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I want to speak perfect English in 3 months with 3 hours of class per week and I don't do homework

Unrealistic expectations.

That's how I'd sum up a lot of corporate clients' objectives for learning English.  To explain  myself, let's analyse  the  heading  piecemeal.

 

"I want to speak perfect English.."

Sorry, but you will never speak perfect English. Even if you go and live in an English speaking country for the rest of your life, you will still never reach the level of being a native speaker. Bi-lingual, maybe, but native, I don't think so. In my experience, only a person raised as a child in a particular country can be considered to be a "native" speaker.

 

"in 3 months.."

 It takes ages to become an advanced level English Speaker. An excellent student, with 40 hours of language class a week ( a bit much, I know, but I'm exaggerating to prove a point) might reach upper-intermediate level in 3 months. But, "perfect", forget about it. It's just not possible.

 

"3 hours of class per week"

In Madrid, and in the rest of Spain also, it is all too common for students to have 3 hours of class per week. This works ok for low level students. They do progress and improve. But once a student reaches intermediate level, 3 hours of class per week maintains their level of English and improvement is very slow. It's the bare minimum necessary to keep in touch with the language.

 

" I don't do homework."

In my experience,  maybe 1 or 2 in every 100 Spanish students wanting to learn English will regularly do homework. The rest never open a book between classes. You can do the homework that the students should have done in class, but this uses a lot of class time. And if one student in a group does homework, it can be quite difficult. If you correct the homework in class, the other students are bored. If you don't, the student who did the homework is annoyed!

 The only time I have seen slightly more homework done is if the students are paying for the class themselves. If their company is paying, then motivation is much less!

Owen Baxter has worked in the Madrid TEFL market for 8 years

 For more infromation on teaching English in Madrid Spain, go to

 www.englishteachermadrid.com

Owen can be contacted by email at bbsmadrid@telefonica.net 

 

 

 


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