Helping my neighbour improve her English.

[finnmcool]

My neighbour is very fluent in English, but he works full-time and they've got 3 children.
He asked me today to help his wife improve her English.
I have absolutely no problem with supporting her, but I have no clue where to start, or how to go about it.
I would be grateful for any ideas please.

Will they pay you for this?

Otherwise I guess you could just sit and chat with her. Ask her easy questions about her daily life and move on from there as you would a new acquaintance.

They may just be asking out of politeness and don’t expect you to actually do anything.

They're from Kosovo and no, there's no payment. Just being neighbourly.

We've become friendly over the lockdown, today we chatting about her visa and that's when the husband asked if I would help.

Thanks for the tips 😁

Our local library runs free English language classes and separate chat sessions for people learning English- not operating at the moment due COVID-19 but may be worth looking into?

www.duolingo.com/

memorise might be worth a look
www.memrise.com/course/754466/400-words-of-toefl-intermediate-english/

Otherwise perhaps just talking so she can practise speaking and listening to english.

Our Church runs a 'Conversation Cafe' for anyone hoping to improve their English.
Overwhelmingly, the folk that come fall into 2 categories - either virtually no words and no understanding.... in which case labeling things is the way to go. Or, they come with very specific questions - so, their 'English' isn't bad at all, but they want help with "technical" language - say the names of things on their car, or what is an MOT etc.... or questions about a hospital appt..... or they bring in letters they have received that they want someone to explain....... or very often, it is more about culture - so they won't know about how school places are allocated, or where they should go or how they register with a dentist or something. Then they will come with questions like "Someone said to me ......... what does that mean?" when people use phrases that, when you think about it, wouldn't make sense to anyone brought up outside of England.

BBC learning English has some good resources.

You could also try and download a pdf of new headway textbooks (vk.com has some good bootleg pdfs) she will probably be elementary/lower intermediate level

Start with the basic tenses-
present simple (daily routines, habits and facts)
Past simple (completed actions)
Future simple (going to/will - future plans)

Also teach functional language such as ordering in restaurants, buying clothes in shops, buying train tickets, making small talk etc

But - ask her what she needs to learn, and go from there.

Teach-this.com has some fun games and ideas which can help with memory and make it a bit less awkward when you run out of things to say.

It can help to look at pictures and describe them, magazines can be useful resources, as can children's books, depending on her level.

Hope that helps!

Thank you all for the really helpful tips, I really do appreciate it and you've all given me a good starting point.

What a nice thing to do OP.

Lots of good advice above. I'm learning Italian at the moment and I'm using Duolingo and a simple textbook. What's helping loads in addition is having chats with my Italian neighbour. I save up any questions from my own study and she helps me sort out anything I'm stuck with.

I think you could point your neighbour towards some structured learning, and hopefully a class when they restart, but meeting to chat and talk through anything she's not sure about would be really helpful.

She’ll be needing to take an English Language test to extend her visa. She’ll need to take lessons but it’s like taking a driving test: the more practice you can do on top of the lessons the better. I wouldn’t worry about trying to structure it - just have normal conversations.

I'd do some role play with her for situations she may use English eg at the children's school, at the doctor. If her level is v weak, prepare some basic vocab cards and drill her on those before doing key phrases and conversations. Encourage her to write things down to help her review often.

The resources pp have mentioned are good. BRITISH Council has some materials on their website too.

Great thing you are doing. Good luck!

It's lovely you're a good neighbour

It so much depends on her 'starting level'.
Very often when adults learn a new language, there is a real fear of speaking for fear of getting it wrong (accent, grammar, even particular words). So it literally might be going for a walk together each day and 'chatting', or having a cuppa. If you find it difficult to 'conversation start' then even something like watching a TV prog, (something like your local news programe or a 'magazine' type programme) and pausing it every couple of minutes to check understanding and explain bits she doesn't get might give you a starting point.
But it is likely that what she is seeking is a 'safe space' to practice speaking outloud.

Well, how good or bad is her English now? What does she struggle with most — lack of vocab, grammar etc? I’ve found reading novels I already know in a language I already speak a good way of expanding vocab painlessly. Ditto films/tv with subtitles on.

Have a look at the British Council web pages for resources. I did English classes with asylum seekers and the best thing was to have a topic each week, but starting with some general chat then a quick revision of the last week then the new material. I realise that's quite formal for a one to one but you could ask your neighbour to nominate something to focus on for next time you meet so you can both be prepared. In my experience the adults had really good comprehension but we're super nervous to speak in case they got it wrong. Try to be as encouraging as possible and don't correct every mistake, at least not all at once!