This term has brought fresh challenges as I have begun taking the Entry Level 1 class. Prior to this I had only been working with Entry 3 and above.  Though I have a reasonable amount of experience teaching all levels of English learners, including complete beginners, I have never had to do so without recourse on occasion to the students' own language.  Of course teaching in a multilingual class makes this nigh on impossible. We are aided in a sense by the fact that true beginners are in the minority with most having had at least some exposure to English either in their home countries or since arriving in Britain.

A question arose this week over exactly what level of 'accuracy' we should be expecting from the students and whether in fact 'communicating' was all we should be hoping for.  It came about because of a question put to me by one of the students as to how long I had been living in Hereford.  The actual question cames out as 'What time are you in Hereford?', whereupon, having failed to elicit a more correct form, I rephrased her question for her as: 'How long have you lived in Hereford?'  and asked her to repeat.  The other teacher present however felt that we shouldn't be teaching such a form as 'the grammar is too difficult and Entry level 1 aren't expected to know it,' and 'How long are you in Hereford?' would be a better substitute.

I fail to see how teaching an incorrect form (with a totally different meaning) to a student is ever going to be of benefit.  How long should we wait before deeming them 'ready' to learn to speak properly?  By that point how many times will they have been praised for using the incorrect form?  Is it not infinitely harder to unlearn a bad habit than just to learn it correctly in the first place?  Besides, even though present perfect is a marginally more complex form to use, we are not really teaching a tense. We are teaching almost a set phrase, a lexical item, one which will come up countless times, very soon becoming as natural as saying 'hello' and hardly any more comlicated.  As the student's level rises then she will encounter many similar example to compare it too, and develop an understanding of the correct way to use and apply it.

Learning a language is hard enough without teachers making it more confusing, however good their intentions are.