Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in MianhuA Yuanzhongchang? Are you interested in teaching English in Suqian Shi? Check out ITTT’s online and in-class courses, Become certified to Teach English as a Foreign Language and start teaching English ONLINE or abroad! ITTT offers a wide variety of Online TEFL Courses and a great number of opportunities for English Teachers and for Teachers of English as a Second Language.
Nowdays the interest for one-to-one teaching is bigger than before. The world in becoming more and more global and companies expect their employees to use English at work. Many people feel that they have lack of English skills and that’s why many people in the business world want to improve their English and they hire a private teacher for that. In one-to-one lessons teachers can modify lessons for the student’s specific needs. At the beginning, teachers should do an analysis that it helps to define student’s strengths and weaknesses. A needs analysis can be a written form of questinnaires for the student to complete or it can be an informal conversation. Individual lessons should be conducted in the same way than group lessons including grammar practice, vocabulary and conversation. Sometimes students want to practise only one skill, for example speaking. That is a good idea for a portion of the lessons but other skills should be practised also. There should be also vocabulary building on a theme, and grammatical practising among guided conversations. Many business people need basic grounding in their English and, althought they know the vocabulary and terminology of their field, they are unable to put them into a proper sentence. Lesson planning is normally easier for teachers in one-to-one lessons because they don’t have to think about mixed levels and student’s needs can be defined easier. Students who take individual lessons are usually highly motivated so teachers don’t have to use extra energy for solving problematic behaviour in the class. But one-to-one lessons also have some disadvangages because it’s not possible to do all the activities or exercises compared to a full classroom. There are many suitable activity ideas for one-to-one lessons. For example asking the student to write short stories, reading articles from magazines or newspapers. Also talking about some relevant news item or personal history is also a good practise. In one-to-one lessons it is possible to talk more personal topics because maybe some students do not want to talk about their family background in a big class. Students can also practice pronunciation and the teacher can help them more and maybe some students feel more comfortable to practice pronunciation in one-to-one lessons because then they don’t have to be afraid of making mistakes in front of other students or feel the group pressure. Teachers can also give students homework in one-to-one lessons. It is not mandatory but might be helpful for the student to learn more. Teachers should not give too much homework for students because otherwise they can feel that they cannot cope with the amount of homework. Homework can be, for example, a magazine article to read before the next meeting with the teacher. The teacher can also encourage the student to read English books or to watch English news. Sometimes, students can be asked to prepare a short oral presentation about a topic of their choice. In this way, the student may feel more motivated to talk about a topic that is important or interesting for him. At the same time, the teacher can build a closer relationship with the student.
