown ways. In this way, the focus is on the student. He is actively pursuing comprehension, being stopped to examine the rules around his errors.

It is as if you don't always want the student to chase you, but sometimes you must chase the student. You must let him run here and there with a configuration of words and help him craft fluent setences. The student must find and feel the need to say what ever it is he is learning.