The ‘Roll in, Roll Out’ IELTS Course’ [TTWOF] (1 of 2)
A long time ago, when I began giving the ‘Tricks to Watch Out For [TTWOF]’ posts, I mentioned that the challenge with any big school lies in getting students into the classroom. Some people will use any trick it takes to do this (including the very deceitful ‘guaranteed IELTS 7’ claim). Well, another very suspect selling strategy is the …
‘Roll In, Roll Out’ IELTS course.
This system allows you to pay for a certain number of tuition hours, and then just ‘roll in’ to study a class whenever you like, and ‘roll out’ whenever you like. The idea is to make the IELTS course as convenient (and easy for you) as possible. ‘Roll in, roll out.’ Whenever you like. Anytime. Just clock off your hours. So convenient. Fits any schedule. If you have a headache one night, just don’t go to class, and you can get it all back the next night? Or the night after. No problem. Or take a week’s holiday, then just start again a week later as if nothing has happened. Perfect, right? Or is it just a confusing set of question marks like the picture at the top of this page?
Well, all I can say is, as a Cambridge-accredited teacher trainer, and as someone who has studied English Teaching and English Course Design, and spent 10 weeks designing the syllabus for the English Language Centre at Monash University, I am absolutely appalled at such a system. I just can’t believe such a system can exist, and I am amazed that students pay to immerse themselves in it.
Think about it. In this system, …
- each lesson does not connect or build on the earlier ones,
- there is no sequencing or progression in the learning,
- there is no beginning and no end,
- no one is developing in any direction whatsoever,
- you cannot know if everything will be covered, or not,
… and because of all this, …
- there is little motivation or concern from either students or teachers,
- your learning is seriously affected.
The first four bullet points mean that the lessons can only be just page turning from units taken at random from a collection of IELTS books. It’s just sitting on seats, listening to somebody talking (probably in Chinese) about IELTS, but you are not going anywhere, since there is no thinking, planning, or effort in anything. It is just disconnected pieces of learning. What can I say? It’s a JOKE! It is seriously MAD! As a responsible TEFL professional, I could never ever be a part of such a system because it doesn’t make any sense! For you students, it would just be an endless set of ‘question marks’ in your mind (hence the picture at the top of this page).
I’ll explain why in more detail in the next post.
[To be continued in the next post]
Find the meaning of the underlined words, also repeated below.
- deceitful (adj)
- tuition (n)
- appalled (adj)
- sequence (n)
- motivation
- random (adj)
By the way, you can learn more about me at www.aisielts.com .