When ever I do a search for more materials such as clips and quizzes for my students I am amazed at the sheer volume of what is available to me.I am a massive fan of the world wide web and how it connects people and allows for the sharing of ideas and resources.Its an extremely valuable tool in terms of learning (and not just English language learning).
I am now an on-line student as well as a teacher.I have dabbled with learning Portuguese for a few years and have now decided that I need to up my game and so have engaged an on line teacher for conversational purposes.Its interesting to see how he works and how much preparation he puts in prior to the lesson. Inevitably we speak a lot about teaching on line! But I also like to discuss current political developments around the globe and in Portugal.He is based in Portugal and is currently engaged in studying for a masters in Political sciences so we have a fair few interesting discussions.For my first lesson I was very self conscious about my speech and in particular my accent and mixed up tenses but as time has gone by I am much more comfortable with making mistakes and he is excellent at correcting me without me losing my flow of thought and words...
I operate in a similar way to this.I have to listen very carefully to my students and judge when and what to correct.Its not always necessary to correct every single error in speech if the general gist is understood-and I chose what to correct depending on the students confidence and ability.I have one Russian student who is reasonable fluent in English but nearly always mixes "he/she" and "they/we" and I always correct this even if it means interrupting his flow of speech because I KNOW he can cope with this interruption.
The resources on line for students of English are copious and varied in quality and no student will ever be short of practice materials.There are many listening and reading activities that are free but the opportunity to speak with a native speaker for free is more limited and essentially this is what all language learners need in order to progress in their language skills.
