GV Noosa’s Assistant Director of Studies, Nina Schiller has some good tips for keeping track of your progress.

Often it is very difficult for students to see the progress they make when learning a language.  Students sometimes come to my office and say, ‘I am not making progress, what can I do?’. The first thing to remember is that learning a language is not like learning ‘mathematical or chemical formulas’ – it is not something that can be studied the night before an exam. Language takes time and lots of practice. 

But, to help you keep track of the progress that you are making, especially if you are in an Exam class, why not try keeping a ‘Portfolio’ of your work. 

In this ‘Portfolio’ keep a record of your in-class test results and examples of your writing.  Don’t just keep work that you produce at the end of the course, keep examples that you produce at the start as well (then you will really see how much you have improved!).

You can buy a folder with ‘plastic sleeves’ or simply use an exercise book.  Keep all examples of writing homework – even if it has lots of mistakes!!!  Every time you look back over your own work, you will learn from your mistakes.  When you re-read your work, make comments and write down ideas about how you can improve.  For example, I need to revise the Past Perfect Tense or Passives.  I need to improve my vocabulary.  This week I will focus on Phrasal Verbs.                                                                                                      

Over the length of the course, you will see how much your writing improves!

Your teachers keep a record of your test results – you can too!  Below is an example of one way you can record your test scores:

                              Date of Test:         Date of Test:         Date of Test:         Date of Test: 

                                      28/3/11                 4/4/11                   11/4/11                 18/4/11

                                        Result:                    Result:                    Result:                    Result:

Grammar               58% Fail                 62% Pass                74% Pass                75% Pass

Reading                 55% Fail                 58% Fail                 61% Pass                65% Pass

Listening                49% Fail                 56% Fail                 59% Fail                 62% Pass

Writing                          Fail                          Pass                        Pass                        Pass

As the weeks go by, you will see the ‘Fail’ marks disappear – be proud – you are making great progress!!!

Nina Schiller