Point taken. Thanks. 
Thanks,this confirms,in a way,that my teaching methods have been kind of effective.I employ many of the methods that you use.
Here’s the “classroom vocabulary” list I always give to new students. (Sorry if the layout is weird; documents don’t translate well from MSWord to this format:)
Basics (基本的東西):
The alphabet = A-Z
(Cardinal) Number =號碼、數字
Letter =字母
Ordinal Number =序號碼
Capital Letter =大寫
Sentence =句子
Lower-case Letter =小寫
Yes/No Question =答案是“yes”或“no”的問題
Vowel =母音
WH question =開頭“wh”的問句
Consonant =子音
Subject =主詞
Syllable =音節
Object =受詞
Word =單字
“Wh Questions”:
Who =誰
Why =為什麼
Whose =誰的
Which =哪一個
What =什麼
How =怎麼、如何
What time =幾點
How many =多少可數名詞
What kind of =哪一種
How much =多少不可數名詞
When =何時
How long =多久
Where =哪裡
How often =多久一次
Punctuation: (標點符號):
Period .
Exclamation Point !
Comma ,
Apostrophe ’
Question Mark ?
Colon :
Quotation Marks “ ”
Semi-colon ;
Dash —
Parentheses ( )
Slash /
Parts of Speech: (詞性)
Noun =名詞
Conjunction =連接詞
Pronoun =代名詞
Article =a / an / the
Possessive Pronoun =所有代名詞
Preposition =介係詞
Verb =動詞
Infinitive =不定詞
Verb Tense =動詞時態
Gerund =動名詞
Be Verb =“Be”動詞
Present Participle =現在分詞
Phrasal Verb =片語動詞
Past Participle =過去分詞
Adjective =形容詞
Phrase =片語
Adverb =副詞
Clause =子句
Skills (技巧):
Grammar =文法
Listening =聽力
Pronunciation =發音
Reading 閱讀能力
Fluency =流利度
Composition =作文
Verb Tenses (動詞時態):
Simple Present =現在式
Past Perfect =過去完成式
Present Continuous =現在進行式
Past Perfect Continuous =過去進行完成式
Simple Past =過去式
Simple Future =未來式
Past Continuous =過去進行式
Future Continuous =未來進行式
Present Perfect =現在完成式
Future Perfect =未來完成式
Present Perfect Continuous =現在進行完成式
Grammar Adjectives (文法形容詞):
Singular =單數的
Positive / Affirmative =肯定的
Plural =復數的
Negative =否定的
Active =主動
Complete =完整的
Passive =被動
Incomplete =不完整
Countable =可數
Regular =規則的
Uncountable =不可數
Irregular =不規則的
Comparative =比較級
Silent =不發
Superlative =最高級
Third Person =第三人稱
Useful Verbs (課堂上有用的動詞):
Ask =問
Underline =劃底線
Answer =回答
Circle =圈起來
Write (down) =寫下
Cross Out =劃掉
Find Out =查明
Fill In =填入空格
Figure Out =想出
Take Out =拿出
Open =打開
Put Away =收起來
Close =關閉
Pick Up =拿起來
Guess =猜
Put Down =放下
Pretend =裝作
Emphasize / Stress =強調
Look at =注意看
Translate =翻譯
Listen to =注意聽
Say =說(話)
Preview =預習
Spell =拼
Review =復習
Practice =練習
Useful Sentences and Questions (課堂上有用的句子和問句):
- Excuse me… = 不好意思、借過、請問
- Pardon? = 剛沒聽到
- May I speak Chinese for a moment? = 我可以用中文表達我的意思嗎？
- How do you spell (that)? = 剛那單字 個怎麼拼?
- What does _____ mean in Chinese? = _____中文是什麼意思？
- How do you say ____ in English? = _____用英文怎麼說？
- What do you call this in English? = 這個東西英文怎麼說？
- How do you pronounce (say) this word? = 這個單字怎麼念？
- What’s the answer to number ____? = 第____個問題，答案是什麼？
- I (don’t) understand. = 我（不）懂。
- I didn’t hear you clearly. = 我剛沒聽清楚。
- Please speak more slowly / clearly. = 請說慢、清楚一點。
- Please write bigger. = 請寫大一點。
- Please say (that) again. = 請再說一遍。
- Please say number _____ again. = 請再說第____一次。
- That makes sense. = （你說得）有道理。
- May I borrow your __? = 我可不可以跟你借你的？
- Please lend me your _____. = 請把你的___借給我。
- It’s your turn. = 輪到你 、 該你。
- Work together. = 一起作、一起練習。
I have a private these days, all he wants is conversation. His English is actually quite good, though he still make occasional grammar mistakes - and there’s always new vocabulary to learn. But his reason for asking me to teach him was to practice his conversation. He speaks fine, and I can speak about a number of topics to him no problem - he just wants to become more fluent and smoother.
Well, there aren’t any absolutes in life. Personally, unless it’s quite a lot of hours per week, I don’t think it has much effect, but if he’s willing to pay you for that, more power to the both of you. For myself, unless the student were pretty darned charming and simply full of stuff to talk about, I’d find it exhausting. I hardly get to chat with my friends or wife for that long, and now I have to force myself to feign interest in someone’s golf game or TV-watching preferences?
Plus, after so many years as a teacher, what I want is verifiability. I want to hear the concrete results of what I’ve taught. I want the vocabulary that’s come up in class to come out of their mouths un-elictited during practice. I want them self-correcting their pronunciation and grammar. And I don’t want to hear them making the same mistakes they were making 6 months or a year earlier. These things, I’ve found, come about only with a structured methodology.
Another thing I’ve started doing lately is something I picked up from my boss at the hardcore buxiban where I work part time. It’s to have them tell me the spelling exceptions in news words they learn. To do this, they basically need 3 sentences:
-
In the word ____, the ____ should be long/short, but it’s short/long. EG:
In the word “head”, the E should be long, but it’s short.
In the word “go”, the O should be short, but it’s long. (People will debate me on that one, but I don’t get real complicated with my spelling rules for adults. If it’s a single vowel, it’s short, period.)
In the word “have”, the A should be long, but it’s short. -
In the word ___, the ____ sounds like (a/an) ____. EG:
In the word “father”, the A sounds like a short o.
In the word “question”, the -TION sounds like -CHUN (instead of -SHUN).
In the word “thought”, the OU sounds like AU/AW. -
In the word ___, the ___ is silent. EG:
In the word “island”, the S is silent.
In the word “should”, the L is silent.
In the word “answer”, the W is silent.
This is VERY hard for them, but with continued phonics practice, most of them can do it passably. The reason I like it is not for spelling reasons, but because it forces them to really think about pronunciation. They have to look at the word, think about how it ought to be pronounced and compare that with how it actually IS pronounced.
This is excellent material, thanks. 
Try the new Compass Publishing Series for the iBT TOEFL Test. It adequately covers reading, writing, speaking and Listening Comprehension. It comes with practice tests and moves students through from beginning to advanced. Side by Side, Pasages, Go for it, Issues, etc are all for shit. Get some real materials and you will reduce your private turnover rate.
Well, please define “real materials”. I only use SBS because it has drill work for adequate repetition and lots of pictures that can be turned into discussion and info-gap activities. IE, it’s very in-class functional. Actually now I prefer “Exploring English” – although it has a rather antiquated look and leans towards British English – because I find it the most teacher/student-friendly text there is.
Are the materials you describe “real” because they look professional, or because they’re functional? If the former is the case, big whoop. If the latter, I’m all ears.
Hi, I’ve had this discussion with many of our teachers and while most of different ways to structuring a one on one class…they all agree that one great teaching method is to:
- In the homework (in addition to whatever you normally assign) ask the student to write out 3-5 sentences by themselves (and it should be 7 words long, etc.). Then, take 10 minutes during immediate class session to ask the student where the mistakes are in his/her sentences. Then, after correcting the mistakes, they need to rewrite those sentences and 3-5 new ones for the next session. Do this for every class.
Of course, the thinking here is that if they can construct sentences on paper, then they will be able to speak them out loud. And by the fact that they can “see” their mistakes every class session, they will remember them easier. It always works out that by the 5th or 6th time they do this, they will be able to pick out problems with tenses so much faster…or pronoun matching a lot faster.
- Try assigning the homework with key vocabulary words that you’ve touched on in the lesson. Maybe, during your discussion course, you talked about “finance”, “inflation”, “currency”. Then, that day for homework, they have to write a sentence using the word finance, then one with inflation, and then one with currency. Tie it back into the class.
[quote="Puppet]
Once they have that mastered, the 2nd board is a lot more complicated:
[/quote]
Someone asked what all the questions are on this board and I completely forgot to answer it. That was a while ago, but I got my own board now and it reminded me of that.
Red circle. To the left of that, for the subject, it says “Who is it that…?” “What is it that…?”
So if your sentence is “Matt gave a pizza to James because James was hungry.”
Your verb is “gave” and that goes on the red circle.
Who is it that … gave? (Matt) That goes on the black circle on the left.
There are 2 black arrows on the right. The first one is the direct object and it says “whom? What?”
Matt gave…? A pizza.
The 2nd one is for the indirect object. “To whom? To what? For whom? For what?” (to James). For this particular exercise, you put the entire phrase in its place. You do not mix up the “to” and “James.” There are other exercises for that.
You now have the phrase “because James was hungry.” The orange questions are additional details and the questions (on the one I have) are:
“when?”
“by whom? by what?”
“by means of whom? by means of what?”
“with whom? with what?”
“whence?” (I love that they use that word. Most of them don’t, but this cheap one manufactured in China does)
“where?”
“why?”
“what for?”
“how?”
The phrase “because James was hungry” would be put with the “why” question.
I have truly been amazed at how many high level students cannot answer simple “wh” questions at the school I am leaving (I just quit today…finish out my final week next week and start a new job after that. Thank God!!! It’s been a nightmare). On the few classes I had some freedom with, I used this board a few times and it made all the difference in the world. Boss wasn’t happy about it, though, since it wasn’t a worksheet or textbook. Students loved it and actually learned to answer questions. Interesting the paradox we’re faced with sometimes, isn’t it?
There it is. Sorry for the late reply. I honestly forgot.
[quote=“ImaniOU”]I only teach one-on-ones with kids and most of my clients are families from my former employer so their level isn’t standard for most Taiwanese kids studying English privately.
What drives me crazy is hearing some of my students talk about their tutors playing games with them. Yes, games are nice for reinforcing skills, but there are some losers out there that believe themselves to be worth $1000/hr.+ and spend the entire time playing hangman.
Caves bookstore is your friend.[/quote]
Do be aware: children have selective memories (as we all do) and will recall that they played games more often than the other things they also covered in class. Also, playing a game with children, esp. for the first time, can expose a number of important tasks in English that need to be covered: including instructional language, reading rules, technical vocabulary, even conditional can be used to discuss strategy or options in the game. While I’m sure there are ‘teachers’ out there just doing ‘games’, there are teachers who really ‘do’ games as a way to reach students who don’t otherwise feel motivated by reading materials or books.
Kenneth
Although I’ve devoted the majority of my time to studying Chinese, I still teach a few long-term one on one classes.
Never have I walked into a first class and slapped down a pile of text books. I know that there are jokers who just go around just chatting and playing hangman regardless of the student’s needs; then again , there are those at other end of the scale who lack the social skills, imagination and flexibility to meet the needs of individual students and so rely on the same materials they feel safe with again, again and again.
Before I accept any money from a student, I will meet up with them and assess their needs, perhaps some may find this shocking, but all I bring is a small notebook and a pen - shame on me. With regards to lesson structure, materials and homework I have no fixed method nor do I have any special range of textbooks that I believe will be suitable for everyone. I do spend a lot of time catering to the individual needs of each student, taking them to cave book store, page one or eslite and help them pick a book out, unless of course they have their own materials that they wish to study or need to study. Quite a few of my students have specified that they don’t want to see any textbooks, that they just wanted to focus on conversation; so I give them what they want, of course I trawl the internet for topics based on their interests/needs I and structure the class around that. I also agree on a general class structure with the student and make an agreement with them that if they aren’t satisfied with the structure (that they themselves selected) - that we make any necessary changes. For me the most important thing is student satisfaction.
Being a student, I can say there’s nothing more annoying than meeting a teacher for the first time and they just whip out a textbook or some photocopies that they’ve clearly just used with the student before you. I’ve ditched a few Chinese teachers who’ve done this to me first class. My current teacher is great though, she knows what I want, knows where I need to improve and has helped me improve a lot, sometimes we use a textbook, sometimes I bring the newspaper along with any problem sentences/words underlined, sometimes we just discuss whatever I feel like because at the end of the day I’m the student, I’m paying and in my class - I come first.
I agree. Private students pay for customized interaction, and that’s what they should get. Only they know what they’re looking for. Sometimes, they need a little “prompting” (example: wants to improve his/her vocabulary but has no grammatical basis for using it). I usually meet with them to discuss what they want in a class, and then I suggest an action plan. If I find my potential students’ wants to be impossible or to be something that I don’t feel that I will be successful in teaching them, I ask them to find someone else. If they bring me a book and tell me, “Teach me this,” I usually respond by telling them that they can teach it to themselves (with enclosed CD) and hire another waiguoren, for a lot less, to practice the “conversation/pronunciation” parts. I feel guilty taking money that is obviously wasted on unrealistic conversations out of books printed in 1985.
As for games, I don’t use a lot with private students unless they are specifically geared toward a pattern/concept that must be learnt but is generally tedious or requires a lot of repetition. Sometimes, with younger private students, I will play games or just converse for the last few minutes of class, so that they go away with the feeling that English IS their thing, that they ARE brilliant, and, most importantly, that they WANT to do the review and preview work that I have assigned to them.
Chatting is also important; it gives students access to real-life situations and lets them use what they’ve learnt. It’s important, but it should never form the basis for a “class”.
[/two cents]
[quote]Never have I walked into a first class and slapped down a pile of text books. I know that there are jokers who just go around just chatting and playing hangman regardless of the student’s needs; then again , there are those at other end of the scale who lack the social skills, imagination and flexibility to meet the needs of individual students and so rely on the same materials they feel safe with again, again and again.
Before I accept any money from a student, I will meet up with them and assess their needs, perhaps some may find this shocking, but all I bring is a small notebook and a pen - shame on me. With regards to lesson structure, materials and homework I have no fixed method nor do I have any special range of textbooks that I believe will be suitable for everyone. I do spend a lot of time catering to the individual needs of each student, taking them to cave book store, page one or eslite and help them pick a book out, unless of course they have their own materials that they wish to study or need to study. Quite a few of my students have specified that they don’t want to see any textbooks, that they just wanted to focus on conversation; so I give them what they want, of course I trawl the internet for topics based on their interests/needs I and structure the class around that. I also agree on a general class structure with the student and make an agreement with them that if they aren’t satisfied with the structure (that they themselves selected) - that we make any necessary changes. For me the most important thing is student satisfaction.[/quote]
I certainly agree that the class ought to be customized to the students’ needs. However, often what I find the students think they need and what they actually need to be quite different. Generally, what they think they need is “more vocabulary, more free conversation”; they also erroneously tend to believe their listening comprehension to be far better than it is or should be, and that grammar is irrelevant because “as long as people understand me, it’s okay”. (I love to do translation exercises to show them how wrong they are on this front!)
It’s a very rare case that I find a student who genuinely knows how to study a language, and so, in tailoring the class to their “needs”, I’m mostly interested in A) finding out the context in which they intend to use English and B) determining their approximate level.
As far as texts, I do bring a pile of them with me to the first class, but just to show them the some of my preferred options (Working in English, Touchstone, Excellent English, Exploring English, International Express, World Pass, One to One and Business Grammar and Practice are the texts I own and like to use).
I certainly will NOT do a class without a text, and if they don’t like that, so be it. It’s not worth my time to go through the torture of a “pure conversation class” and be a talking monkey. As for letting them choose texts, I find that most often they tend to go for complicated-looking and stylish rather than well-structured, learnable and user-friendly.
On a side-note, I realize that some will view what I’ve said here as condescending towards students. However, I believe my view of students is no more condescending than is Cesar Milan’s view towards dogs or John Rosemond’s view towards children. Now before you go saying AHAH! Dogs and children?!? Is that what you think of students?!? I will say, basically yes. It’s all what I think of myself and the human race in general.
In this age, I think we tend to think far too highly of ourselves, with all this emphasis on individual choice, self-expression and whatnot. Generally all this “choice” we’re given, far from insuring that we obtain our ideal, personally-tailored results, tends to increase anxiety and insecurity. Psychologist Barry Schwartz expresses it brilliantly in this TED talk he gave in 2006: On the paradox of choice In terms of education, conclusions along somewhat similar lines can be found in Jean Twenge’s book Generation Me: Why Today’s Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled–and More Miserable Than Ever Before
Another result of this whole trend in education and parenting is that narcissism replaces genuine self-assuredness: Warning over narcissistic pupils
Generally, what dogs, children, students, people in general need is NOT more freedom, more choices, more personalization. They’ve already got WAY too much of that. What they need is more secure boundaries, more confident guidance, more structure. Hence the title for this thread: “a structured method for teaching 1-on-1’s”
Sorry for the somewhat philosophical tangent!
Excellent approach for teaching beginning to mid-intermediate. I’ve been tutoring adults for about five years and what I use for my higher learners is I ask them to find an article in the newspaper, on the internet or whatever, that interests them and make a copy for me. We then review the article, go over the vocab and phonics, discuss the meanings of specific portions and the article as a whole. This often goes off onto rabbit trails of discussion that are anything but boring to them. Of course, the students are taking notes through the entire process.
I’ve taught bank managers, school teachers, etc., and even an Assistant Professor at Chengchi University as part of a 2 on 1 (this one is going on three years now), using this method with excellent results. It’s amazing how they will know what terms such as “sub-prime market” or “tightening consumer protection” mean, but have no idea what “stranded” or “cite” mean. They learn quite a bit and have a lot of fun doing it!
Does anyone have any good ideas for games to play in a 1-on-1? I teach a 12 year old girl for about 2 hours and it is hard to think of games to play to break up the monotony. Thanks in advance.
Two hours is a bit long for a 1-on-1…Are you including a 10-minute break?
Anyway, you could try breaking things up with a bingo or memory game to practice the vocab. This site makes it easy for you: mes-english.com/worksheets/ To make it more challenging, you could give her two or three bingo sheets to keep track of while you call. Make sure you play with her and give yourself a few bingo sheets, too, or it won’t seem like much of a game.
You could also try getting away from the books with some listening exercises: music, a radio show, a dictation, or Mad Libs. Or, do a crafting activity that will eat up more time, like cutting and pasting pics from a magazine for a story she will write. Or little word games like hangman. Another is to make a new word using the last letter of the word you said or wrote. Or to try to make as many words as you can think of from one original word. For example: Forumosa–> for, from, rum, sum, so, room…and so on.
Hope that helps!
RMWSC, sorry - I really intended this as a post on one-on-one’s for adults. I’m not much of a game person.
Vay:
Working in English, Touchstone, Excellent English, Exploring English, International Express, World Pass, One to One and Business Grammar and Practice
Went to Eslite to look for these books, and they didn’t have a single one!! They had many other books, but I wasn’t sure which to pick up! Also, are these for different levels?
What do you generally use for advanced students who just want to “keep up” their (already very good) English skills? For that purpose, I’m not so sure what to actually “teach”!
Also, the website I advertise on says that good teachers create syllabuses (syllabi?) as well as structured lesson plans. This is so that the students can see how they are progressing, and after 20 lessons, if they don’t like you, you can part ways. Do you do this? Do you find that your clients require, or prefer this?
Not having a TON of experience, I wonder how to do this without being sure of how fast students would like to/are capable of progressing (especially young children).