Having worked in a ESL (English as a Second Language) environment now for more than three decades I think I am in a position to discuss one of the biggest single challenges that many individuals face. I have observed it from my very early beginnings in Rreshen, Albania in 1995 right through to the present day. 

To define it very simply: The Barrier is where a person has sufficient knowledge to be able to communicate, but somehow the words get stuck and simply won't come out.

There are a variety of reasons for this problem to emerge but they all come down to one basic reason - a lack of confidence. However, before I go into this I want to make something absolutely 100% clear. Where there is a Barrier problem it is absolutely (yes I have overused that word deliberately) the tutor's responsibility to "fix" the problem.

Consider, if your washing machine breaks down you call in an expert and trust that the professional can resolve the problem and fix it. You don't proffer advice, although you should freely discuss the reasons why it is broken to be as informative as possible. Likewise, your tutor is the expert and it is down to the approach to smash the Barrier. The only thing the student needs is a willingness to grow.

So why?

• If students are jumping language streams it can be particularly difficult. I have experienced this with my English (a Germanic Language) and trying to learn Polish. Aside from vocab they are worlds apart. I discussed this in another article recently. The challenge is also for Polish people learning English who face similar adaption problems. An average Polish student (up to C1 level) will struggle particularly with tenses (why are there more than three?), articles (the, a, an), phrasals (multi-word verbs such as "put up" and "put up with") and idioms - although in fairness the latter applies both ways as they are not universal. One fun example is that while in Britain we will say "When in Rome do as the Romans do" in Poland a rough translation of the idiom which has the same meaning is "When a crow caws, caw the same song as the crow". This makes language acquistion so very difficult. Where languages are relatively similar (eg Italian - Spanish) second language adoption is easier although I suspect there could be some vocab mistakes added as a result of wrong selection and confusion).
• The environment might be intimidating - even in the classroom. if students think they are weaker than their peers. They don't want to be shown up (phrasal!), laughed at or humiliated in any way shape or form. The same can apply to a professional environment.
• An unwillingness on the part of the non-native to put up with (!) any mistakes in vocab or form. According to stereotype the French are notorious for this; unless your French is perfect (and in addition you are obviously English) they will simply choose not to understand you. Having said that Mama_Rah and I once met a Frenchman in front of Buckingham Palace and were looking for somewhere (I can't remember where). He was resident in London and he was completely contrary to the often-stated stereotype.
• However, overzealous correction is probably the single most harmful element that leads to a shut down and the emergence of a Barrier. Learners make mistakes and often two or three in each sentence (certainly to begin with or if the learner has jumped language stream). It is disheartening for the learner to know that all too frequently most of what they say is wrong and especially if it is down to form rather than vocabulary. An easy example of this in Polish (as previously stated in my other article) if I want to say blood and I say krew instead of krwi, while it is wrong it should still be recognisable enough to understand and some leeway should be given to the non-native. Over-correction is a hammer that crushes the confidence of the learner and the end result is that the learner stops speaking (which is the perfect definition of The Barrier)

So the most important key is that confidence must be favoured over correction and there has to be a way to address mistakes, which I will come onto in a few minutes) after the following case study.

About 20 years ago I was teaching four teenagers in a C1 (Advanced) group. They were enthusiastic and had no sense of Barrier, but the relevance of their story will soon become clear. For homework I set them a film to watch and prepared some questions for them to speak on at the beginning of the next 90 minute lesson. They duly watched the film and came prepared. I had allocated 15 minutes of the lesson time for the discussion and then they started speaking, with almost no involvement from me... 15 minutes... 20 minutes... 30 minutes... 40 minutes... they eventually started drying up around about 47 minutes. 

And this is the point, they didn't make many mistakes and 90% of the mistakes they made were in the first two minutes. It was almost as though they needed to tune into the language. Students need opportunity to build confidence and then they will soar just like this group did.

Incidentally, if you are wondering, I deliberately let them run with it rather than staying in my time frame for precisely the reason stated above and now all this time later it has left an indelible mark on me.

Students must be allowed to speak, to flow and to grow in confidence. Correction can then be delivered in a general way (eg "We must remember to add "s" / "es" in III Present Simple") or if you know the student and have built a relationship with them then you can suggest what I call the "brutal approach". This has to be done 1-2-1 because it is not about humiliation and only with one thing at a time. So to use the cited example, very simply every time the student makes this specific mistake they are interrupted (so if they are dropping the "s" / "es"). They will get frustrated, even annoyed, but they will learn and that is the whole point.

Obviously this can only be done with one mistake at a time otherwise a bit like over-zealous correction it can be soul destroying.

And there you go!

As always stay safe and well my friends