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What to Expect on your Cactus Evening Language Course

What to Expect on your Cactus Evening Language Course

1. Student participation

Your teacher will plan and organise classroom activities that will require your involvement and participation. Group work, pair work, role plays, dialogues, and games are used to encourage communication and practise speaking the language. It’s important to practise real life situations to gain confidence when using the language outside of the classroom.

2. Error correction

Remember it’s ok to make mistakes. If you are not making mistakes then you are not learning or trying to use anything new. Part of the teachers role is to correct errors and to use student errors to improve the understanding of everyone in the class. Speak as much as you can, making mistakes is just part of the learning process. There are two types of error correction that your teacher will use:

1. One-the-spot error correction: this is when the aim of the activity focuses on the accuracy of the language. The teacher will help you find your error or correct your error at the time of making the error.

2. Delayed error correction: this is when the aim of the activity focuses on fluency. The teacher will not interrupt what you are saying in order to correct you. The purpose here is for you just to speak and not worry too much about accuracy. The teacher will write down any errors and address these after the activity with the whole class.

3. Full Immersion

Your teacher will only use the language you are learning. With practice you will become used to this and it’s important to accept you won’t understand everything that the teacher is saying. The teacher may occasionally translate into English but only as a last resort and if meaning cannot be communicated through any other techniques. You can help yourself by learning key phrases in the language you are learning such as, Please can you repeat that? I don’t understand, please speak more slowly.

4. Course Books and Materials

You will purchase a course book for the duration of your course. The entire course book will usually be covered in three 10 week courses eg from beginner 1 through to beginner 3. Your teacher will also supplement the course book with other materials including worksheets, authentic materials (newspaper articles, youtube videos etc). The course content and structure is driven by the needs to the individuals students in the group, not by getting through the course book page by page, activity by activity. Your teacher will be flexible in this regard.

5. Teaching Styles

Our teachers use full immersion and the communicative approach, which encourage learners to speak as much as possible and simulate real life situations for effective communication outside of the classroom. In the same way that every person has a different personality, every teacher has a different teaching style. It’s important to understand that no two teachers will be exactly the same and that it might take a couple of lessons to become accustomed to your teachers teaching style.

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