4 great ideas for 1:1 classes

Here are some great ideas for 1:1 classes which focus on speaking and listening.

1) Headline - This is a great way to begin you lesson. Student writes down a 2-4 word headline about something they did this week. They have to talk about this for 1 minute.


2) IELTS speaking task 2 - Everyone wants to do the IELTS, and this can really show the student that classes are useful. Search google for some speaking cards from IELTS task 2. Explain the scenario to the student, let the student read for 1 minute, then get them to talk for up to 2 minutes. You can also take note of errors for a follow up activity.

3) Take a trip - You don't always have to stay in the classroom, there is a world of fascinating places that can really make learning more 3 dimensional. For past tenses and the present perfect, why not go to a museum? Take your student, and send them on a guided discovery task! They can find information to jot down using the audios, videos, information plaques, and artifacts. For food vocabulary agree to go to a little eatery and create a sheet for your student to complete. For discourse markers take them to an art gallery and get them to look around completing a sheet. There are so many options, and can easily be turned into a discussion afterwards.

4) Multimedia - We have a wealth of resources at our fingertips thanks to the internet. I have mentioned these before in previous posts but they are particularly useful for this context. TEDXESL, and Film English offer fantastic pre-planned lessons on a range of grammar and vocabulary topics for a range of abilities.

links
https://www.usingenglish.com/files/pdf/101-ielts-speaking-part-two-tasks-about-sports-and-hobbies.pdf
http://film-english.com/
https://tedxesl.com