Why I'm quitting my job to become a full-time tutor

So you guys, I've got a personal announcement to make. You've just seen it in the heading - my office days are done, I'm going to dedicate myself fully to Fluent Language Tuition.

I have never done anything like this before. It's scary and exciting, and it's a credit to all my lovely students and friends that I feel ready for this. Let's make sure we take this opportunity and turn Fluent Language Tuition into a success!

In practical terms, this means I will have booking slots available every day of the week.

Things I love about being a tutor

  • Creating my own materials
  • Discovering online resources and techniques
  • When "grammar face" turns into "aha!!!!! face" 
  • Learning with my students and from my students
  • Inspiring those who thought they weren't "natural language learners" 
  • Meeting new people in the US, China, Switzerland, London, Lancaster...everywhere! 

Things I want to add to Fluent Language Tuition

As an ideas person, there's always a lot bouncing around in my head. One day I want to write the ultimate German learning ebook, the next I want to take you all on a holiday, and I always want to inspire businesses to get into the international markets out there!

You guys are invited - join me on the adventure of edupreneurship.

Inspiration is everywhere and I'm really excited that I will be able to work on more projects. But I want some guidance. What IS it that the world is missing? If you have suggestions, ideas or thoughts then please do comment. My blog is important to me and I love hearing from the community!

Subscribe to our mailing list

* indicates required
Desired email frequency *
Email Format

Why you must train 4 skills to achieve fluency

Ask most language learners what they are hoping to achieve, and you will come across a recurring ambition: fluency. The word fluent comes from the Latin language and indicates a sense of flow, because that's what conversations often do: they flow. So what you're hoping to achieve is a point where using another language becomes so easy that you won't have to hesitate, you won't look for words all the time and won't feel stuck.

If you are an independent learner, have you ever found yourself off balance? For example, you find yourself becoming a real expert in understanding spoken language, but a wall comes up in your brain as soon as you try to say the simplest of things. Or sometimes you have picked up a lot of spoken language and you'd be ok at the shop, but you can't read a single label!

Four Core Skills

As a language tutor, I make my students aware that there are four core skills to language learning: Speaking, Reading, Listening and Writing. You have got to become good at all of them and keep your levels balanced to prepare for true fluency in a language.

One example: Audio-based systems, such as CDs or podcasts, will put a lot of emphasis on speaking and listening. This is excellent for basic travelling or conversation. But it is enough if you really want to find that elusive fluency in your new language? Personally, I don't think so. Neglecting two of the four skills can really affect your confidence!

Since these core skills are ever so important, why don't we get to know them a little better:

Writing doesn't just refer to how good you are at composing a letter, note or blog post. It also includes your sound recognition. For example, how good are you at making notes based on what you're hearing, spelling them correctly and writing something legible in your target language.

Speaking, now that sounds hard doesn't it? It's not all about producing free-hand sentences and word order. Speaking starts when you meet the sounds of your target language. Pronunciation and accent work breed confidence, and putting that speaking practice in right from the start is key to helping you feel like communication is possible.

Listening is the skill of piecing together all the foreign sounds, analysing them in your mind and making sense of them as words and phrases. Listening helps you get the idea of what's going on, but more importantly it teaches you important pronunciation skills. All language production depends on what you hear, so don't underestimate this one.

Reading looks like a simple task after all those others. In any target language, the essence of this skill is in training you to spot patterns. Reading a lot will bring you in tune with the way sentences are built in a different language, and exercises engaging with a text are among the most useful you can work on for becoming fluent.

On top of learning those, you should engage with the culture, civics and geography of your target language. It really is a tall order, but trust me, it's worth it. You'll finally get over those "errrrr" moments.

How to test yourself

Ommm...find your balance, young deshi.​

Ommm...find your balance, young deshi.​

Here is an exercise I work on together with a lot of my learners. It's perfect for exposing a training rut or giving you inspiration for a new challenge. Draw yourself a diagram of all the skills you're hoping to train. Think about them and rate yourself out of 10 in each one. Then consult someone like a teacher or language buddy - what do they think? The outside perspective of another learner or a native speaker adds real value to the assessment.

Write your numbers on the diagram - are they balanced? Do you have a particular weakness or strength? Then think about how you have learnt your language so far, and what kind of exercises you've done most, and perhaps what you've been missing. For more exercises getting you ready to target your core skills, please check out my forthcoming ebook.

Thanks for reading this article!

Please have a look around other extremely useful articles on the blog by visiting the blog topics page or skipping straight to the Must Read content. Popular posts include:

 3 Noteworthy Techniques for remembering vocabulary once and for all

4 techniques for switching your brain into language mode

How to sell your language skill to any employer 

 

 

Language Learning Motivation: What Drives You?

​Image source: Morguefile

​Image source: Morguefile

There's been an awful lot of research into language learning motivation, with scholarly articles, curriculum changes and millions of research funding spent on working out what makes us learners tick. Motivation is one of the most significant factors for successful language learning, so there is a lot of value in sitting down and having about yourself and what makes you tick. Here are my ideas about the motivation groups - which camp are you in?

2 camps of learners

To me, there are two key camps, let's call them Camp Requirement and Camp Acquisition. Those who learn for a practical application and out of necessity. They may not feel the joy of learning a language from the word Go, but keep going anyway because they are working towards a clear goal. They have the motivation of requirement.

And those who learn because they are curious about a language and simply learning because they want to get good at this. These guys often love the process of learning just as much as applying their new knowledge and will feel happy with the "lifelong learner" label. They have the motivation of acquisition.

None of these types of motivation is any more valid than the other, and I don't believe that either one will make you a better, more skilled learner. It's simply important to understand your driving forces. Be clear about why you are in this learning process. Make sure your motivation is clear to you, and you'll find it will help you kick through those dips and keep going even in the boring drills. If you have a tutor or teacher, why not try and catch them for a conversation about what motivates you and gets you going. That way, they may be able to support you better - even a busy school teacher is likely to jump at that chance of understanding how to get more out of a student.

​No Success without Motivation

You have GOT to ​stay motivated, you have got to stay excited or keen about learning your target language. This is the only way that you will actually look for chances to speak, you'll listen to things you only half understand and in effect the only way that you can keep going once the lesson is over and you have a whole week to forget all you've just been told.

For me as a language tutor, this brings in an extra responsibility. It's my job to understand, as well as I can, the motivations of my students and help them work towards goals that are important to them. Teachers may sometimes make assumptions about language learners which don't match up with their own inner drivers, and that results in both steering in different directions. I want to make sure that I understand where my students stand, so I'll be my best at supporting them reach their goals, and at facilitating a real sense of achievement.

​My Allegiances

I have drawn you a little graph to show just how much variation I find in my own language learning motivations:

​You can see how far I was in Camp Acquisition at some points, for example when I took Italian. That was my third language, it was an optional offer, afternoon lessons at school doing something new and fun, with friends - I was in it for social reasons. Later when I took Spanish, the main motivation was more about where it was in my curriculum and my career. I wasn't desperate for another new language, but there was a clearer requirement. These days, my lifelong learner is very keen and I'd say it's nearly all that drives my Russian learning.

This was actually a bit tougher to work out than I thought. It's a great exercise to have a little think about the question "Why is it that I'm putting the effort into this language?" Be clear with your answer about this question and review it on a regular basis. What is your personal language learning driver?