Chatting your Way to FL Proficiency

I’m a chatterbox. That’s one thing most people know about me and if they don’t, they tend to find out very shortly after meeting me. I’m still not sure if it’s part of being Canadian (not sure it’s fair to blame it on an entire country), but I do like meeting people and hearing their stories.

What does this have to do with language teaching you ask? Well, everything.

In my ever so humble opinion, language lessons should never be too quiet. As the number of students per class continues to increase in schools worldwide, the concept of individualized learning (of any kind) slips a little further away. In a class of 30+ students, teachers cannot possibly be expected to individualize lessons based on their students needs. Frankly, there just aren’t enough hours in a day.

Andrea Jadrzyk

At LanguageSitter™, we consider the individualized hour to be of key importance to quality language learning. It is this approach that allows us, as teachers, to really connect with our students, making it easier for us to understand what they need from us.

Happy Andi :)

So, what does LanguageSitter™ look like from our end? From my perspective, being a LanguageSitter™ is all about combining clever planning with (often unexpected) improvisation. Just because you've spent time planning the 'perfect' lesson doesn't mean your student will be able to follow you through it. Once both teacher and student are on the same wavelength, however, the planning process becomes a much more accurate science. If a student is more visual, we’ll work with that. If they’re more auditory or kinaesthetic, we’ll work with that too. We’ll sing, dance, wave our arms in the air, tell jokes, use flashcards … whatever it takes to help our students ‘get it’ (although I pity any unsuspecting onlookers).

Having worked in ‘regular’ schools before (both primary and secondary) I can honestly say I don’t miss the handouts, the long-winded grammatical explanations or the ‘fill in the gaps’ exercises. Although we do supply our students with such things if necessary, I, personally, prefer to focus on a more practical form of language teaching (speaking, listening, reading and writing).

Being a LanguageSitter™ is much more than just being a language teacher. If you do your job right, you often find yourself donning the roles of friend, motivator, counsellor, comedian, co-worker and student to name a few.

Those of us who work here wouldn’t have it any other way. :)

Andrea
LanguageSitterka™ za angleški jezik