Teaching one to one

Hello everyone, I hope you can help me. I’ve been asked to teach a businessman one to one, but I’ve never done that before. he is upper intermediate level and he needs to work in English, so his company is paying for him to have an intensive course, three hours a day, starting next week. I don’t know where to start!

Thanks, ardu.

Reply To: Teaching one to one

The articles you’ll find at the following links might help a bit.

http://eltnotebook.blogspot.com/search/label/Teaching%20One-to-One

http://www.onestopenglish.com/searchresults.asp (scroll down the page)

But basically, just remember that whatever you would normally do with a class of similar students, you still need to do with an individual. You just have to adapt activities like group work and personalise more. Let him tell you about his work and interests, work on articles that relate to his work, roleplay situations that he’s about to have to face, and so on.

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For articles on ELT methodology and practical activities – http://eltnotebook.blogspot.com

Reply To: Teaching one to one

Hello everyone, I hope you can help me. I’ve been asked to teach a businessman one to one, but I’ve never done that before. he is upper intermediate level and he needs to work in English, so his company is paying for him to have an intensive course, three hours a day, starting next week. I don’t know where to start!

Thanks, ardu.

Do a needs analysis. Find out your client’s interests, etc. Things that work well with 1-2-1:

Questionnaires
Card games
Board games

Anything which reflects the ‘ego’ of your student.

Manage your classroom. Have a corner with a walkman, cassette and listening activities, another corner with reading material, another with grammar exercises, etc.

Simulate the office of your student.

Hope this sparks off ideas for you.

SMRT