What is learning English with a non-native like?
I would like to tell you my story of how I was learning English online. It was my first experience of learning a new language with a private tutor via the internet. So, let’s start.
(Don’t try this at home)
Trial Lesson
After graduating from university I decided to improve my English level. One day, I got an email message from “an online Russian school” (it became infamous later) about their English courses. I probably subscribed to one of their partners and somehow, they found my email.
I didn’t look into other online schools, and there weren’t negative reviews about the school, so I quickly agreed to attend a trial lesson.
During the lesson, we talked about common topics for 30 minutes, tried their platform, and then the tutor gave me feedback about my level (of course they told me that my speaking was awful otherwise how do they get clients?) The total time spent on the trial lesson was 50 minutes.
At the end of the class, they told me to take up classes with a Russian native speaker. (Terrible).
Why?
According to them, it would be hard for me to understand English grammar explanations from native speakers. (Horrible).
I didn’t have any idea why they recommended that. One year before this class I had been speaking in English with a person who didn’t know Russian. My friend and I didn’t have any problems understanding each other. It seemed that the tutor tried to find as many problems as possible to keep me as a client.
After some consideration, I decided that it’s better to move on and start learning right away than do nothing or spend more time on research. You will never know what’s good for you until you try it.
A manager found a tutor according to my preferences and on the next day my new tutor and I started our classes.
Lessons Structure
Before each lesson the tutor chose a topic and grammar material. Since the course had been designed for learners of a specific level, no one asked me what I wanted to talk about.
We usually started our classes with a common question “how are you?” (small talk) and then switched to the platform (actual work). We had speaking, listening, and writing activities every lesson. Also, we worked a lot on grammar material.
Speaking activity: we discussed some facts or questions about a chosen topic. Listening activity: we listened to audio recordings, watched videos and then answered some true or false questions, or questions with a detailed answer afterwards (almost the same as a listening on an exam). The core writing activity was to write a correct word in a gap (it was quite simple for a 20 year old) and sometimes an essay (I wrote essays once a month or once every three months at the end of each topic).
I tried to write essays, but according to the company policy, essays must be checked by another tutor. The tutor only corrected mistakes, like grammar and spelling issues, and didn’t give me any feedback about the structure of my essay. It seemed that they checked all the essays via browser extensions (or add-ons) such as Grammarly.
The tutor gave me tasks to take home every lesson and the next lesson we discussed problems that we had from the homework. Whether the tutor checked the tasks on the platform or not is a mystery.
Sometimes we were working on the same grammar material for a long period of time. Even if I explained grammar rules without any mistakes and did everything correctly, the tutor would give me that material again and again.
In general, all these lessons reminded me of elementary school classes (only way more intensive).
Total Disappointment
Several weeks after starting my classes I felt I was starting to improve, but I still communicated slowly. (At least I thought that). One year later I could speak clearly and explain complicated ideas. (It was a miracle!)
It was at this point when I suddenly realized that I needed to speak with native speakers. Or at least with someone who didn’t know Russian. It was an insight into my learning process.
So, I decided to drop out from the school.
Reasons:
- I realized that my level stayed the same for a long time. It is often called a plateau. A plateau occurs when your level of a foreign language doesn’t change during a period of time.
- Russian tutors make a lot of grammar, spelling, pronunciation and vocabulary mistakes and so you end up repeating them.
- I was tired of the tedious classes and everyday technological problems with their platform.
Although I spent a myriad amount of time and made huge efforts, lately I faced lots of problems in English which are related to those previous classes. (Damn). Working with the Russian tutor for one year, I spent the same amount of time correcting my mistakes afterwards. (Frustration).
However, correcting mistakes was not a big deal at all. Lately, other tutors (natives) told me that I had huge gaps in grammar.
How come?
I unconsciously made mistakes which the Russian tutor didn’t pay attention to. (Give me back my money). Moreover, the tutor also made mistakes. (I still do not know what language we communicated in).
Conclusion
I can’t say that it was a 100% negative experience. The tutor and I had a great time. (Not every class). In general, I would not recommend you to learn a foreign language with a non-native. You can’t ensure that their level and experience are appropriate for teaching other people. It is better to hear a native speech than non-native with mistakes which you don’t know yet.
