Stretching advanced students’ English

Luiz Otávio Barros

luizotaviobarros@gmail.com

A few examples of classroom routines which in some cases can be

conducive to “stretching” (or at least students’ perception thereof).

1 As far as possible, I make a conscious effort to pitch my level of English

above theirs. If I notice, therefore, that students never go “uh?” when they
listen to me, then that might be evidence that my English is not a source of
i+1.

2 At the end of most extended speaking activities, I usually ask students to

think of something they said which retrospectively they think was a mistake -
a sort of “redeem yourself after the fact” activity. A massive flop when I first
tried it out, but surprisingly effective once students had been trained.

3 When writing new lexis on the board, I tend not to write isolated words, but
phrases or sentences. So, the other day when we were talking about
accidents in class and a student asked “how do you say capotar?”, rather
than write “flip over” I wrote “the car flipped over”. So what they copied
down was the sentence, not the word. Luiz Otávio Barros.

4 I find it useful to have a broad idea of what it is that a student should know
when they embark on the advanced course, so that I can train myself to
constantly assess specific instances of their production against that general
benchmark. This has enabled me to set generally higher standards and
draw a clearer line between advanced and upper intermediate.

5 I tend to think that attention to grammar at this level is more profitable

when it originates from gaps and/or faults in students’ oral/written
production. It is useful, for example, to write recurrent errors on an OHT and
perhaps plan a grammar lesson to iron out the rough spots. So in many
ways what I end up with is a sort of a dual grammar syllabus: coursebook
grammar + grammar to meet students’ needs. Luiz Otávio Barros.

6 Though I usually tend to avoid echoing students, at advanced levels it’s

sometimes useful to echo them in a slightly different way - paraphrase what
they said using “more advanced” (whatever that means!) language.

7 I sometimes tell students at the beginning of the lesson that I will

deliberately make , say, two or three grammar mistakes as I speak. Their
task is then to discover what it is that I said wrong and tell me at the end of
the lesson. Fails first, second, third time, but works wonders eventually.

8 Whenever I correct gap-filling / sentence transformation exercises, I usually

ask students to read each sentence silently first, and then say it out loud
from memory at natural speed (rather than with lousy stress and intonation
with their eyes fixed on the coursebook page).
9 I think there are certain aspects of language that can only be taught
©Luiz Otávio Barros. All rights reserved.
 through texts (listening and reading). This is why I usually do some sort of
language work after students have done the comprehension tasks. In other
words, skimming/scanning/reading intensively and whatever PLUS some sort
of focus on lexis/discourse features/formulaic language or grammar.

10 When students are talking in groups, it’s often useful to appoint a rotating
“language assistant”, who might be in charge of, say, jotting down
examples of “advanced language” as well as mistakes and errors for
subsequent feedback.

11 With groups that insist on reading slowly, subvocalising and underlining all
the words they don’t know, it’s sometimes useful to ask them to read a text
and underline all the words they do know or they think they know.

12 When I’m talking, I make an effort to include in my speech examples of

recently learned language, thereby “engineering” students’ exposure in a
way that’s pedagogically useful.

In other words, you can stretch your advanced learners’ English by:

a. Controlling your own verbal behaviour

b. Doing everyday things differently
c. Shifting the focus towards form by enabling learners to notice
d. Fostering long term accuracy by training students to monitor their speech
e.Teaching lexis more systematically
f. Using a Test-teach-test approach to grammar

©Luiz Otávio Barros. All rights reserved.