One-to-one handout

Okay, so I'm starting a bunch of one-to-one classes with business people next week and this is a handout I'd like to go through during the first lessons.

Prague, 5 October 2005

Dear Learner

It's my pleasure that we've just started our classes. I'll try my best to help you improve your English and meet your goals. However, the total amount of our classtime is very limited and by no means sufficient. Therefore, you might want to take the following advice:

1. Read for pleasure

For many learners reading for pleasure is the key to success! You can read a story book or a business magazine - it doesn't really matter as long as you like it and it's not too difficult for you.

Guess what? It's absolutely free!

2. Use a good dictionary

While reading you'll sometimes find yourself having to use a dictionary. It helps you learn much more if you use a good monolingual (English-English) dictionary.

3. Keep a lexical notebook

While using the dictionary you're likely to come across lots of useful words and expressions. It's good to write them down in your lexical notebook along with their definition and one or two sentence examples – one from the original source and one of your own. Don't forget to revise, of course!

4. Bring your own material

While reading for pleasure you may realize that you'd like to discuss the material with me. Well, I'll be more than happy to do so. Take charge of our classes, decide what YOU want to do!

5. Set up your own weblog

Finally, it also helps a great deal if you reflect on your learning. Some people set up their own weblogs (eg. www.blogger.com) and write about what they've learnt and how they feel about it. Now, that's a great idea! You can then give the link of your blog to your friends and they can comment on your posts and you can do the same thing as well. It's fun and it works!

Please, do ask me if you want to discuss any of the above points or if you have any other idea how you could improve your English away from the classroom.

I look forward to our next class!

The aims are clear:

1. Encourage active authentic input seeking (eg. free voluntary reading)
   
2. Encourage meaningful analysis of lexis
   
3. Encourage learner's autonomy