Getting feedback from past students and clients, I believe, is one of the major ways a business can grow beyond bounds and improve products & services. More importantly, acting on these feedbacks sometimes may not really mean a lot of hard work but rather smart work. No doubt, this has helped us in A.O.S Academy to fine-tune our offerings to our clientele. And, yes! It is finally paying off. Today, let’s talk about our previous challenges and recent successes with the French for TEF Canada candidates…
Getting feedback from past students and clients, I believe, is one of the major ways a business can grow beyond bounds and improve products & services. More importantly, acting on these feedbacks sometimes may not really mean a lot of hard work but rather smart work. No doubt, this has helped us in A.O.S Academy to fine-tune our offerings to our clientele. And, yes! It is finally paying off. Today, let’s talk about our previous challenges and recent successes with the French for TEF Canada candidates.
The Multiple Errs of Year 2021
As a language institute, we were faced with many setbacks last year especially from the middle of it till the end. It was as if A.O.S and the team back then were not fit for the constant problems we encountered in the bid to give values to our customers. I remember vividly one of the major hurdles that actually we battled with was refunds of registration fees and tuition costs to clients. Initially, we had no refund policy that dictated that we were not going to be paying back any tuition after payment to students, so we had no choice than to give refunds when they were asked.
More Complaints Scenarios
A particular man and his wife threatened us with the DSS, harassed us with their friend in Ilorin, even insulted us and promised to arrest us if we failed to pay him back his money after we rendered a service to him. After some weeks, another woman and her daughter came ravaging our office with a civil summon and later criminal offence order from the High Court, Upper Area Ilorin for not refunding her money swiftly even though we have vouched to pay her back her fees. Even before hers, another guy asked for his own tuition fees as well to be paid back but we had consulted a lawyer and had the legal backing to deal with such issues. Indeed, business is a battlefield.Our Teaching Mistakes
There was one woman in Canada who took our French for TEF Canada online courses and group coaching sessions that year as well who complained about the way we teach students. Apparently, she speaks good French, has taken the TEF test but didn’t excel in it like her friends who didn’t even necessarily were fluent like her and new little of the French grammar. She became furious about our teaching methods and later asked for a part refund of her preparatory class fees which we paid after getting her feedback about our coaching practices.
The Situation and her Valid Comments
With profound truth, we were not at all teaching at our best at that time due to the numerous issues we were dealing with and even the ongoing collaboration with PrepMyFuture Platform. Still, we valued her comments out of which emphasized on our lack of readiness prior to the classes to teach the students without knowing well how to use the PrepMyFuture Platform, its resources and its past questions. She was right; we were just training our coaches on the technical-know-how. The woman in question had her exam already registered for to be taken in few weeks, so she couldn’t wait on us until we got a grab of the platform and had to just get some of our materials and go ahead to study and prepare for the test on her own, hence, the call for part refund.The Ways Out
To combat the issues, we had to take a break. We stopped physical classes with candidates, took to our French for TEF Canada online courses first to help teach candidates the French language and later on after training rigorously on how to use the PrepMyFuture Platform, we were now confident to start taking people through its past questions. How exactly did we train ourselves? Well, this is the essence of today’s post if you ask me.
Our Consultations
Firstly, we had series of demo group and private coaching sessions amongst our coaches using the PrepMyFuture Platform as a teaching aid. Also, we downloaded most of the past questions, tackled them and ticked all the appropriate answers on papers which we now used as guides to coach our students online afterwards. We in fact made notes of areas that were challenging to easily grasp by the students and made sure that we found or developed easy-to-use TEF techniques, TCF tricks and strategies we can share with our students to use in preparing for the test. For instance, we came up with common simple phrases that are often used to converse in French during the Expression Orale ‘speaking’ part of the test that most examiners look out for, fast reading techniques that make TEF candidates quickly figure out answers of multiple choice questions in Comprehension Ecrite, various sample words that can assist in getting Comprehension Orale responses when the audio is playing, among others.Experimentation with Candidates
As time went on, we gathered few candidates who were in the A1, A2 and B1 levels to now coach using these approaches. We informed them that learning the French completely at heart is not our goal but we want them to just focus on knowing how well to pass the test using our tricks and they agreed to work with us to achieve that, since that was the reason they wanted to take the test. Most French for TEF or TCF candidates are not bothered on speaking like a French person in the first place when they have so limited time to do. In 4-8 weeks, we drilled these students and we are glad that at the end, two of them sat the test almost immediately and got these results. These showed that learning the French is not enough but knowing how to answer the test questions is far more important since even francophones still fail the tests if they lack these skills.
The Other Ways Possible
Although, some candidates didn’t take the test but they are far better in speaking, listening, reading and writing French now than ever. I remember one telling me, ‘Monsieur, taking the test is not the problem but it’s money. I have spent a lot these past festive months but I know when I’m financially ready, I would excel in it especially after the mock TEF test you organized for us.’ That’s right! At the end of your test preparation with us, we also conduct a look-alike exam for all candidates to ascertain that you all are ready for the test before going to sit the exam. Other students took the VIP coaching route or applying for the other way to get the test done for them, you can contact us to learn more about this. So far the test result is gotten, it is all fine.Our Candid Advice
Learn French, use the language materials, practice the past questions, test your competence and knowledge. Don’t rely only on your raw native proficiency; refine them by even teaching someone else if you dare. Make sure you are engrossed in the language on a daily basis prior to the test date doing lucrative and rewarding tasks with your French abilities. Try to immerse yourself in the language and its culture even if you are not residing in a French country. Above all, know thyself and the methods that suits thee. Pray over it all. Seek help from the language experts and test tutors. Enroll yourself in a test preparation class or online course and make the best use of it. You shall get the test result you seek eventually.
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