Jeff Henderson

Being able to see others grow and fulfil their potential . . .

When I moved to Europe 15 years ago, teaching English was a natural fit with my skills and circumstances.

Professional development, global / travel fluency, and answering the need to collaborate in a single unifying business language in the multilingual trans-European (and global) landscape.

Many speak basic to intermediate-level English, but in relative terms not nearly as many speak highly advanced English. There is where it is more challenging; getting from B2+ to C1 is the real breakthrough. And C1 is where a lot of the top level professional opportunities await.

Relating to other English-speaking countries, American English in my view has two categories: post-graduate in the professions and the much less formally trained category. A British friend once expressed her view to me that elementary educated American English is not as clear and correct as British English. Although, she said, for Americans who have gone through a masters or doctoral program, American English is more structurally refined compared to her British peers. Having an American legal education, I generally would agree with my British friend.

My undergraduate (B.S. degree) was in communication, which involved a lot of writing. My law school experience taught me how to think with more clarity. When I teach English, I bring that type of inquiry into the process. English is about English, but communication and analytical thinking involve how the message is delivered and how well thought-out is the idea that is being put forward. My clients get a useful hybrid of communication principles and technical English. With other countries there seems to be a heavy emphasis on tenses. My focus goes to other key points of English that make English more proficient and persuasive.

My clients are more generally more globally oriented. Also, mostly, we really work hard on developing expanding verb fluency and practising good speaking style. My "conversational" meetings are conversational because we talk to discuss new concepts and to practise them. But "conversational" usually is not just free and open. We use videos to target listening comprehension and contextual awareness; then we collaboratively go though the detailed descriptions of the events in the scenes we have watched together.

Helping clients unlearn bad speaking habits based on not understanding grammar. Some clients have not had high-level teaching and were not given information that was needed when mistakes were made. If that indeed has happened, those mistakes can become habits, and if they have become habits, it is harder to teach someone to unlearn what they have been doing wrong (sometimes for years). It is easier from a teaching standpoint if the bad habit had never become part of the client's understanding of the English language.

A good English student is the same as with everyone else in any other field of endeavour. Commitment, focus, effort. Without the commitment, there will not be the focus or the effort. Without the focus and the effort, there will be little or no preparation or review.

When clients do preparation and review, it makes them the driver of their own progress. A great teacher makes a big difference, but so does the commitment and effort of the client. The two work together to produce the best results.

I would say the hardest part is getting past the first few months. Nearly all of my clients have later confessed to feeling like quitting in the first few weeks and months. My methodology is intensive. I have brought a B1 level client to the C1 level. Most of my clients have come to me when they were B2 level. I have brought several B2 clients to C1.

Once a client gets to a certain baseline of understanding, their perpetual practice and my constant reminders get the client to where making progress is not discouraging anymore, it is encouraging. And then, finally, there are breakthrough moments when the client clearly knows the right way to engage correctly in English. I do not have to correct it anymore. Those are the awesome moments.

So I guess here we are back again at the point from the question above this one. Commitment inspires motivation, and motivation inspires the determination not to quit. It is a process and each client is on his or her own timeline to reach the end-goal of mistake-free fluency. Similarly, as in my answer to question 4: A lot of people speak English, but not a lot speak wonderful, flawless English.

Make sure you are learning from a methodology that brings fruitful progress. As said earlier, that does not necessarily mean "fast" or easy progress. But not all teachers are created equally in the sense that some have a great methodology and some do not, and many are likely somewhere between great and not good. And if you find a teacher who has a fantastic methodology, it is most likely to be like hitting the jackpot because the curve usually works that way -- with just a few at the very top.

Gauge results. Be patient, but also make sure you feel the knowledge rising. I have had clients come to me who had been learning English for a decade or more before coming to me and had never been told basic things about English that they needed to be told.