CAMBRIDGE IGCSETM ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE: UNIT 6 EXTRACT SHEETS

Text 6.2

1 ahmed al abri questions. We certainly had

‘Every student can
learn, just not on the
same day, or the same
way.’ (George Evans)
Recently I had the opportunity to
interview four people about their
experiences of learning, and I soon
discovered that the cartoonist
When I was at school, most of
my teachers were in control
of everything that happened
during the lesson. My classmates
and I were very rarely given
any opportunities to work
independently or to take risks
with our learning. Everything
that we had to learn was simply
no access to a library and of
course the internet hadn’t
been invented in those days.
In my opinion, you can’t miss
something if you have never had
it, and I have no regrets about
the way we learnt and absorbed
information. I was fortunate
enough to go to university, and
I am quite successful in my

George Evans was absolutely
correct: everyone is different.
Here is what they had to say.
told to us. When we had to find
out something extra, it involved
speaking to someone in our
family and asking them
sachtienganhhanoi.com
working life, without doing
much active learning at any
stage of my education.

2 g i u sy m a n a g o
I’m a ballet teacher in Italy, and
one of the most important things
I want for my students is for them
to build up their confidence. This
is a long, slow process that involves
them taking risks and not ignoring
challenges simply because they’re
afraid of failing. Being successful
is a struggle, and my students have
to understand this. I can show my
students what to do, but I can’t dance
for them. They need to participate
and ‘get their hands dirty’ – not
just occasionally, but during
every single lesson that we have
together. Furthermore, success
will definitely not come their
way if they aren’t prepared to
make an effort outside the
dance studio. I insist that my
students watch professional dancers online or on
television as much as possible. If they do this, they
will be able to reflect on their own performance,
which will contribute to their success.
3 zhang wei
Call me old-fashioned but I think that using a
phone or tablet to make notes dramatically
reduces your ability to think and
create. For me, the best tools are a
notepad and a pen, neither of which
requires power or a cable or a bank
loan to pay for them! I believe that
the tools we use with our hands are
also tools for the brain, and I know that if I write
notes, my brain becomes more active. Also, my
written notes form a fantastic external memory
bank – I can check back through handwritten
pages far more easily than anything on a digital
device. And let’s not forget that note-taking by
hand is an essential study skill, which requires
feedback to the brain. Of course, using a keyboard
is also an important skill in our digital age, but it
doesn’t give the same type of practice as when you
coordinate hand, pen, paper and brain.

Cambridge IGCSETM English as a Second Language – Lucantoni © Cambridge University Press 2022
 CAMBRIDGE IGCSETM ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE: UNIT 6 EXTRACT SHEETS

4 a sya k o r k m a z
As a student I often feel pressure to succeed, but
I believe that I respond well when I’m challenged
at school. I’m not afraid to take risks, and if I fail,
I pick myself up and try again. In fact, one of my
teachers told me that scientists have shown that
it is actually good to fail sometimes, because it
encourages faster learning. Apparently, the best
place to be is succeeding around 85% of the time.
If you are always successful, then the questions or
the tasks are too easy, and if you get below 85%,
things are probably too difficult. This 85% success
target ensures that you don’t get discouraged by
failure, but also helps to avoid boredom if things
are too easy. As you improve your knowledge and
become more confident, you will become more
successful. Then you can start to challenge yourself
with more difficult learning material.

sachtienganhhanoi.com

Cambridge IGCSETM English as a Second Language – Lucantoni © Cambridge University Press 2022