Part II

A: Well what I wanted to ask really was… you’re a teacher, been teaching for some years now, erm, what would you say, how would you describe a good student or a bad student, you know, sort of things they do or don’t do in the classroom?

B: Erm, well, a good student is usually one who’s not afraid to make mistakes, I’d say.

A: Uh huh.

B: And he’s, er, eager to experiment with every new thing that he learns, whether it be a structure or a function or a new word, erm, he immediately starts trying to use it.

A: Yeah, all right.

B: And he’s interested in the mistakes he makes, he’s not afraid to make them.

A: So he’s not simply interested in having it corrected and moving on?

B: No, no, no. He, he plays with the language. A bad student, on the other hand, will perhaps say “OK I’ve done this chapter I know this,” without trying to experiment at all, without really testing himself.

A: Ahha, ahha.

B: He’s usually passive, he won’t speak up much in the classroom. He’ll very rarely ask you why this and why not something else…

A: Just sort of accepts what you give him and doesn’t do anything more with it.

B: That’s right and in a test he’s the one person who’s likely to suddenly realize that, er yes, he wasn’t too sure about that after all.

A: Yeah.

B: And peep over at the er… at this neighbor’s paper.

A: Oh yes, an alternative learning strategy.

B: Right, and he invariably decides that the other person is more likely to be right than himself. I think that’s the result of, er, this sort of unwillingness to make mistakes and stick his neck out.

A: Mm, right, yeah. Er, anything else?

B: Er…

A: That characterizes the good or bad learner?

B: Er, mm, the bad learner is, wait a minute er, the good learner is erm, well, I think he’ll do more off his own bat as well, he won’t rely entirely on the teacher.

A: Mm hm.

B: He’ll read, he’ll read books.

A: Mm, so work outside the classroom as well as in it.

B: Yes, yeah.

A: yeah, yeah.

B: Students who make most progress are first of all those who experiment and secondly those who read books.