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I have suggested that many, if not most teachers, could usefully adjust the values they emphasise. Here, three proposed adjustments:
1. From product to process. Teachers often want or need evidence of learning, so they tend to overvalue students’ products – essays, exercises or speech. This need tends to obstruct learning, which is a continuous process.
2. From Short-Term to Long-Term Aims. Learning a foreign language can be a valuable, long-term personal asset for the student. It can be inhibited by over-emphasising short-term objectives — tests, pressure to speak before you are ready etc.
3. From Knowledge to Skill. Knowledge involves answers and explanations and is necessary, but not sufficient. What matters is not what you know, but what you can do. ‘Knowing’ a foreign language may be interesting; the ability to use it is life-enhancing.
Pronouns are important reference elements contributing to the cohesion in texts. In the fragment of item 1 “This need tends to”, the bolded expression refers to