One to One Lessons Part 1 – Working with youths
Many kinds of lessons fall under the remit of the TEFL teacher and you may not know which skills are really required of you until you start a particular job. That’s why I want to tell you a bit about my work as a freelancer in London encountering all kinds of students and assignments and in this blog I give you an insight into teaching children and adolescents in one to one lessons.
Now I’ve done all sorts in the industry over the last 12 years or so – teaching, managing a school, writing – but these days I divide my working hours between my one to one English lessons, tutoring teachers studying TEFL Training distance programmes and lecturing on weekend TEFL courses.
I am based in London, a great place to live and work in. It is never dull and with one of the most cosmopolitan populations in the world, it is an ideal place to hone your skills with non-native speakers of English from around the globe. Just hop on the 188 bus from Deptford to Russell Square and you’ll hear more languages spoken on one journey than some countryside dwellers hear in a lifetime.
Recently I’ve been working with two such London residents. Jorge and Matilda aged ten and thirteen respectively. They are from Barcelona and the entire family has relocated because of Dad’s job. Fortunately for them (and me of course), his company is paying for the family to have one to one English support. This isn’t the first time they have lived in an English speaking country so they are at about upper-intermediate level which leads to an interesting challenge. How do you plan an EFL lesson for school age kids whose biggest problem is getting through the school curriculum? The answer? You don’t! This is one of those rare cases when detailed planning goes out the window.
Here’s how you do it. You concentrate on 3 things:
• Encouragement
• Correcting errors
• Highlighting rules and patterns
For example, Matilda needs to talk about the American civil war for a test the following day. As she speaks I show interest, noting down the main errors (without interrupting of course) but helping when she struggles to find the right vocabulary. When a natural pause occurs I take the opportunity to set a few selected errors straight. So Matilda is asked to correct herself when shown her poorer sentences and explain any rules involved. Then I get her to rehash the same information using the newly corrected phrases. By the way, repeating and rephrasing does wonders for your students’ accuracy and fluency too. Try it and see. Here’s an example:
Me: Look at this sentence, Matilda. You said: The general told to him that they will never surrender. Can you find the two little errors?
Together we recall two rules –
- Tell + someone + something without the preposition “to”.
- In reported speech “will” becomes “would”.
Me: Now, tell me about that general again. What did he say?
Matilda: Mmm he said…or he told the politician, that he would never surrender.
Me: That’s much better! Has anyone you know refused to do something recently?
Matilda: Umm yes! My little brother told my mum that he wouldn’t go shopping. She was really angry……..
Lessons like these really call for relationship building. Your students should always feel that you’re on their side and there to help. So smile loads and keep a mild tone of voice along with a sense of humour.
You know, one to one lessons are often like counselling sessions. You spend more time listening than anything else and you help the student express the things he needs to say instead of what a syllabus dictates. This means that, unlike group work, the lesson content is entirely personal. If you want to do some reading on the language teacher in a counselling role take a look at some interesting and unusual TEFL methodology called Community Language Learning .
Anyway I’ll be telling you a bit more about one to one lessons soon but meanwhile, for some handy pointers read Chapter 19 of “Teaching English as a Foreign Language for Dummies” by Maxom (Wiley 2009). Chapter 20 tells you all about teaching younger learners too.
Best wishes,
Michelle
Michelle Maxom, EFL teacher and writer
Teacher trainer, TEFL Training LLP
