Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash A while ago, a prospective student announced, “I’ve learnt until the present perfect continuous, so I think my level is B1*.” This comment struck me as interesting . Imagine all those hours of study, repetition and practice reduced to a grade determined by a single grammar point. It got me thinking how I felt about my German. What was my level? Let’s see, I’ve passed the B1 exam, so I’m B1. But that was almost a year ago. What does that make me now? B2? How can I really know? Walking up the three flights of stairs to my classroom the other day, I wondered how exactly to say what I was doing in German. That got me thinking even more. I can use the past perfect, but I still can’t use the 1 st conditional accurately ( though it was in my B1 course book). I even learnt the second conditional back then. If I can't apply the rules now does that mean I’ve slipped back to A2? I ask because I’m listening to an audiobook aimed at
What the teacher notices when she becomes the student.