Feel like checking your English?

The colorful building of Itto-Nova in Sanur. Kawai, eh? :D

Did i tell you that i work in this place called Itto-Nova? Well, this place is new in Denpasar, and is located only about 200 meters from the famous Sanur Beach. It’s a joined instituion of “bimbingan belajar” (the Itto part), and language school (the Nova part). This company is quite famous in Japan, particularly due to its man-to-man or small-class system; in which the class consists of only one or maximum three students. I teach in the Nova part, and Nova has even better advantage because virtually you can choose your own schedule and start the lesson without having to wait for another classmate(s). As a teacher, i also enjoy this system because i can have better look on students’ progresses when teaching small classes instead of some big ones. Also, the 40 minutes encounter in each lesson give me more time to breathe and better evaluate the students, so i can give more feedbacks for them. This is quite unlikely to happen if i had a longer class, because i might forget how does the student do in the first 10 on 15 minutes—or maybe even more; i don’t know, sometimes i just forget things :p

So. Enough for the ‘commercial break’, i guess, let’s get a little closer to the point of this post :p

In nova, for adults, our English lesson has five levels that starts from level 5 and ends at level 9 (level 1 up to 4 are English for kids, by the way). When i got the training for teacher, my instructor said that the resemblances of these levels were as follows:

Level 5 – basic level

Level 6 – lower intermediate level

Level 7 – intermediate level

Level 8 – upper intermediate level

Level 9 – advanced level

The lesson is conversation-based, so it is aimed at making you speak English; but not only speak, you also need to speak in correct spelling and grammar, with good listening comprehension. So practically, we do it all, in a kinda ‘non-traditional’ way. For every student who enter Nova, there will be a level-check that will define which level you are in. This is what I’m going to talk about: the level check. For me as a teacher, this activity is pretty fun. After I had done it for few times, i found it as similar with doing algorithm for... i don’t know.. like screening for coloncancer, doing resuscitation for neonates, or choosing the diagnostic block formental disorders in ICD-10. It can be tricky, but the so called inter-rater reliability has been good so far, at least between me and some other teachers..

So. Here are some “screening questions” that I usually use for determining students’ level of English. Try asking these question for yourself, then imagine how you would answer them, and maybe you can then self-check, what level you’re actually in. If someday you maybe decide to stay in Bali and learn English in Nova and you have read this post, maybe you can say, “Oh I have already done the level check in the blog” and you can tell your level, so it’ll be easier for the teacher to choose what lesson you should start with. Well, let’s see ;)

So. As many other first encounters would go, i usually say a greeting, introduce myself, ask the student’s name.. and then, i will ask the 1st screening question:

How are you?

I rarely encounter answers other than “fine” or “good”, BUT..

When student only says, “fine” or “good” and no further answer, he/she is usually level 5, or maximum level 6.

When he/she says, “fine, THANK YOU,” and that’s it, it’s most likely that he/she’s level 6; or a confused/not-so-in-the-mood level 7.

However when the response is other than “fine” or “good”, or when the student asks back, “fine, thank you. HOW ABOUT YOU?” then it’s quite likely that his/her English is at least level 7; because intermediate student usually has good sense of language, and he/she is aware that asking back is a part of the English small talk.

So. That’s how the simple question “how are you?” could reveal your English level a bit. For next step of the screening, I usually say:

“Please introduce yourself further.”

If the response is silence or “ha?” or “no understand” or “not understand”, then he/she’s level 5 :p

Usually people will respond the request by saying his/her name, age, current address, and sometimes mentioning his/her school/workplace and/or hobbies.

People who struggle to even mention name, age, and address, are usually level 5 as well.

Those who can fluently mention name, age, and address but kinda struggle or making grammatical mistakes when mentioning workplace and/or school, are usually level-6 students.

When student answers fluently, however, especially when he/she mentions hobbies that require frequent use of English (e.g. reading, writing, watching English series, etc.) it’s quite likely that he/she’s at least level 7.

So. To make sure what lesson to start with, i usually ask a confirmatory question:

What do you do?

Again, if the answer is silence or “ha?” or “no understand” or “not understand”, or even, “repeat” (without ‘please’), then he/she’s level 5 :p

Level 6 students usually respond with brief silence, then asking in Bahasa Indonesia, “maksudnya, apa yang saya kerjakan sekarang gitu?”; which i usually respond with, “no. ok, now please ask me: what do you do?” The student will then ask me the question, and i will answer, “I’m a teacher.” And then I will ask him/her back the same question, and he/she will give the correct answer. That’s student level 6.

So how about students in level 7 or above? Well. They immediately give correct response, of course ;)

 

The "algorithm" for distinguishing among the three lower levels :D

So. Those are three simple questions to distinguish among the three lower levels. When he/she’s level 5 or 6, i don’t usually ask further, and start the lesson instead. When I still have doubt, however, i usually ask another question:

How did you get here?

For this question, student in level 5 usually responds with silence or “ha?” or “repeat” or “Apa Bahasa Indonesianya?” or in Balinese, “sing tawang” “kleng... kengken ne, sing ngidang ngomong Inggris” or “ampura nggih, tiang ten uning niki. Jemak kamus dumun, dados?”; 

student in level 6 can usually say phrases like, “by motorcycle” or such; 

student in level 7 usually says a complete sentence like, “Oh I USE motorcycle” or “I GO here by motorcyle”; but..

Student in level 8, will usually respond with a full sentence in PAST TENSE, such as “Oh I got/went/came here by motorcycle.” When a student responds with, “oh i drove my car here,” or even further, “i drove my car down from Ubud to finally arrived here” it’s quite likely that he/she’s in level 9 – the highest level.

So far, I have only encountered one level-8 student, so usually the questioning stops there, and i continue to the lesson instead. However, to better define among the three higher levels, there’s one more thing that i usually say:

So. Could you probably tell me, what are your likes and dislikes?

Students in level 7 usually explain fluently using “and” and “but” for conjunctives, and they don’t usually use pronouns when saying two same words in a sentence (e.g. I like swimming and running, but i don’t like reading, I’m bad at reading)

Students in level 8, usually add some adverbs of intensity, and they use pronouns to avoid using the same word twice (e.g. i like swimming a lot and i also enjoy running, but not reading, I’m bad at it).

Students in level 9, are usually familiar with more advanced conjunctives such as “however”, “moreover”, “instead”, and “as well”, and they know how to put them in the more-proper place. They’re also keen about saying the sentence in a more-expressive way, so the sentence would probably be, “I like swimming a lot and i enjoy running as well, but not reading, geez no. i’m totally bad at it.”

The "algorithm" for distinguishing among the three higher levels :D

Yep. I guess that’s pretty much how we do the level-check. Have you checked your own? What level are you? Well. Whatever your level is, it’s always important to keep practicing, because practice makes perfect, isn’t it? ;)

So. Have a great day, and please do visit IttoNova when you come to Denpasar; our free gift is always available for you :D

NB: Kalau ada Bahasa Bali yang salah, mohon dimaapken, namanya juga amatiran :p