Let me take your order, jot it down, you ain't never had a friend like me!

The subject of this blog post is inspired, of course, by the film Aladdin, the latest version of which includes this masterful performance by Will Smith.

This post is about language lessons - either for those giving the lessons, or for the learner. The 'genie' in this scenario is the instructor/tutor and 'Aladdin' is the language learner.

How do you do language lessons? How do you organise the time and what activities are useful? Let me share my experience - and maybe you can message me with your thoughts.

Straight off, let me say clearly, that when it comes to language learning, I am not 'old school'. I can still remember the weekly 'old school' Russian grammar lectures at Cambridge University, scheduled first thing on a Monday morning, at which the lecturer delighted us to every possible metaphor for murder in connection with Russian grammar: "Last veek ve drowned verb aspect and zis morning ve vill strangle ze dative case!"

By contrast I believe language must be learnt in a social context, in response to exposure to live language situations. So how do you orchestrate this in the context of a set-piece lesson?

Here are some ideas:

1. Be learner-centred. What do they want to do? (Now you can see the relevance of my blog post title) The instructor must have some notion of what ground needs to be covered (like a 'menu'), but they can adapt this to the wishes of the learner, who must be motivated to learn - with the instructor assisting, rather than doing the learning for them.

2. Have frequent shorter lessons, which allow you to move forward at a good pace, recapping material along the way and making sure the learner is taking it in. Something like two half-hour sessions a week is about the right pace.

3. Find ways of verifying learning throughout the process. I usually set a brief quiz at the start of the lesson, setting the bar high, but willing the learner to get as many questions right as possible. Exercises are a great way of verifying learning - and affirming the learner that they are getting somewhere.

4. Get the right balance between exposure to and use of real language, on the one hand, and analysing and correcting this in terms of grammar and syntax, on the other. In a previous post I compared this to flesh and bones.

5. Relate it to real-life use of the language. Introduce asides about life in Belgium/Germany/Italy/Russia/Scotland or wherever, share lines from songs or funny situations faced - and what people said. Give people a feel for the language in its social setting. 

6. Always be interactive and encourage the learner to use their language, not to sit passively listening or giving one-word answers to your questions.

7.  The best activities are both doable and stretching for the learner and involve them using language actively.

8. From the very start the instructor needs to be looking out for what the learner finds hard and needs to work on, rather like a fitness trainer might see areas of weakness to focus on. There may be sounds difficult to pronounce, constructions misused, words not known. All this is essential to know and address. 

9. In a typical 30-minute lesson I would try to get through 3-4 different 'blocks' of learning, making sure that the main stuff has been covered by the time you only have 10 or so minutes left. If it is not the first lesson, then the learner will have done howework, which we go through together and this raises new things to explain.

10. It is important to move forward every lesson, however incrementally. I try to write the plan for the next lesson immediately at the end of the previous lesson, while it is still fresh in my mind.

Now, the genie has done his work; it's time for your 'magic'!

If you are interested in language learning, follow this blog.

My name is Russell Phillips. I offer online video language tuition for English and Russian - and also German, Italian and French.

My rate is GBP 9 (nine pounds sterling) per block of 15 minutes (a typical lesson might be 45 minutes), payable in advance.  

Contact me via www.facebook.com/russelljamesphillips or on email at regnavit[at]gmail.com