Korean Job Discussion Forums

[bronxie]

heya,

i've just been asked to teach a one-on-one conversation class this afternoon, but having never done this, i'm wondering where to start? it will be an ongoing class, and i'll have to make an assessment of their abilities in today's so we can choose a suitable text book, can anyone recommend any procedures to do this effectively?

cheers!

[Juregen]

Yeah i don't like randon one-on-one conversations, they just don't seem to do anything.

Some students think it enhances their speaking but it really doesn't, plus it is very hard to prepare anything.

I prepare 2 hours of subjects, with underlying vocab and grammar, and maybe one tenth gets used, just because they all of a sudden want to talk about their personal experience and family and stuff.

You serve more as a schrink then a language teacher. I guess when they feel comfortable with you, Koreans feel the need to actually talk for the first time in their lives. Really weird.

[spyro25]

Conduct a needs assessment evaluation in your first class to find out what the student's needs are. Ask questions such as 'why do you want to study english?', find out whether they are studying for specific purposes (TOEIC, GRE test etc.) or for general second language learning. age is a huge factor also in the materials and content you will have to provide.

If its just a general non specific conversation class then get them to role plays, or to read a short fictional or non fictional source and get them to review the vocab found within and allow them to make their own expressions using the constructions in the book.

one mistake teachers make when doing this kind of class is to forget that it is a class like any other - be prepared, do some formal explanations for stuff on the board so that the student can't complain that they aren't 'studying' anything.

also if its not studying for specific purposes - keep it FUN and lively and contextually suitable for the student so they want to come back. one on one classes use a lot of your energy and cognition, but the same can be said of the student, so be prepared to have some little activites that will break the 40/50 mins of class time you have. try not to keep them talking for 40 mins or you will overload both your and the students cognitive processes.

[oneofthesarahs]

One thing that I like to do is pick a particular grammatical concept that Koreans tend to do incorrectly, explain it on the board briefly, and then introduce a conversation topic that lends itself to that sort of construction. Charge them with using it correctly X number of times during the class.