Job Discussion Forums

[Panther33]

Hello all, this is my first post. Just wanted some advice on teaching two students of differing abilities at the sametime. One is a intemediate user and the other fairly advanced (aparently she is an english teacher herself). I am not sure what she exactly wants, maybe conversation practice.

How would you take a lesson with this setup. Would you give them different work and alternate, or would you make them come at different times. I am leaning towards the last option as it would be much easier, and I would rather do a good job for both then a half ass one.

The reason they would prefer to be taught together is that they have a semi long car ride to get to my town.

[PAULH]

[Glenski]

I disagree with trying to have one help the other. I've taught private lessons in that situation, and it was impossible. The higher level person got frustrated and gave up. He always felt it was MY job to help the lower level person. OTOH, the lower level person always begged and whined for leniency and felt ashamed at being so much lower than his/her friend.

My wife was in a similar situation herself as a private lesson student with one of her best friends. The brash teacher said he could teach both of them. Two lessons later, they both quit because he couldn't.

Teach them separately. Have one doing homework or drills while you teach the other, then vice versa. Teaching conversation doesn't have to skip the written end of things. Vocabulary quizzes are good for review, too, during that time. Most people don't seem to put in the time for vocab review on their own, so this would help.

[Deconstructor]

[Deconstructor]

This is actually one of the most common problems in the class. In fact, you could never have two students with the same abilities, and levels are always a joke because very few people have a reliable and valid criteria for placing students. The trick is to get material that could be used for people with different abilities.

If it's a question of grammar, it is worthwhile to keep in mind that grammar is not linear: you can teach any piece of grammar to anyone with almost any ability in English.

If it's a question of reading activity, then the strong student can, for example, retell a story in as much detail as possible while the weak one can only summarize it. Of course, there is a whole methodology that goes with this. If you are interested, pm me.

[gaijinalways]

I would usually recommend not to teach them together, but since you have special circumstances where they know each other and are coming together...

One possibility is the earlier review session/homework self study option for one while you teach the other (of course, you should rotate who goes first). One possible problem with this is that it may take up too much time for the students, i.e. 2x the study time.

If you do teach them together, some peer teaching is possible, but don't do to much. Many students, as alluded to before, think it's your job to teach. Try and have the higher level student expand more on various aspects, fill in on summaries after the weaker student goes first, etc. Also you will find that students may vary in different skill areas, so that the stronger student mat not always be the same person!

You may also give them different in-class work, but you do need to be careful with doing that as it requires more class management skills and may be confusing with students unable to talk about the same topics together in most cases. Doing this with written work, of course allows you to have them write at their own respective levels.

[Glenski]

[eslHQ]

I found this advice here.