Do advanced students make you nervous? If so, you’re not alone! Even native-speaking tutors find them intimidating. To make these lessons less nerve-wracking, let’s go over some specific needs that many advanced students have!

Precision

Many advanced students want to speak more precisely. For example, on the topic of mosquitoes, a student might say, “Mosquitoes put their eggs in water that is not moving.” And it sounds OK, but “Mosquitoes lay eggs in still water” is clearer and gets the point across in fewer words. Advanced students will appreciate us teaching them phrases like “lay eggs” and “still water.”

So how can we do this? Say we’re discussing the article Uber Wants to Develop Flying Taxis by 2020 with an advanced student. They may say something like, “I think flying cars are a good idea, because otherwise we can only travel on roads, and our roads are already filled with cars. However, I’m afraid that there may be accidents.” You can do the following:

1. Type what the student has said and send it to them in the chat box. 
2. Work together to brush it up. Say, “You used the word ‘accident’. What’s a word that more precisely describes road accidents?” They should be able to come up with “collision” (one of the vocab words listed in the lesson). Then ask if they know a word that captures “filled with cars”. If they say “traffic”, they’re halfway there. “Congestion” is even better, but let’s take things one big word at a time.
3. When you’re done revising, send the new sentence to your student. 

By the end of this exercise, perhaps the two of you will have come up with: “I think flying cars are a good solution to congestion, but I’m concerned about the possibility of collisions.” 

Your student now has the “before and after” versions before their eyes. It’ll be clear to them how much better the “after” version is and they’ll be infinitely grateful.

Naturalness

You may have noticed that many advanced speakers sound awkward when they talk about seemingly simple topics. For example, they might say “I got a reduction in price” instead of “I got a discount.”

This clunkiness results from them focusing on fancy words at the expense of easy ones. Often, these students learn English from more formal sources and neglect conversational English.

In addition, even advanced learners are influenced by their native tongue. For instance, European students who speak English fluently will still say things like, “I took coffee (at the cafe)” instead of “I had coffee.” Or they’ll call “lettuce,” “salad” (the name of that vegetable in their language).

And don’t be surprised if your advanced student still makes grammar mistakes (like forgetting to use the plural) or sticks to simplistic grammar rules they picked up at school. As you may have noticed, many students’ go-to future tense expression is: “I will (see my doctor tomorrow).” Encourage them to review our lessons on alternative expressions of the future, such as “I’m gonna see my doctor” and “I’m seeing my doctor tomorrow.”

These may sound like very minor corrections, but advanced students who care about sounding more natural will cherish them!

Pronunciation

Most advanced students sound fine already, but many want to sound even better. However, the definition of “better” varies from student to student.

Those who have lived abroad or regularly watch English movies may sound natural when they say whole sentences, but want targeted help with certain words or sounds. For example, a tutor (🇵🇭) noticed that some of her advanced students would pronounce, “probably,” “prolly”! 

Other students may want to work on sounding more natural by practicing linking, sentence stress, or rhythm.

Whatever the case, point out the student’s weaknesses and provide some sort of explanation. For instance, I knew an advanced English-speaker who would pronounce “similar” as “simular”. I corrected him and suggested that he was most likely confusing the word with “simulation”. Rather, he should associate the word “similar” with “simile.” 

Or perhaps you’ve noticed an advanced student who struggles to contract words. Even if they see “she’ll,” they say “She will.” Have them practice saying different contractions, such as “I’m” “He’s” and “They’re.”

Then at the end of the lesson, review the words, phrases, and sentences they could improve on.

👋 That’s it for now!

Hopefully this gives you an idea of what types of improvement advanced learners want. Next time you get a higher-level student, keep your ears peeled for how precise they are, how natural they sound, and whether they’re mispronouncing anything. 

The more targeted your feedback, the better. Advanced students appreciate the little things!

For more information on advanced students, check out this blog post: Important Things to Know Before Tutoring Advanced Students.

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