I’ve been teaching for a long time now, and I have noticed some things that many people do that often turn out to be big mistakes. I’m not talking about vocabulary or grammar or the like. That’s a different post. Today I’m talking about some things that people do that inhibit and, in some cases, even sabotage their own progress in learning the language. Some of the biggest ones are what I want to address here today.
🚫Mistake 1: Relying on Non-Native English Teachers for High Levels
People have non-native teachers to teach them English. I’m starting off here with the by-far most controversial issue. I strongly believe that this is a mistake, and no apologies to non-native English teachers.
- They are great for very low-level, low-confidence learners to get started. I have no issue with that at all.
- I’m also well aware that in many cases, non-native teachers are the only ones available.
- For example, many people study English in school as a required subject, and the school only has non-native speakers to teach that subject.
- Others are in a position of having to learn English, but native English speakers simply don’t exist in their countries.
For example, I once had a student in Indonesia. He was the son of the North Korean ambassador to Indonesia, and he joined my class. He tested at a high level, but some of the word choices were strange and even offensive, and he was unaware of these things; he knew almost nothing of the culture from which English came. He was a good kid, but he had a lot of bad habits that he needed to unlearn.
These things are unavoidable. But the mistake comes when a learner lacks confidence. Native English-speaking teachers are available, but the student chooses a local teacher even at a higher level (A2 and above). These non-native teachers often lack the cultural awareness necessary, and they also tend to waste far too much class time speaking the local rather than the target language. Every time that happens, the student loses the opportunity to practice listening and speaking English. This slows their progress a great deal.
It’s politically incorrect of me to say these things within the language teaching community, but I strongly believe them, and I have many years’ experience helping these students break the bad habits that they had developed.
🔁Mistake 2: Over-Relying on Local Language Translation (Higher Levels)
This one may be less risible among my teaching colleagues, but it’s closely related to the first. The second big mistake is relying on their local language far longer than they need to or should.
I’ve had B1, even B2 level students who clearly didn’t trust themselves to know a word or phrase or even a whole sentence unless they could express the same in their own native language. This is understandable at low levels, but the higher you go, the more difficult this becomes. Some words simply don’t translate well.
I’ll never forget living in China and seeing a sign on the metro – Do Not Touch Door. I couldn’t imagine what kind of calamity might strike should I so much as brush against the door of the train while it was in motion, which in some cases was completely impossible. Finally, I had the sense to read the Chinese and had to laugh at myself for failing to take my own advice – in Chinese, the sign said (and I’m translating here) Do Not Lean Your Full Weight On The Door. That’s quite a bit more verbose, but the Chinese only required three characters – 禁止靠. This translates as “It Is Forbidden To Rely”, but that doesn’t help much…except the final character – 靠 kào – can mean many different things in different contexts.
When higher-level students insist on being able to translate every word and thought expressed in a lesson, it can slow their progress down to a crawl.
🗣️ Mistake 3: Focusing Too Much on Grammar and Not Enough on Real Conversation
The third problem I’ve run across far more than I should for the students’ own good, is focusing too much on grammar and vocabulary, and not nearly enough on using that grammar and vocabulary in real-life conversations.
A great example of this is when teaching a grammar point, and an exercise will ask the student, for example: Make present perfect continuous sentences with these prompts. 1. I / never / shop. The student replies with something like, “I have never been shopping.”. Of course, I reply to that with understandable doubt, and the student will say, “No, it’s just an example.”. Well, that doesn’t help, does it?
Be truthful. It may require being more specific, but it’s possible: I’ve never been shopping for women’s underwear. I’ve never been shopping alone for clothes. I’ve never been shopping at the City Mall downtown. There’s always a story there, and then we discuss it before moving on to the next item in the exercise.
Use the language you learn! The point is, grammar and vocabulary are there to make it easier to communicate. What’s the point of learning English if you’re not going to communicate?
✅ Stop Sabotaging Your Progress: Find an Experienced Native Tutor Today
This is why you want to have a live, native-speaking tutor with experience and training in teaching the language.
- AI can be helpful, but it’s not always accurate, and it’s never as natural as you may think.
- Non-native tutors might know your language, but that’s usually not helpful for your English progress.
There are likely many qualified teachers out there. You want to find one. But also, you need one who offers flexible hours, a structured curriculum, but with the experience to customize that curriculum to you, personally, to make your progress greater and faster. It’s not going to be fast – anyone who claims to teach any language (or musical instrument) fast is lying. But avoiding these pitfalls can make it faster… and a lot more fun!
Look at ratings (those stars previous students have left), but also read the reviews.
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I hope to see you in class. And if not, well then, I wish you the best of luck. The blogs and videos are free, anyway. Enjoy your journey.
