Why does progression seem to slow down as an English learner moves from beginner to more advanced skills?
The journey of learning English
When presenting at ELT conferences, I often ask the audience – typically teachers and school administrators – “When you left home today, to start your journey here, did you know where you were going?” The audience invariably responds with a laugh and says yes, of course. I then ask, “Did you know roughly when you would arrive at your destination?” Again the answer is, of course, yes. “But what about your students on their English learning journey? Can they say the same?” At this point, the laughter stops.
All too often English learners find themselves without a clear picture of the journey they are embarking on and the steps they will need to take to achieve their goals. We all share a fundamental need for orientation, and in a world of mobile phone GPS we take it for granted. Questions such as: Where am I? Where am I going? When will I get there? are answered instantly at the touch of a screen. If you’re driving along a motorway, you get a mileage sign every three miles.
When they stop appearing regularly we soon feel uneasy. How often do English language learners see mileage signs counting down to their learning goal? Do they even have a specific goal?
Am I there yet?
The key thing about GPS is that it’s very precise. You can see your start point, where you are heading and tell, to the mile or kilometer, how long your journey will be. You can also get an estimated time of arrival to the minute. As Mike Mayor mentioned in his post about what it means to be fluent, the same can’t be said for understanding and measuring English proficiency. For several decades, the ELL industry got by with the terms ‘beginner’, ‘elementary’, ‘pre-intermediate’ and ‘advanced’ – even though there was no definition of what they meant, where they started and where they ended.
The CEFR has become widely accepted as a measure of English proficiency, bringing an element of shared understanding of what it means to be at a particular level in English. However, the wide bands that make up the CEFR can result in a situation where learners start a course of study as B1 and, when they end the course, they are still within the B1 band. That doesn’t necessarily mean that their English skills haven’t improved – they might have developed substantially – but it’s just that the measurement system isn’t granular enough to pick up these improvements in proficiency.
So here’s the first weakness in our English language GPS and one that’s well on the way to being remedied with the Global Scale of English (GSE). Because the GSE measures proficiency on a 10-90 scale across each of the four skills, students using assessment tools reporting on the GSE are able to see incremental progress in their skills even within a CEFR level. So we have the map for an English language GPS to be able to track location and plot the journey to the end goal.
‘The intermediate plateau’
When it comes to pinpointing how long it’s going to take to reach that goal, we need to factor in the fact that the amount of effort it takes to improve your English increases as you become more proficient. Although the bands in the CEFR are approximately the same width, the law of diminishing returns means that the better your English is to begin with, the harder it is to make further progress – and the harder it is to feel that progress is being made.
That’s why many an English language-learning journey gets abandoned on the intermediate plateau. With no sense of progression or a tangible, achievable goal on the horizon, the learner can become disoriented and demoralised.
To draw another travel analogy, when you climb 100 meters up a mountain at 5,000 meters above sea level the effort required is greater than when you climb 100 meters of gentle slope down in the foothills. It’s exactly the same 100 meter distance, it’s just that those hundred 100 meters require progressively more effort the higher up you are, and the steeper the slope. So, how do we keep learners motivated as they pass through the intermediate plateau?
Education, effort and motivation
We have a number of tools available to keep learners on track as they start to experience the law of diminishing returns. We can show every bit of progress they are making using tools that capture incremental improvements in ability. We can also provide new content that challenges the learner in a way that’s realistic.
Setting unrealistic expectations and promising outcomes that aren’t deliverable is hugely demotivating for the learner. It also has a negative impact on teachers – it’s hard to feel job satisfaction when your students are feeling increasingly frustrated by their apparent lack of progress.
Big data is providing a growing bank of information. In the long term this will deliver a much more precise estimate of effort required to reach higher levels of proficiency, even down to a recommendation of the hours required to go from A to B and how those hours are best invested. That way, learners and teachers alike would be able to see where they are now, where they want to be and a path to get there. It’s a fully functioning English language learning GPS system, if you like.
Many learners hit a plateau because improvements become less obvious as skills grow. At higher levels, progress often comes in smaller steps that are harder to notice without intentional goals and measurement tools.
Yes. Even highly proficient speakers continue to encounter new vocabulary, idioms, and styles. Mastery often involves refining existing skills rather than learning entirely new ones and that can feel slow.
Look for progress in specific areas, like understanding fast speech, using complex grammar correctly, or reading detailed texts without extra support. Tracking performance in real contexts (e.g., meetings, essays) helps more than just casual feedback.
Learners often struggle with rare vocabulary, idiomatic expressions, subtle grammatical distinctions, and real-world pacing, for example, fluent-level speaking speed or dense written texts.
Setting measurable milestones, engaging with content you enjoy, and periodically reviewing older skills to see improvement can help maintain confidence and drive.
Teaching business English to beginners can feel challenging, especially when learners have limited vocabulary and confidence. However, with the right structure and focus, you can help students build practical workplace communication skills step by step.
Focus on high-frequency workplace vocabulary
For beginners learners, communication matters more than complexity. Teaching commonly-used workplace vocabulary allows students to express basic ideas quickly and clearly.
Focus on:
Everyday work routines (emails, meetings, schedules)
Common verb–noun combinations (for example, “make a call,” “solve a problem”)
Simple functional phrases for greetings and offers
This focus on high-frequency language helps learners retain and reuse it more easily.
Introduce vocabulary in manageable, meaningful ways
Vocabulary learning becomes more effective when it is limited and contextualized. Instead of overwhelming students, introduce a small number of new words per lesson and place them in realistic scenarios.
For example:
Phone conversations
Short emails or messages
Daily task lists
Memory improves when learners interact with words actively. Matching exercises, sentence-building and personalization tasks all strengthen recall because they require learners to process meaning rather than just memorize.
Can neurodivergent learners really learn a new language?
Neurodivergent people can learn new languages successfully. Often, what seems like an inability is actually due to a mismatch between traditional teaching methods and how different brains process information.
Research across ADHD, autism and dyslexia consistently shows that language learning is not only possible but can offer cognitive, social and even emotional benefits. The key variable isn’t capacity, it’s approach.
Common myths about ADHD, autism and dyslexia in language learning
Myth 1: “People with ADHD can’t focus enough to learn a language”
Fact: ADHD brains often thrive with novelty, variety and stimulation, all of which language learning naturally provides.
While research on ADHD and language learning is still emerging, scholars highlight that the field is under-researched, not evidence of inability. This gap reinforces that perceived difficulties are often due to teaching methods rather than learner capacity. Traditional methods (long grammar drills, passive memorization) can fail ADHD learners. But when learning includes:
Short, varied activities
Speaking and interaction
Gamified tools
Real-world usage
Attention often improves, not worsens.
Reframe: It’s not a focus deficit, it’s a method mismatch.
Myth 2: “Dyslexia makes learning another language too difficult”
Fact: Dyslexia affects reading and decoding, not intelligence or the ability to acquire language.
In fact, many dyslexic learners:
Excel in spoken language skills
Develop strong pattern recognition
Benefit from multisensory input (audio + visual + movement)
Difficulties usually arise when teaching is overly text-heavy.
Reframe: Dyslexia changes how language is learned, not whether it can be learned.
Myth 3: “Autistic learners shouldn’t be pushed into bilingualism”
Fact: There is no evidence that learning multiple languages harms autistic individuals. Reviews have shown that bilingualism does not have negative effects on autistic children, despite long-standing misconceptions among professionals. In many cases, it can:
Support communication flexibility
Enhance social connection (especially in multilingual families)
Strengthen cognitive processing
The outdated belief that bilingualism causes confusion has been widely debunked. More recent reviews also highlight cognitive, social and identity-related benefits of bilingualism in autism, challenging deficit-based assumptions.
Reframe: Language learning can expand communication, not limit it.
Myth 4: “Neurodivergent learners just need more discipline”
Fact: What looks like “lack of effort” is often cognitive overload.
Neurodivergent learners may struggle when:
Instructions are unclear
Tasks rely on one learning modality
Pacing is rigid
Working memory is overloaded
Educational research shows that students are very different from each other, and teaching should change to fit those differences.
Reframe: The issue isn’t motivation, it’s accessibility.
Why traditional teaching methods don’t work for every brain
Most language classrooms still rely on:
Heavy text-based instruction
One-size-fits-all pacing
Passive memorization
Limited sensory engagement
These approaches conflict with what we know about different ways of learning (learner modalities), the idea that people process information differently (visual, auditory, kinesthetic, etc.).
The modality principle of multimedia learning shows that people learn better when information is presented through multiple channels (e.g., visuals + audio instead of text alone). This is especially important for neurodivergent learners.
Bottom line: When teaching adapts to the learner, outcomes improve dramatically.
How educators and parents can support diverse learners
Start with this principle: the learner is not the problem; the system might be.
For educators:
Offer multiple ways to engage with content
Design activities that include speaking, listening, and movement
Avoid equating speed with ability
Normalize different learning paths
For parents:
Focus on encouragement, not pressure
Choose programs that emphasize communication, not rote memorization
Advocate for inclusive teaching approaches in schools
Let’s be honest. One of the hardest parts of taking an English test isn’t the test itself; it’s what happens afterward. That strange limbo where the test is over, but your future still feels on hold. You’re waiting, refreshing your inbox, thinking about every question you answered, and wondering how long it’ll be until you can finally move on with your plans. If that sounds like you, just remember: it’s totally normal. Completely normal.
Why waiting feels so intense (and why it’s not “impatience”)
The moment you finish a test, your brain jumps ahead to everything that depends on that score:
Can I apply this week?
Will I meet the deadline?
Do I need to prepare a backup option?
When can I tell my family?
It’s not just curiosity. It’s the need for certainty so you can take the next step. Because studying in the USA involves so many moving parts – applications, forms, accommodation, visa timelines – and every one of them depends on knowing your score.
Fast results aren’t just a nice bonus; they directly impact how smoothly your study plan goes.
