When there are not enough hours at school to help your students improve their English, encourage them to study on their own. Four simple ways to suggest are listening to songs, watching films, taking online quizzes, and checking their writing with a grammar checker.
Self-study helps students take control of their own learning. They can set their own pace and focus on the topics that interest them. So how should students go about it? Here are four things you can suggest.
Listen to songs
Students all over the world enjoy listening to English songs. All you have to do is motivate them to learn the lyrics too.
Pop songs are a good choice for learning English, because the lyrics are usually clear and not too fast, so students can easily pick up phrases from them. Do advise your students to check the lyrics first, though: songs in many genres contain profanity, and that is not the English you want them to repeat in class.
Watch films and TV shows
Watching films is another great way to learn English. With English subtitles on, students practice their listening and reading skills at the same time: they kill two birds with one stone.
You don't have to limit your students to films, either. There are many great TV shows and documentaries. Put together a list of shows that will not only improve your students' English but also broaden their minds.
Try online quizzes
One of the great things about the internet is that it is full of quizzes, and many of them are made to help people around the world learn English.
Encourage students to take online quizzes on the topics they find hard. For instance, students who have trouble with pronouns should keep taking quizzes about pronouns until they get 90% of the answers right.
Does it have to be 90%? No. Set the target to whatever the passing grade is at your school.
Use a grammar checker
Say you give your students a writing assignment in English. Some of them may be confident about their grammar, but tell them to check their text with a grammar checker such as the Spell Checker anyway, to see if they are as good as they think. Every mark it makes comes with an explanation, so students learn why something is wrong, not only that it is.
Suggest that students keep track of the mistakes they make again and again. If they write those mistakes down in a journal, they can steer clear of them in the future.
Conclusion
Independent learning not only lightens your teaching load; it also helps students develop their thinking, planning, and self-evaluation skills. Listening to songs, watching films, taking online quizzes, and using a grammar checker are all good ways to help students study on their own. For more ideas, see these self-learning tips for ESL students.
Remember to give your students feedback on their self-study as well. Your feedback still plays a big part in their learning, even when they spend much of their time working on their own. Here is how to give effective feedback on students' writing.