The Market is Flooded! How can I compete? - Dress for Success Series : Part 1, Market Size

A teacher, when they know their craft, is something extraordinary. To be able to sit down with another human being and tease the right amount of attention out of that person to focus on the very tasks and discussions that will help them grow is nothing short of miraculous. Everybody teaches! Parents teach their children, the media teaches the population and friends teach friends. But not everybody is good at teaching. Parents for example are very haphazard in the effectiveness of their lessons. They may find that their children are learning perfectly well from them, but not what they are told, rather what they are shown. Children learn much more through examples than words. They will hear the words from their parents but then look to their parents to see the reality of how such words are to be applied. So, there are two lessons, the theoretical one and the practical one. Equally so most people can become a 'professional' teacher. They simply need to go through the course of training. However, how well they absorb the pedagogical theories and manage to bring them over to practice is another matter.

The world is full of professionals that are good enough; they get the job done. One of the big debates in the educational field however is how to value and reward master teachers. It is basically a bit of a conundrum; because once a teacher reaches a level of mastery they most likely did it because they love teaching and no monetary gain will draw them away from their calling. So the status quo continues and in most countries there is not much difference in the wealth of master teachers and regular "good enough" teachers, unless that is, those master teachers are also entrepreneurial.

Now the insight I will share in this series is not just for master teachers. It is for any online language teachers that are serious at becoming great and getting rewarded for the increased impact they can have on their students. There will always be a percentage of teachers who are smart enough to make good financially but instead decide they would like to dedicate all their time to teaching those who need it most. That is highly commendable and I was that way inclined for a long time too. However, teachers have the right to options and I believe the option of making good in your career so your family and yourself are looked after in the long run should be available, as it is to people in most other highly impactful professions.

So let's get down to brass tacks! As a teacher you are subject to the same economical principles as anybody else trading a product or service. Purists don't like to think this is true, but at the same time complain about schools and institutes being too "business orientated". Well, they are that way for a reason. Although I agree some of them have completely lost the plot and hired marketing professionals from other industries who have made a mess of things, we will get into that later. Let us first look at the basic economic principle of supply and demand.

Supply and Demand

It may seem that the tutoring/teaching space is very crowded at times. Particularly when you look at the online market. Additionally, any companies that serve in this space are fairly young or young wings from older education providers. The former is in the majority though. Which makes for slim pickings when it comes to online work. Over the last few years, I have seen the conditions for online language teachers take a sharp dive in regards to benefits, policy and of course wages. Many of the newer providers actually offer the worst in terms of payment. But even some older providers have been able to have a steady flow of teachers fill their ranks while offering very low rates. So as in the case in most of these situations, where the people lining up at the door to get a job are almost as many as the ones inside an "If you don't like it leave!" attitude takes over. After all, the owners of these companies are just businessmen, after all, most of them have probably never spent more than a couple of days in front of a classroom.

Gloomy isn't it? Well if that is your view of reality I want to show you the other side of the picture. These companies, whether they have more applicants or not, can only be so good at marketing their service. Additionally, they have many pitfalls providing a service that smaller operators can avoid. It is a lot easier nowadays to market someone than something. That is why so many brands have social media ambassadors now; you cut out the middle man by becoming an independent operator and your own brand ambassador.

Have you ever tried posting a job advertisement before? I have! I was recruiting for a small language school back in 2010 and posted a little ad on one of the online job boards. I received well over a hundred applications and was receiving a steady flow in the following months after that. That wasn't even for an online position, that was for an in-person placement where they would have to fly to a foreign country if they were accepted. You get the idea!

Now, have you ever tried posting a little ad to get some new students? Some of you have. If you got an overwhelmingly fantastic response from that you are in the minority.

Does this mean that there are more teachers than students? No, not at all. It means it takes more effort to get customers than it does to get applications from potential employees. There are still far more students who can afford to pay a premium than all the EAL teachers combined. Even the lousy ones with $5 certificates and bad drinking problems 😄, no sorry, don't be that person (but we will come back to them later). Let me throw a few numbers into the bucket for comparison.

There are currently more than 4 million millionaires in China, these are the millionaires we know about, the reality is there may be double that amount. Now I am just using China as a strong example, I will explain how this applies to the whole EAL market in a moment. For now, let's take the UK as an example as a source of teachers, motherland to the great English language. If we took 40% of qualified teachers out of the school system there, those who teach Preschool, Primary, Middle School, High School, College, Special Needs etc. if we took all of them out of their jobs and shipped them over to mainland China, leaving all the poor British kids without any tutor between them, we would only just fulfil the private language tuition needs of their children.

Ahh but it is not the upper-class demographic that is hungriest for private tuition, is it? They can afford to send their kids to the UK for fancy private schooling or to international schools in China, it is the middle class that makes up the greatest demand. When you think "middle-class' you may think of somebody struggling to make ends meet, and worrying about the bills coming in. That isn't the definition of middle-class. The definition of middle-class is somebody who has excess capital above their basic needs and can allocate it towards what they think is important. What do middle-class Chinese think is most important? Their children's future! It is no secret that the focus there is on giving your kids the BEST education humanly possible. Many young Chinese children study for at least 8 or 9 hours a day, double that of most children in developed Western nations. The same can also be said for South Korea.

So, how big is the middle-class in China you ask? 400 million people. 120 million households with 180 million children that need tuition. Oh, and most likely some of their parents need tuition too, because, let's face it! The education system in China 20-30 years ago wasn't doing a great job in terms of EFL results. So, 180 million children and all the teachers in the UK combined, of whom are not all EAL teachers, amount to around 500,000. Let's bring over all the teachers from the USA, we now have another 3.8 million. Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Ireland - have I missed any? All those together (including all the professors and counsellors in Canada, sorry couldn't separate the data) makes an additional 1.48 million. In total, we have around 5.8 million teachers.

I am failing to mention three important things, that all the aforementioned countries have a DEMAND for teachers, of the 5.8 million teachers available only a small fraction are EAL teachers and of those EAL teachers, not all are skilled enough to get real SLA (Second Language Acquisition) results from their students. In fact, on this last point, the current statistics on LOTE (Language Other Than English) programs show that less than 5% of students that start learning a foreign language actually continue to threshold level (where they can independently communicate).

Wow, okay, sorry about that. A whole lot of statistics there. But, in a nutshell what all this means is that:

1. There is a crazy inherently unfulfillable demand for EAL teachers in China alone. This is not including all the other emerging markets with almost equally impressive swelling middle classes and new millionaires.

2. Highly effective teachers are very difficult to come by (remember 95% of students are failing in LOTE programs).

3. As mentioned previously, there are a limited number of providers serving in this space, particularly online and they are almost all young companies.

Supply (teachers) --> Providers and Platforms (choke point) --> Demand (students and parents)

As an additional point, it is worth mentioning that the majority of potential clients still don't feel that comfortable paying for services online. One of the reasons the Chinese market has become so enticing is because they have gotten ahead of the curve as online consumers and more specifically as online students.

Supply (limited) --> Demand (growing every year as more people get used to learning online)

Now, I have discussed just one economic principle that if properly understood can help you better approach your rates and value in the marketplace. Let's see how this translates to a competitive advantage.

Source your students directly, deal with them directly and you can operate on a much more effective level than impersonal larger players. If your client views you as a professional teacher who has a high success rate and they feel comfortable with you they will not want to consider going with somebody else.

I experienced this time and time again when I was a larger operator. We had a language centre and when a teacher left us we would find a portion of their students simply didn't want to continue. We had to make a procedure where if a teacher left, the management and head-teacher would meet with concerned parents and assure them of our continued commitment to their children. The parents were worried they would be handed a teacher that was sub-par to their previous one.

Many online providers have a policy that teachers should not share contact information with students. They often use the excuse that this is to avoid students trying to get free lessons from the teacher or harassing/stalking the teachers; but in reality, it is because they are afraid the students will work out a direct deal with the teachers. Now in truth, this is fair enough as the company has put money into marketing, sales, R&D and overheads that the teacher did not have to put in for. It is worth noting though that the only parts of this equation that teachers really need to learn to start serving the same students are marketing and payments. The other skills such as curriculum R&D, sales, scheduling etc. usually come naturally to teachers; if not, it only takes a little study and practise to get reasonably good at these.

I remember talking to my sister way back in 2013 about some online teacher directories that were operating in Australia. They originally had a model where they would have the classes purchased through the directory and then the teachers would receive payments through the directory upon successful completion. However, it didn't take long for this business model to be proven unviable. As the teachers were meeting in person with the students and losing a percentage of their pay to the directory they would usually only have the first package bought through the directory; all subsequent purchases were made directly to the teacher. So the directories changed their business model to a finders fee system where it would be a once-off commission (larger than before) but then afterwards it was all between the teacher and their student.

The reasons this hasn't happened in the international online teaching space is:

1. Accepting payments from different countries is something many teachers haven't navigated before. It takes a bit of trial and error and quite a bit of research to get a system that works well for you. When compared to a direct bank transfer this is a barrier to entry. However this shouldn't be a reason, a few weeks testing and trialling a system and a few dollars spent will have this challenge done and dusted.

2. A lot of teachers do not speak the language of the countries these online platforms are operating in, do not understand the culture and have no networks there. This makes finding students difficult. Even finding students in their own country can be a challenge for many let alone internationally. Often the issue is that new online teachers have no idea of which country to target and who their intended demographic is.

The major take-away point here is that the students may come to you through the company but they usually stay on because of you. 80% of the education is YOU and the other 20% you can mitigate. Things like community, branding, status etc. that brands are better at can also be done by you. Although that is a topic for another day. For now, just be aware of these first two barriers to entry, marketing and payments, and be ready to tackle them head-on, if you haven't already.

Additionally, remember that most of the EAL market has not been tapped into yet and those customers the current online platforms are able to covert are only a fraction of what is available. So, put together a marketing strategy, charge what you are worth and make it easy for potential customers to trust and feel comfortable with you!

In the next part of this series, I will discuss another economic and sales principle, that of Perceived Value.

In the meantime, I invite you to the comments section to discuss any point of interest and of course brainstorm together with your colleagues. But most important keep shining, sharing and succeeding so that you can fly high and inspire!

Do Indonesians Speak English Well?

Recently a couple of questions where asked about how well Indonesians speak English. A lot of Indonesians may feel that the quality of Indonesian English is generally low, but I have found otherwise. I elaborated on my feelings in the following answers.

How good are Indonesians in speaking English, their accent and fluency?

Previously Indonesians in the public school system used to study English starting from SMP-SMA (Junior-Senior High School) then schools changed it to start at SD 3 (3rd Year of Primary School) and then for quite a while it has been obligatory since SD 1 (1st Year of Primary School). For private schools, they were usually a few steps ahead with when their students started learning English, most private kindergartens already start giving English from playgroup with songs and chants, but not all.

There is an interesting phenomena here though where students can 'learn' English for 12+ years but still not be able to communicate with it. This is due to a number of reasons such as:

• A one track curriculum, where if you fall behind there are no more entry points. This also leads to multi-level classrooms that are unmanageable for teachers.
• Poor teaching quality (either with pedagogical knowledge, content knowledge or both)
• Too many unrealistic competencies which are the same for city schools and schools on a mountain in the middle of a jungle. That leads to poor teaching.
• Some people feel motivation is also a factor but I feel with realistic expectations and well trained and facilitated teachers motivation will not be a major issue. Sure if students are self-motivated learners they will do well, but they will do well without classes too.

It is a very general question when referring to 'Indonesians' but as a whole those who are given the right environment usually learn English very well, I have seen in general the Indonesian tongue and mind is very well suited for English, usually well trained Indonesians have a lovely accent and if they are of the younger generation have good grammar too. The options for Indonesians wanting to introduce their children to this international language have increased with many more schools using the Cambridge curriculum for their Maths, Science and English subjects including Islamic schools. Previously if the Muslim majority wanted to have their children schooled well and speaking English they had to send their children to Catholic schools, now though many Islamic schools have improved in regards to English, although they still haven't yet got the experience to overtake Catholic schools in general.

What do people from other countries think about Indonesian accents (when speaking English)?

I feel I am qualified to answer this question because I have been teaching English to Indonesians almost exclusively for around 10 years. I am an Australian who lives in Jakarta and also a Toastmaster (public speaking organization), so I hear a lot of different English accents coming from Indonesian English speakers.

In general, Indonesians adapt their pronunciation to English very easily. Sometimes when they have studied English poorly this is not the case but after receiving good instruction early on they have very few long standing difficulties, in fact I would be hard pressed to mention any.

An exception perhaps are people with a strong Javanese accent in Bahasa Indonesia, I have found a lot of the time their accents stick thickly when they learn English. This is not to say that some can't master English pronunciation and intonation or that those who don't can't be understood. Even Javanese English learners find English easier than Japanese, Chinese, Thai or Korean English learners. Mainly because of the similarities between Bahasa Indonesia and English.

Inter-language (mixing the two codes of mother tongue and new language) can be an issue but again with proper instruction this can be easily overcome.

The important stage is Threshold stage, where the learner begins to become independent in their language production. If they have good resources to learn from and a good guide they will do fine, if they have poor resources and a poor guide (maybe the teacher isn't proficient themselves) then this can lead to fosilisation of a poor accent and inter-language.

So in summary you will find most Indonesians do not speak English, there are many though who can though and many who can speak English quite well, especially if you are dealing with big companies from Jakarta, most international companies only hire Indonesians who can speak English (for obvious reasons).

The above are edited excerpts from my Quora answers. You can see more questions I've answered on Quora from my Quora profile here!

Teaching Reading

Some thoughts on teaching reading from my own experience.

Give a variety of activities to make sure the students are engaged. Basic structure could be:

1. Pre-reading activities:

Including A discussion for engagement, Vocabulary that may be encountered, prediction activity, questions to look for

2. Reading activities:

Main idea, discussing the prediction, reading it and highlighting any hard words, exercises to practice skimming and scanning (google reading skills) such as sequencing, reordering, information race etc. Read for details and discuss/practice particular phrases.

3. Post reading activities:

Questions both 1. to confirm comprehension and 2. to promote discussion and HOT (High Order Thinking).

Fill in the blanks to demonstrate vocabulary comprehension.

Speaking activities with specific grammar points from the article i.e. POP Grammar.

There is a sequence that you could use.

Previously I used to mix suggestopedia techniques with conventional "skills based" techniques for my reading focus lessons. 

An example of what I used to do is:

1. Engagement and vocabulary introduction

2. Short discussion

3. Relaxation and a comfortable reading from me in a natural pace with good expression.

4. Second reading together with the students looking at the page.

5. Questioning to develop skimming and scanning skills

6. Highlighting hard words

7. Answering questions both Comprehension and opinion based

8. Group discussions

9. Moving into speaking activities or writing activities depending on the focus

Hope that can give you some ideas of what to do in your class! 

Contextualisation of a Foreign Language

Hey Guys,

Due to the passing of my father I haven't been able to write any new articles recently. So today I want to get back into it.

Sitting here with a nice mug of Cafe Latte I figured I should go over some more 'teaching basics' just for those out there who are still trying to fill in some gaps in their teaching.

Ever thought that the language you were teaching/facilitating in class just didn't seem real for the students?

I think we have all at some point in time or another been in such a situation. 'Making the language real' as it were can also be explained as 'contextualisation' putting the language into context. This is particularly important because as you know sometimes the exact same phrase or word in different contexts can have a completely different meaning. So making sure there is always a clear context for the language to fit in will assist the learning in approximating language use in a more natural environment.

The British Council defines contextualisation as:

"Contextualisation is putting language items into a meaningful and real context rather than being treated as isolated items of language for language manipulation practice only. Contextualising language tries to give real communicative value to the language that learners meet. The context can help learners remember the language and recall it at a later date. Learners can use natural learning strategies to help them understand contextualised language, such as guessing meaning from context.
 
Example
Teaching the language used to give advice by looking at problem pages from teenage magazines gives the target language context.
 
In the classroom
Contextualisation can be as simple as providing an example sentence that uses a new word, or as complex as preparing a telephone role-play to practise functional language."

http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/knowledge-database/contextualisation

We can contextualise language through the use of:

-Games and interactive activities
-Storytelling, dramatisation, singing
-Student presentations and projects
-Themes or topics in the activities
 -Realia like post cards, brochures,objects, menus, etc.



With any of these the point is to contextualise the language with "real world" themes or topics.

An example would be to bring a map of a foreign town and a list of places they could see, it would be best to get a real map from perhaps a tourist/information booth and laminate it so you could use it for many classes. Perhaps when friends are going overseas you can request that the "oleh-oleh" (souvenirs) they bring back for you are tourist booklets, maps, menus and brochures in the target language, theses can all be used as realia.

The activity with the map could include practicing directions, likes and dislikes and/or making suggestions. You could also include an internet research project where the children research a particular destination on the map and then share it with their friends.

There are countless other examples of contextualising language in the classroom and you'll often find that good teachers hardly ever teach a language without a context. So make contextualising language one of your TEFL 101s and don't let it slip your mind. The more in context, interesting and real the learning experience is for you students, the better result you'll get.

So good luck guys and keep on changing lives with the wonderful gift of a foreign language.

Regards,

-Hugh


 

Using facebook groups to engage students

Hi Guys,

Sorry I haven't posted for a while. I really need to get moving in building this site as a resource.

Have you ever found that your students engagement dwindles between meetings?

Well we can't really blame them can we, sometimes without any homework or project to do they forget even the subject of last lesson. What can we do then other than assigning projects and homework to do outside class time (which if we did it too often we'd probably have a mutiny on our hands ^_^)?

How about making a facebook group especially for one class or perhaps for all your classes to socialize together on? Have you tried it before? I have a friend who whenever he gets a new class the first thing he does is sets up a facebook group for them. He gets them to think of a name for the group, a mascot/logo and maybe even a slogan. Through the group it's a great way to get the students to practice their English together at their own pace as well as engage them with upcoming, ongoing or past themes to your lessons.

You can also assign discussion tasks, post up motivational material or maybe just build rapport with your students by posting jokes or getting to know them better.

So what have you got to loose?

Just some quick tips in starting a group for your students:

-Make sure to moderate it or assign one of your more responsible students as a moderator to ensure the students speak English, don't use foul language and don't engage in bullying in the group

-Make it a closed group so that unwanted visitors can not wreck the environment or gather students private information

-Finally don't forget to have fun with it. Even if your students aren't learning anything through the group or are making a bunch of mistakes in their posts. The main thing is that they have fun with it, are more excited about English classes and of course are closer and happier with their cool and techno-savvy teacher ^_^

Alright guys let me know what you think of this idea, share your experience using it on our CLT FB Group and let's Change Some Lives! ^_^


-Hugh

How to build a Language Switch in Students

Hi Guys,

It's been a while since my last post but I'm glad to see that my page views are steadily going up. It means that the effort I put into my blog isn't wasted. So please if you like the blog, recomend it on google or facebook, thanks.

Today I want to write about building a 'language switch' in student's. What is a language switch you may ask? Well for those who don't know yet, a language switch refers to the ability to be able to think in the target language. The benefits of being able to think in the target language are very obvious but I feel it's still important for us to remind ourselves of them before we go on. The first and foremost benefit though is of course the 'snowball effect' which I will talk about later and the next is 'smoothness in speech and comprehension'.

Smoothness in speech and comprehension (AKA Proficiency):

Have you ever heard somebody talk half in their mother tongue and the target language at the same time? That is called inter-language. Another phenomenon is people replacing thoughts with 'ah eh errr' which is a normal habit (authough a bad one) for native speakers but for an L2 speaker it can be disastrous. As by the time they find the words they are looking for, the moment is lost. The reason for those 'ahs ehs and errs' is usually because the L2 speaker is going through their own language first and then structuring the L2 which creates many problems.

To quote one L2 learner from Argentina studying in America he said "...at first I tried to find similarities in the grammar of my own language and English, but then I realized that it wasn't working. For me to speak English well I had to learn English directly, not through my mother tongue...".

Some things that show a language switch is in effect are:

• People dreaming in the L2
• People playing out conversations in their head in the L2
• Spontaneous production of the L2
• An effort to switch back into the L1 (accidentally speaking in the L2 to an L1 speaker)
• Effortless production and comprehension of vocabulary and grammar already learner

The 'Snowball Effect':

The snowball effect as its name suggests is where the student's L2 ability and scope gets better only through the momentum of the amount of L2 already acquired.
The best example of the snowball effect can be seen in a Total Immersion School. A Total Immersion School is a school where all subjects are taught in the target language and the target language is the language used on campus. If you are interested in finding out more about Total immersion Schools you can google 'The French Immersion Program in Canada' Immersion Schools have been running in Canada since the 1950s.
In an immersion school students see an immediate need to use the language and use the L2 they already know to navigate in their surroundings. This is by far the most natural and best way to learn a language as they are living and breathing it on a daily basis and have no way around it. Even doing a simple activity in class like building a cardboard castle or exploring a new concept in science can be a language acquisition experience.
The second example of the Snowball Effect is of students who once they have a language switch in place, explore English by themselves in their free time. This is done through, books, comics, TV programs, Movies, Songs, Twitter, Facebook, Online Games, Offline games (in English) etc. and most of the time the students aren't doing these activities because they are interested in learning, but because they are interested in the medium and activity.
So if we aren't teaching at a Total Immersion School how can we Build the Student's Language Switch?
The easiest way I've found to develop a language switch and meet our claim of 100% success is to use the Total Physical Response approach (TPR). First developed by Dr. Prof. James Asher it is by far the most effective method I've found for students of all learning abilities.
Many teachers have turned their noses up at TPR because they feel it teaches a limited scope of the language, which is true. Then again though, to develop a language switch, love for the language, confidence in learning and an impressive amount of vocabulary, we don't need a broad scope. We need a scope that is practical, real and can be used/understood right away by the students.
Here is a demonstration video of the first lesson in a TPR course, where the instructor is teaching Indonesian:

As we can see from the video the students are having fun, aren't stressed at all, immediately begin to comprehend and store the language and aren't pushed to speak at all. There is no failure and immense success shown in this lesson.
Dr. James Asher described the factors for language acquisition (which he modeled of how a child acquires their first language):
1. A Stress-Free Environment (in alignment with Krashen's 'Affective Filter Theory')
2. Comprehensible Input
3. The Right to Remain Silent
When the students are ready they will speak up by themselves, and they will even be raring for the challenge when the time comes. That time however is different for different students, forcing them to come out of their shell too soon can sometimes set them up for failure and leads to them shutting themselves off.
That's all I have time for today, I hope to continue this article another time where I will give information about the 'steps of TPR' (of in full are not well known) and perhaps some more tactics for developing a language switch in students.
Thanks for reading guys and don't forget if you have any questions you can comment here or post them up on our facebook group page.
Until next time, peace out and let's change some lives!
-Hugh

How to break down the barriers to learning a new language!

Hi Guys,

What a beautiful Tuesday. Tonight I will go and teach some unfortunate kids in my neighborhood. Some of these kids have been through the wars (not literally). There is one guy let's call him Agung, he's only just entered High School. His house burnt down with all his school leaving certificates etc. So to enter High School he had to take the Junior High exam again through distance education here. Anyway now he's made it but is living in the orphanage so he can go to the school that accepted him. His parents are still without a home, probably living with family two hours away.

Why am I telling you about Agung? It's because today I want to talk about some of the things that can prevent somebody from learning a new language. We can call them "Affective Issues" and for a fairly well written and more detailed article you can visit: http://www.njcu.edu/cill/vol7/andres.html.

Affective Issues:

Okay so what are Affective Issues? Affective issue are issues that relate to the Affective Filter Hypothesis first put together by Stephen Krashen.

They consist of a number of elements the main ones however are in the article I linked to above and are what I'm going to discuss in relation to Agung. 1. Self-Esteem 2. Inhibition 3. Motivation and 4. Anxiety.

Now you may be surprised to hear that Agung and his friends at the orphanage so very little of these factors. They are actually probably the best students I've ever had in that regard. The moment I come in they are attentive and ready to learn, it is almost too hard to finish the class because they are just egging for more. Why? Why would it be that a bunch of children that have all been through some psychological trauma of some kind would be the easiest to teach? I'll tell you what I think - it's their appreciation for life and their love for learning. They don't take learning for granted anymore, they realize what it would be like without this blessing they have to now be able to study a language and for that they have the greatest filter beat - Motivation.

Motivation:

Motivation is the be all to end all in language learning (any learning for that matter) Sure Self-Esteem, Anxiety and Inhibition are strong factors but against a strong will to succeed and an appreciation for learning they don't have a leg to stand on.

Going back to how the brain works we can find that way back in 1885 we could already see evidence of this strong motivation factor. In 1885 Hermann Ebbinghaus did an experiment on memory retention and one of the things he found was that "...meaningful things are remembered for about ten times longer than random meaningless things" hmm "random meaningless things"? Sounds a bit like a foreign language doesn't it? Random meaningless sounds or random meaningless words are often how a second language learner sees the target language. Which I think is the greatest effect on motivation. If it is gobbledegook then why would we be motivated or have the self-esteem to think we can turn it into something meaningful that could be remembered?

Our part as teachers:

This is where the teacher comes in. If we can structure learning in such a way that it is immediately meaningful and makes sense as usable language then the students will react by committing it to memory. After they commit it to memory they will be motivated to come to the next class with less anxiety, more confidence and there learning inhibitors would have been removed by the great success of learning another language. What our students need is success in the classroom. If we can give them success even if it's with producing a list of commands independently and expressing themselves this way through their new command of the foreign language. This is more than enough to stamp out any affective filters right there and then. Giving a good start to language learning and getting them through the beginner level as quick as possible is the greatest gift we can give to a Foreign/Second Language Learner. As the beginner level for most language learners is the biggest hurdle, it is the time where they will either recognize gobbledegook as real language or they will run away from the whole process and shut out the [perceived] madness.

Child Vs Teen learners:

With young children it's easy. They have had little or no negative experience with another language so it is easy to convince them that anything is possible, including learning one or many foreign languages. With older students however ones that having been trying to force down the language to no avail at a tedious pace for many years, this is where our real challenge lies.

We can not expect older learners (SMP and SMA) to all have the same motivation as Agung and his friends especially if they see their parents doing well enough in life without the target language, why would they want to torture themselves any further with this mad gobbledegook language? That is why to deliver our claim of 100% success in teaching a foreign language. We need to find out which students have a strong affective filter (built up through years of failure in being able to speak) and fix the boat while it still floats. Show them that language learning is not what they think it to be, get back to the basics of the language and give them the success they deserve!

I hope that next week I will have time to do a write up on two techniques that have almost been forgotten and will be able to to instill the confidence needed for our students to propel themselves through the language learning process. We will look at a Brain-Based approach to language learning, based on the last 25years of studies in cognitive science. If you want to get an idea of the kind of language learning techniques we'll be talking about you can check out this video: Born to Learn: Class Reunion. Click on any of the other born to learn series after you're done to get more of an insight into the learning revolution. Also please discuss the videos or any information on this blog either through the comments section or at our facebook group "Change Lives Together!".

Until next time, peace out and let's Change some Lives!

Warm regards,

-Hugh