A couple of months ago, Eduardo, one of my elementary students, went to Finland on business for a week. I was really excited for him, for as his English teacher, I saw this as a big step in his English learning. What better way to open up new possibilities for your English, I thought.
As his English teacher, I now realise, I should have been nervous, not excited. What actually happened was that Edu experienced an accute attack of language shock. Unable to communicate well with all these fluent speakers from different countries, he just couldn't communicate at all. His fellow Spanish colleagues spoke for him instead. It was really demotivating for him because it was a step too far.
More recently, I decided to try out a reader with the class. Readers are simplified books, often novels or short stories, written with learners in mind and graded by level of English so that there are books even for very elementary learners. I was amazed by the students' positive reaction to it. Three of the six students read the first 2 chapters that I gave them the same week and came to class encouraged by how easy it was to read without a dictionary. They were happy to be reading for pleasure and not studying English. Most importantly, they were enjoying the story.
This reader was motivating because it didn't threaten, like a room full of English-savvy Scandinavians might to a poor elementary speaker. Going to Finland, I realised, was like trying to read War and Peace. The reader gently opened a new avenue in these learners' English exploration that perhaps they didn't know existed; now they can say: I can read English, too. It's a step in the right direction.
If you want to see some readers, check out these sites:
http://www.macmillanenglish.com/readers/studentsite/index.html
http://www.oup.com/elt/catalogue/general/readers/?cc=global
http://www.cambridge.org/gb/elt/catalogue/subject/item382366/Readers/?site_locale=en_GB
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