Cloze10Herearethethreemostcommonmistakeslanguagelearnersmake-andhowtocorrectthem.Rigidthinking.Linguistshavefoundthatstudentswithalowtoleranceofambiguitytendtostrugglewithlanguagelearning.Languagelearninginvolvesalotofuncertainty–studentswill1encounternewvocabularydaily,andforeachgrammar2ruletherewillbeadialecticexceptionorirregularverb.Untilnative-likefluencyisachieved,therewillalwaysbesomelevelofambiguity.Thetypeoflearnerwhoseesanewwordandreachesforthedictionaryinsteadofguessingthemeaningfromthe3contextmayfeeldisorientedinanimmersionclass.Ultimately,theymightquittheirlanguagestudiesoutofsheerfrustration.It’sadifficultmindsettobreak,butsmallexercisescanhelp.Findasongortextinthetarget4languageandpracticefiguringoutthegist,evenifafewwordsareunknown.ASinglemethodSomelearnersaremostcomfortable5withthelisten-and-repeatdrillsofalanguagelaborpodcast.Someneedagrammartextbooktomake6senseofaforeigntongue.Eachofthese7approachesisfine,butit’samistaketorely8ononlyone.Languagelearnerswhousemultiplemethodsgettopracticedifferentskillsandseeconceptsexplainedindifferentways.What’smore,thevarietycankeepthem9fromgettingstuckinalearningrut.FearInEasterncultureswheresavingfaceisstrongsocialvalue,EFLteachersoftencomplainthatstudents,10despiteyearsofleaningEnglish,simplywillnotspeakit.They’retooafraidofmakinggrammaticalmistakesormispronouncingwordsinawaythatwouldembarrassthem.