One to one speaking practice with beginner
Posted: Tue Apr 11, 2017 7:26 am
Hi all, my name is Katy and I’m new – hoping to pick your brains wise ones!
I am a newly qualified TEFL teacher taking on private one-to-one clients as part of a new small business venture. My first client is a Latvian lady (Russian speaker) who is studying English at college and doing well in reading/writing/grammar but can hardly speak the language. She just wants me to speak to her for an hour a week and I’m really up for the challenge but want to make sure I can encourage her in the right ways.
I’ve met her once to get a feel for her level and her college have classified her as pre-intermediate. She answered written grammar questions well. But she openly admitted she was poor at listening and only passed the speaking element of her test by learning phrases by heart.
Any hints and tips? Ideas for useful exercises? She wants to prepare vocabulary in advance for topics to be discussed in the tutorial, but I know that it is going to be difficult to simply sit with her and let her use pre-prepared sentences as this is not going to help her learn to become a natural speaker. Her daughter is very supportive and speaks good English; she sat in on our first lesson and was correcting her mother every time she made a mistake whereas I was keen to hear what she had to say, then correct slightly less strictly, but this appears to be what she is used to.
I hope this makes sense, just looking for general guidance really and experiences, things that have worked well! I know I must sound really clueless, I want to really help this lady though and prove to her that she is capable but I don’t have enough confidence in my own teaching methods yet!
Any support gratefully received. It’s out first ‘proper’ session Friday and I’ve yet to send through her ‘homework’ although we’ve agreed we’ll discuss family and hobbies, but that’s not going to take an hour! Thanks in advance. Looking forward to getting involved in the community!
I am a newly qualified TEFL teacher taking on private one-to-one clients as part of a new small business venture. My first client is a Latvian lady (Russian speaker) who is studying English at college and doing well in reading/writing/grammar but can hardly speak the language. She just wants me to speak to her for an hour a week and I’m really up for the challenge but want to make sure I can encourage her in the right ways.
I’ve met her once to get a feel for her level and her college have classified her as pre-intermediate. She answered written grammar questions well. But she openly admitted she was poor at listening and only passed the speaking element of her test by learning phrases by heart.
Any hints and tips? Ideas for useful exercises? She wants to prepare vocabulary in advance for topics to be discussed in the tutorial, but I know that it is going to be difficult to simply sit with her and let her use pre-prepared sentences as this is not going to help her learn to become a natural speaker. Her daughter is very supportive and speaks good English; she sat in on our first lesson and was correcting her mother every time she made a mistake whereas I was keen to hear what she had to say, then correct slightly less strictly, but this appears to be what she is used to.
I hope this makes sense, just looking for general guidance really and experiences, things that have worked well! I know I must sound really clueless, I want to really help this lady though and prove to her that she is capable but I don’t have enough confidence in my own teaching methods yet!
Any support gratefully received. It’s out first ‘proper’ session Friday and I’ve yet to send through her ‘homework’ although we’ve agreed we’ll discuss family and hobbies, but that’s not going to take an hour! Thanks in advance. Looking forward to getting involved in the community!