Back to the basics: Making time to review

Because my beginner student and I cannot meet as regularly as we’d like, and because of the fact that we want to cover a lot when we do meet, I need to remember that review is always a necessary component of her studies. Before moving on to new topics, I need to be sure I’m giving her the opportunity to reinforce her current knowledge. I also know that my corrections are not enough. She needs to learn how to self-correct.

One way I can help Natasha become better at monitoring her own speech is to design exercises that target her common mistakes. It’s my belief that many students at this basic level share the same difficulties with verb forms, pronouns, subject-verb agreement, and the like. I hope that my Back to the basics_handout will prove to be useful in your lessons as well.