Drive-by listening

How good a teacher are you? Do your students remember everything you teach them in the classroom? If they don't remember everything how much do they remember, 80 percent, 25 percent? Less than 25 percent?

It may surprise you to know that if a student studies a lesson once in class and does not subsequently review the material, his or her recall after one month is about 5 percent of the lesson taught.

But don't be dismayed. This figure is no reflection on your ability as a teacher or on how hard the students work to grasp the language.

Your memory has two parts: Long-term memory and short-term memory. Long-term memory retains information for extended periods. Conversely, short-term memory holds information that passes through your mind only once, and over time diminishes. How much of that magazine you read last week do you remember now?

Brain studies have shown that in order for learning to "stick" in one's memory, learners need to experience the target language several times before the language used is transferred into their long-term memory. Learning is for life and should not be restricted to the classroom.

One of the biggest breakthroughs in professional development in recent years is the concept of the automobile as a university. Students can turn their cars into a classroom on wheels, gaining many extra hours of learning time each week.

For example, if you are teaching telephone English, give each student a cassette or CD containing 40 to 50 authentic recordings of telephone calls in English. Encourage them to listen to and absorb the lessons between scheduled classes. The same can be done for topics such as meetings, negotiations, socializing or presentations.

Actively encourage students to use their travel time to and from work and on business trips well by listening to audio programs in their cars.

Rather than wasting time listening to the same Top 40 music tracks, encourage them to convert driving time into learning time. Students can keep their minds active by continually listening to and reinforcing the language taught in the classroom as they commute from one place to another.

The average car owner in Thailand drives 19,000 to 40,000 kilometers each year. This is the equivalent of 500 to 1,000 hours that students spend in their car. Participants need to be empowered to use this time turning their car into a learning machine - a university on wheels.

Students can get the equivalent of three to six months of 40-hour weeks, or between one and two full-time university semesters, by simply listening to English dialogues in their cars as they commute around town. This enables participants to dramatically increase the speed at which they learn and remember without encroaching on their already busy schedules.

Students can become proficient in the target language in a fraction of the time it takes in the classroom just by maximizing the benefits of audio learning.