Best Practice 6: One-on-One Classes

Best Practice 6: One-on-One Classes

Teaching English one-on-one offers numerous benefits for both the teacher and the student. Not only do teachers have to focus their attention squarely on an individual student but the student, too, has the chance for intensive practice. Customization is the key to making the most of this unique opportunity.

Customization:

Teachers should supplement the assigned curriculum by integrating teaching points that are tied to the specific job-related contexts of their students. The source of these additional exercises can come from the student-provided feedback or from some brief research. Informed questions – like, in the case of a pharmaceutical company, queries regarding their most successful products – make engaging (and relevant conversation) a breeze.

Bring Work Into Class

To further supplement the assigned curriculum, it is always a good idea to ask students to bring examples of the English material they use in their work. Not only does this provide a ready-made lesson for the teacher but it also keeps the class focused on the student’s real needs. Examples of relevant work include:

• reports

• forms

• correspondence

• presentations

Use Homework and Silence Grammar and vocabulary-based assignments can feel tedious in one-on-one classes. To liven things up, assign language work such as this as homework to be checked in class. This gives the teacher the opportunity to address trouble spots and maximize conversational exchange at the same time. Regular homework can also help to give the course a coherent shape.

At the same time, teachers should not be afraid of silence. It takes time and patience to acquire new languages skills so it is always a good idea to break up a conversation-dominated lesson with a short reading or writing activity. This allows the student to rest – talking in a foreign language for an hour or more can be exhausting – and assimilate new knowledge before trying it out. To encourage this the teacher can try the following:

• ask lots of questions

• play “dumb”

• reverse roles (the student is the teacher and he or she has to explain something)

“Partnering Up”

Just because many ESL activities revolve around pairwork that does not mean they are beyond the scope of a one-on-one class. If the teacher becomes the student’s partner, however, the student should still do most of the talking. Student speaking time at the various levels is expected to be:

• Beginner 50%

• Upper Beginner 50%

• Lower Intermediate 60% • Intermediate 80%

• Upper Intermediate 90% • Advanced 90%

Visual Materials

Visual materials can be helpful at all levels but are particularly crucial in one-on-one beginner classes. Materials such as photographs, graphs, maps, pictures and so on provide a rich source of vocabulary that can in turn be used by the teacher to focus on a particular structure. Students can also use these pictures to ask questions of their own and, in so doing, can provide very focused (and fairly communicative) practice of the structures in question.