Before I start teaching you, you need to know the methodology I used to learn 7 languages because I am going to be asking you to do these things.

You should use it to maximise the quality and speed of your learning.

Read: document the text genres and authors you see in past papers of your end-of-year examination. Read in "dead" time: on public transport, in a waiting room, or before bed when you are too tired to study. The more you read, the better your result will be at year end.

Watch the news once a day in the language you are studying: this will keep you abreast of current affairs, teach you vocabulary and structures native speakers actually use and expose you to their accent.

Record words you don't know: when I was a student, I used to use a notebook in my back pocket, but nowadays you can use a text file on your smartphone. Any word you are unfamiliar with in class, while reading and while watching the news goes into that file. Every night look up the meaning of each word in your dictionary and learn all the words you wrote down that day without fail. By a process of natural selection, you will learn the words you need most to operate in your daily life first.

Make opportunities to speak: make friends online who only speak the language you are learning and speak to them as much as possible.

Stay with a family: if you are studying overseas, stay with a family that only speaks the language you want to learn rather than in a hotel or student accommodation. If you don't communicate with them in their language, how will you eat or drink? You'll save yourself loads of money while gaining a ton of fluency in the process.

Improve your accent: your accent is important to a native speaker. Try to imitate a native speaker's accent as much as possible to create the best possible impression.

Have fun with language: be friendly, make jokes, learn as many proverbs as you can and use them at every opportunity. Native speakers will help foreigners they like more than foreigners they dislike.

Record yourself speaking: self-correct, or ask a classmate to do this.

Set yourself targets: this could be past papers completed per week, books read per month, or pages read per day. Track your progress against each metric on another file on your smartphone.

If you want to give yourself the best possible chance of getting A or A*, do this now.

Just before I start teaching you, I will give you an assessment based on the end of year exam for the previous year in primary and lower secondary and a past paper in Years 10 and 11.

It is up to you and your parents to ensure that this is completed under exam conditions.

The purpose of this is to benchmark you and understand what you know and what you do not know.

The results of this test will be shared with you and your parents.

You will then start lessons based on the syllabus you are studying to address development areas identified for you any other students in your cohort as a result of this assessment.

Frequent homework assessments will be assigned.

Again, it is up to you and your parents to ensure that these are completed under exam conditions.

Results will also be shared with you and your parents, and will allow me to both assess your ongoing progress and will inform my planning for future lessons.

***

Arabic-native speakers learning English sometimes encounter specific challenges, due to grammatical and structural differences between English and Arabic.

Here are some of the most common mistakes in my experience:

Pronunciation

Arabic does not have the 'p' sound, leading to confusion with the 'b' sound. For example, saying ‘beoble’ instead of "people" or ‘Can I bark my car here, blease?’

The "th" in "The" is often pronounced "z" instead of the correct pronunciation, which is the Modern Standard Arabic pronunciation of "ذ".

Learners find longer words like 'congratulations' and 'conservatory' difficult to pronounce.

Pronunciation is important, and garners respect in native speakers as well as speaking test invigilators.

Grammar

This word is sometimes misspelt ‘Grammer’, as that is how it's pronounced!

Verb 'to be'

Learners sometimes omit the verb 'to be' in the present tense, leading to sentences like ‘I going to the shops now.’ instead of ‘I am going to the shops now.’ and ‘He happy today.’ instead of ‘He is happy today.’

Spelling

Common spelling issues include omitting vowels in words with many consonants and vowels like 'interesting', which is sometimes spelt 'intersting', and the words 'because', 'before', 'with', 'different', 'restaurant', 'friend', 'beautiful', ‘believe’ and 'together'.

In English, many common words are written one way and pronounced another, and this can be challenging for learners when reading:

- Colonel: Despite its spelling, it is pronounced as ‘kernel.’

- Island: The ‘s’ is silent, so it's pronounced ‘eye-land.’

- Wednesday: the first ‘d’ is silent, pronounced as ‘wenz-day.’

- Receipt: The ‘p’ is silent, and it's pronounced as ‘re-seat.’

- Subtle: The ‘b’ is silent, and it's pronounced as ‘sut-tle.’

- Knocking: the ‘k‘ is silent, and it's pronounced as ‘no_king.’

Double consonants are also sometimes omitted:

‘I am planing to visit London.’ instead of ‘I am planning to visit London.’

The verb ‘plan’ when used in the continuous form requires a double ‘n’.

‘She stoped at the red light.’ instead of ‘She stopped at the red light.’

When a verb ends in a consonant preceded by a vowel, the final consonant is usually doubled before adding ‘-ed’ or ‘-ing’.

‘I prefered the blue shirt.’ instead of ‘I preferred the blue shirt.’

When a verb ends in a consonant preceded by a vowel, the final consonant is usually doubled before adding ‘-ed’ or ‘-ing’.

‘He is begining to understand.’ instead of ‘He is beginning to understand.’

The verb ‘begin’ when used in the continuous form requires a double ‘n’.

‘She is swiming in the pool.’ instead of ‘She is swimming in the pool.’

The verb ‘swim’ when used in the continuous form requires a double ‘m’.

Homophones

Homophones can be difficult, because they sound the same but have different meanings and spellings. They're a fun aspect of English that can sometimes lead to amusing misunderstandings.

The most common errors in my experience are with these three:

- ‘their’, ‘there’ and ‘they're’

‘Their’ means ‘belonging to them’, ‘there’ denotes location and is used in ‘there is’ and ‘there are’ and ‘they’re’ is the contraction of ‘they are’.

Other problematic homophones for Arabic native speakers learning English include:

- ‘principal’ and ‘principle’

- ‘practice’ and ‘practise’

- ‘stationary’ and ‘stationery’

- ‘two’, ‘to’, and ‘too’

Confused Nouns

Learners confuse similar sounding nouns like 'cloths' and 'clothes', 'now' and 'know', 'thing' and 'think', and 'quite' and 'quiet'.

Irregular Plural Nouns

Learners tend to add the plural 's' morpheme to some English words where it is unnecessary, especially to irregular plural nouns (e.g., ‘informations’, ‘advices’, ‘homeworks’, 'accommodations' and 'equipments' instead of ‘information’, ‘advice’, ‘homework’, 'accommodation' and 'equipment', as these nouns are plural in Arabic).

American Nouns

Learners often use the word 'math' when referring to mathematics; the correct British English contraction for the subject is actually 'maths'.

Also, the word 'grade' is often used by learners to describe year groups; the correct British English term to use in this context is 'year'.

Also note that Year 2 in the British educational system corresponds to Grade 1 in the American educational system.

In British English, the word 'grade' refers to the marks, points or letters assigned for performance in school or university assignments or exams.

Determiners

Learners often forget to include determiners like ‘the’ and ‘a/an’. Although Arabic has a word similar to ‘the’ (‘al-’), underuse of ‘the’ is still very common.

Examples are ‘I have car.’ instead of ‘I have a car.’, ‘I live in city centre.’ instead of ‘I live in the city centre.’, ‘He is very nice friend.’ instead of ‘He is a very nice friend.’ and ‘We had wonderful time in Jebel Awlia.’ instead of ‘We had a wonderful time in Jebel Awlia.’

Learners use 'the' even when it isn't needed in English, based on what they would say in Arabic:

‘The chocolate tastes better than the carrots.’ instead of ‘Chocolate tastes better than carrots.’

Possessive Pronouns

The words ‘yours’, ‘his’, ‘hers’, ‘ours’ and ‘theirs’ all end in ‘s’, whereas ‘mine’ ends in ‘e’.

This causes confusion and leads to errors like ‘This book is mines.’

Other Pronoun Errors

The misuse of many pronouns can be attributed to interference from Arabic, as in 'the central building which we take general subjects in it.' instead of ‘the central building in which we take general subjects.’

Prepositions

Prepositions are short words that are challenging for learners of any language.

Arabic native speakers learning English often make mistakes with prepositions that follow nouns, verbs or adjectives, such as ‘on March’ instead of ‘in March’ and ‘in March 12th’ instead of ‘on March 12th’.

Other examples include:

Ashraf and Ibrahim were ‘in’ (should be ‘at’) the party.

I felt very happy ‘in’ (should be ‘on’) the first day of Eid.

She introduced me ‘for’ (should be ‘to’) the other students.

Verb Forms & Tenses

There’s often confusion between the ‘-ing’ form, the ‘to’ form (e.g. ‘to go’), the base form (e.g. ‘go’) and the tensed forms (e.g. ‘came’).

Examples are:

When the children start ‘go’ (should be ’to go’) to school at 4 or 5 years old, they do not know how important it will be.

I’m really looking forward to ‘hear’ (should be ‘hearing’) from you soon.

Use of a Wrong Verb in a Context or a Phrase

Arabic native speakers learning English tend to use ‘wish’ when they should use another verb, and tend to use other verbs when they should use ‘have’.

Examples are:

‘I wish that!’ instead of ‘I hope so!’

I was thinking you could ‘make’ (should be ‘have’) the gathering on Saturday night. (note that ‘make’ in this sentence means ‘able to attend’)

I know that I will ‘spend’ (should be ‘have’) a good time here.

I ‘wish’ (should be ‘hope’) you enjoy the wedding.

Some people ‘do’ (should be ‘have’) a wedding party for three days.

Concord Errors

The most common grammatical error type is the lack of concord between subject and verb. Another was the deletion of the (-s) 3rd person singular pronoun marker or adding it unnecessarily (e.g., We takes [should be take]). Learners usually use the present simple marker or add it unnecessarily as in ‘He understand [s] how life is different.’

Repetition

Repetition errors in English language learning often occur when learners inadvertently use redundant language, which can make their speech or writing sound unnatural.

Here are some examples:

Redundant adjectives: using two adjectives that mean the same thing, such as 'educational school', ‘free gift’ or ‘true fact’.

Tautological expressions: phrases where two words are used together but they mean the same thing, like ‘unexpected surprise’.

Repetitive phrasing: repeating the same idea in different words, for example, ‘return back’, ‘I saw it with my own eyes’ or ‘I heard it with my own ears’.

Overuse of particular words: relying too heavily on certain words or phrases, which can happen when the vocabulary range is limited.

Echoing: repeating the last word or phrase that was said in a conversation, which can happen when a learner is trying to process language in real-time.

Consider this paragraph:

‘I had an online lesson with Mr Abdur Rahman. Mr Abdur Rahman gave me homework based on areas for development he had identified.’

In the above paragraph, replacing the second Mr Abdur Rahman with the pronoun ‘he’ avoids repetition, and is hence stylistically better:

‘I had an online lesson with Mr Abdur Rahman. He gave me homework based on areas for development he had identified.’

Punctuation

Punctuation is one of the biggest problems, which I have segregated into a number of different areas for clarity:

Punctuation: Capitalisation

Arabic script does not use capital letters, so learners sometimes forget to capitalise proper nouns or the first word of a sentence in English.

In titles, all words bar articles like “a,” “an,” and “the”, prepositions like “to,” “on,” “for,” and “with”, and conjunctions like “but,” “and,” and “or,” should be capitalised.

Punctuation: Proper Nouns

Proper nouns are specific names given to individual people, places, organisations, or sometimes things and are always capitalised.

Examples include:

- People: Maisa, Mohammed, Sara

- Places: Samrab, River Nile, Friendship Palace

- Organisations: Red Cross, Google, Oxford University

- Days of the Week/Months: Friday, August

- Titles of Works: 'Season of Migration to the North', 'Mona Lisa'

They are distinct from common nouns, which refer to general categories of objects or concepts, like 'river', 'painting', or 'university'.

Punctuation: Proper Adjectives

The following proper adjectives should always be capitalised:

Place-Based Proper Adjectives:
The names of places—countries, continents, regions, and cities:

eg African, Alaskan, Alpine, Amazonian, Antarctic, Olympic

People-Powered Proper Adjectives:
The are often historical figures or famous personalities:

eg Elizabethan, Victorian, Shakespearean, Maoist, Kafkaesque

Cultural Proper Adjectives:
These celebrate cultural identities and affiliations:

eg Spanish, American, Japanese, Chinese, Italian

Religious Proper Adjectives:
These honor faith traditions:

eg Islamic, Christian, Buddhist, Confucian

National Proper Adjectives:
These are nationalities:

eg Russian, French, Mexican, Australian, Norwegian

Punctuation: Apostrophes

Apostrophes are used to indicate contractions, where letters are omitted, such as turning "do not" into "don't." This usage is informal and is often found in direct speech.

They also show possession.

For singular nouns, add an apostrophe followed by 's', like ‘the cat's tail.’

If a singular noun ends in 's', you can just add an apostrophe at the end, as in ‘Charles' cat.’

For plural nouns that end in 's', place an apostrophe after the 's' to indicate possession, like ‘the brothers' feet.’

If a plural noun doesn't end in 's', add an apostrophe followed by 's', as in ‘the children's toys.’

Apostrophes are also used in time expressions to show duration, for example, ‘a year's work.’

However, do not use an apostrophe with possessive pronouns like ‘its’, which is already possessive. ‘Its’ means "belonging to it" whereas ‘it's’ is the contraction of ‘it is’.

If in doubt, replace ‘its/it’s’ with ‘it is’ and if the sentence still makes sense, add an apostrophe between the ‘t’ and the ‘s’.

Never put apostrophes on plural nouns if they are not in a possessive structure:

eg This report highlights the positive comments made by students.

Punctuation: Commas

Joining Commas: These are used to join independent clauses that have intervening conjunctions such as ‘and’, ‘but’, ‘for’ and ‘while’. The use of these commas is often discretionary. For example, ‘I asked him several times to turn down the volume, but he ignored me.’

Listing Commas: These are used to separate items, actions or ideas in a series and are used to avoid unnecessary repetitions of the conjunctions ‘and’ and ‘or’. For example, ‘She climbed into the car, fastened her seat belt, started the engine and drove off.’

Serial Comma: In British English, it is not generally used after the penultimate item or phrase in a list or series of actions. For example, ‘He said his favourite writers were Robert Harris, C. J. Sansom and Elizabeth Speller.’ However, in American English, it is standard practice to use one.

Isolating Commas: These are used to set apart non-restrictive relative clauses, nonessential appositives, introductory phrases, interrupters and parenthetical elements, question tags, names in direct address, and more.

Non-restrictive relative clauses: ‘My brother, who lives in Umm Dowamban, is visiting me next week.’ Here, the clause ‘who lives in Um Dowamban’ is additional information and the sentence would still make sense without it.

Non-essential appositives: ‘Ahmed Nasir, the CEO of the company, will be giving the keynote speech.’ Here, ‘the CEO of the company’ is an appositive providing extra information about Ahmed Nasir.

Introductory phrases: ‘After a long day at work, I like to relax with a good book.’ Here, ‘After a long day at work’ is an introductory phrase and is separated from the main clause by a comma.

Interrupters: ‘The weather today, as you can see, is beautiful.’ Here, ‘as you can see’ is an interrupter.

Parenthetical elements: ‘I am, to be honest, not sure about the answer.’ Here, ‘to be honest’ is a parenthetical element.

Question tags: ‘It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it?’ Here, ‘isn’t it’ is a question tag.

Names in direct address: ‘Could you, Abdel Nasir, please pass the salt?’ Here, ‘Abdel Nasir’ is a name in direct address.

Commas in Direct Speech: Commas are also used to introduce direct speech.

Remember, the use of commas can change the meaning of a sentence, and when speaking, we normally pause slightly where there is a comma.

Punctuation: Full Stops

End of Sentences: Full stops are used to mark the end of sentences that are not questions or exclamations. For example, ‘Let’s have some lunch.’

Sentence Fragments: Full stops are used to mark the end of sentence fragments. For example, ‘Are you cold? Yes, a bit.’

Initials: Full stops are used in initials for people’s names, although this practice is becoming less frequent. For example, ‘J. K. Rowling’.

Abbreviations: Full stops are used after abbreviations, although this practice is becoming less common. For example, ‘P.S. Do pop in next time you’re passing.’

Titles: Full stops are sometimes used after titles (e.g. ‘Dr.’) in American English, but much less so in British English.

Decimal Point: Full stops are also used as a decimal point in numbers when we are trying to show a number with a decimal.

Remember, the use of full stops can change the meaning of a sentence, and when speaking, we normally pause slightly where there is a full stop.

Punctuation: Colons

Introduction of Direct Speech: Colons are often used to introduce direct speech. For example, ‘He said: “I am going home.”’

Explanation or Justification: Colons are commonly used between sentences when the second sentence explains or justifies the first. For example, ‘She was late: her car had broken down.’

Introduction of a List: Colons can be used to introduce a list. For example, ‘He has three hobbies: reading, cooking, and travelling.’

Introduction of a Quotation: Colons can be used to introduce a quotation. For example, ‘As Shakespeare said: “All the world’s a stage.”’

Answer Introduction: Colons can be used to introduce an answer. For example, ‘The winner is: Mahmoud.’

Contrast Introduction: Colons can be used to provide contrast. For example, ‘She was very tired: he was full of energy.’

Remember, the phrase that comes after the colon usually explains or expands on what came before it. It’s also important to note that the use of colons can change the meaning of a sentence.

In British English, the first letter of a word following a colon is typically not capitalised unless it’s a proper noun or an acronym. However, if the colon is used to introduce a complete sentence, some style guides may allow for the first word to be capitalised.

Punctuation: Semicolons

Connecting Independent Clauses: Semicolons are used to connect two closely related independent clauses, i.e., parts of a sentence that could also stand as separate sentences. For example, ‘My car broke down this morning; it’s being fixed at the mechanic’s garage now.’

Replacing Coordinating Conjunctions: A semicolon is often used to replace a coordinating conjunction like ‘and’ or ‘but’. For example, ‘Hajer spent three hours in the library; she couldn’t find the book she wanted.’

Before Conjunctive Adverbs: If a conjunctive adverb (e.g., however, therefore, nevertheless) is used to link two sentences, a semicolon must be used before the conjunctive adverb. For example, ‘Ali spent three hours in the library; however, he couldn’t find the book he wanted.’

Breaking Up Complicated Lists: Semicolons can be used to break up complicated lists, dividing the list into easy-to-understand sections. For example, ‘When I pack for school, I make sure I have my calculator, compasses, and ruler for maths and science lessons; drawing pencils, with coloured pastels, for art; shin pads, goalie gloves, and boots for football; and my bus money.’

Remember, the use of semicolons can change the meaning of a sentence, and when speaking, we normally pause slightly where there is a semi-colon.

Punctuation: Speech Marks

Direct Speech: Speech marks are used to show the exact words that were spoken by a person or character. They are used at the beginning and end of direct speech. For example, “Did you hear that noise?” whispered Sam.

Indirect Speech: Speech marks are not used with indirect speech, which is speech that is reported rather than quoted. For example, Ahmed said that he did not understand why we need passports to travel to other EU countries.

Reproduced Text: If a writer wishes to use the words of another writer, or even their own from another source, the passage is enclosed in quotation marks.

Single vs Double Quotes: British usage has in the past usually preferred single quotes for ordinary use, but double quotes are now increasingly common. American usage has always preferred double quotes.

Single Quotation Marks (’ ') are typically used for ordinary quotations, dialogue, titles of short works, and emphasis. The book title ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ is a classic.

Double Quotation Marks (" ") are used within other quotes and for direct quotations. President Kennedy famously exclaimed, “Ich bin ein Berliner!”

Punctuation: A sentence containing a quotation is punctuated exactly like any other sentence apart from the addition of the quotation marks. You should not insert additional punctuation marks into the sentence merely to warn the reader that a quotation is coming up: that’s what the quotation marks are for.

Remember, the use of speech marks can change the meaning of a sentence, and when speaking, we normally pause slightly where there are speech marks.

In British English, punctuation that is part of the quoted material generally goes inside the speech marks, while punctuation not part of the quote goes outside. For instance:

- The teacher said, “You must hand in your homework on time.”

- Did she really say 'stop'?

British or American English?

Use one spelling convention or the other in your examination, but not both.

The above mistakes are often due to the structural and phonetic differences between Arabic and English, and can be overcome with practice and exposure to the English language and following the guidance at the top of this page.

If you're teaching or learning English, being aware of these common errors can help focus on areas that need more attention.

What challenges have you faced as a teacher or a learner of English?

Please let me know by sending me a WhatsApp message to +44 754 799 2885 so that I can add them to this list to allow others to benefit….