Student by foundphotoslj. Feature photo by Okko Pokko
Sarah Menkedick introduces four types of students in your ESL class.
There’s the guy who’s really interested in grammar and can’t stop asking you why the present perfect form of run is irregular.
He pores over his book every night and could present a thesis on the use of adverbs of frequency, but if he actually needs to bust out a comprehensible sentence in casual conversation, he’s floored.
There are the two or three middle-aged workers who’ve randomly decided they should learn English, gotten really pumped about it during the first week, and then promptly grown bored.
Now they recite new vocabulary words as if they were heavy rocks dropping with a thud.
There are the keen university students who want it, need it, soak it up with the desperation of a man trying every trick he knows to get the woman he wants.
They grapple with the language, play with it, try to please it and alter it a bit to suit their needs. They could use more practice, but they’ve got skillz in place for the moment when they actually meet a foreigner.
And then there are the rare students who soak up language like the proverbial sponge, who will always have a four-year old’s capacity for absorbing new vocabulary and grammatical structures.
There are, of course, many more types of language learners.
Which one are you?
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Hey Turner!
It goes! My students are all 17-18 year old girls at this all women’s university, and they’re for the most wonderful. I could do a whole different post about the types of learners you find in a class of fifteen teenaged girls….this post was based off of Mexico for the most part, since I haven’t taught at a language school in Japan. C’mon, give me some more types! I know you can do it!
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in Vietnam I had a class of 5-9 year old who knew only random pop cultural references…my best strategy was acting like a clown, watching Nemo and the hokey pokey.
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How about bored uninterested high school students who’re being forced to do an extra ESL class by their economics teacher because their writing isn’t up to scratch? Also, how about this bunch when they’re nearly your age and just last year, you were their senior in the same school? No, I suppose that’s not the scenario we’re talking about here, but that’s the extent of my ESL/writing skills teaching experience. Gaah. It was hard work to bring some of them around, but worth it. I’ll never forget the experience, at any rate
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Let us not forget the 19-30-year old ESL student who comes to the U.S. for several weeks to “study” English. They are really at cross-purposes; they want to relax, party and have fun, yet they claim they are “serious” about learning English. However, they typically never do any homework, come to class late, never remember anything you told them the day before and seem peeved when you correct their grammar or pronunciation. Loads of fun. They then have the gall to say the class was “boring” or “too easy”. As if content would have made a difference anyway! These are the kind of people who just like to complain, and no matter what you do as a teacher they will find fault with it. I don’t understand this type of student because typically they are not going to use any English once they get back to their country, so their motivation to learn is typically low. Of course, this begs the question of why they came to “study” in the first place…
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