The Teacher’s Handbook for Great One-on-one ESL

Lessons
fluentu.com/blog/educator-english/one-on-one-esl/

James Pearce, Matthew Lubin February 7, 2015

You’re about to go mano-a-mano with an ESL student for the first time.

Wondering how to make a one-on-one lesson as awesome as possible?

Well, we just happen to have a great formula for one-on-one ESL lesson success.

Every classroom and every student is different, so there’s no one trick that will help you teach
everyone.

But we’ve started to notice a pattern.

Many ESL teachers start off without being fully prepared for the variations that come with
adapting to one-on-one lessons.

Figuring out the appropriate structure, content and overall teacher-student dynamic can be
challenging when you’re used to classrooms or group lessons.

One-on-one lessons aren’t quite as cut and dry as you might expect.

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That’s exactly where this guide will come in handy.

A Brief Introduction to One-on-one Teaching

For starters, one-on-one teaching can fall into two categories: English instruction or
English tutoring.

There’s a big difference between the two categories that ESL instructors need to be aware of,
especially if the lessons are part of a structured course or English training center.

A tutor’s goal is to get the student to learn on their own—the tutor acts as a guide without
providing lectures unless absolutely necessary. A tutor should provide feedback but might
not make specific corrections. Instead, they should lead the student to find the correct
answer. The officially endorsed approach to tutoring is outlined by the National Tutoring
Association.

On the other hand, English instructors are more responsible for learning and building the
student’s store of linguistic knowledge. As an instructor, you’ll provide your own detailed
lesson plans and content targeted to your student’s learning level and style. You’ll need to
explain grammar rules, introduce new vocabulary and actively teach the student new
concepts in the English language.

Either way you go, by reading the following guide, you’ll learn how to avoid major pitfalls,
reap the benefits of one-on-one lessons and create a lesson plan that just works.

The Advantages of One-on-one Classes

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Individual lessons can be beneficial for students and more rewarding for teachers. When you
know what the student needs and how to achieve that goal, you can target your one-on-one
lessons to produce more rapid results.

By spending more time with a single teacher who knows the student and their abilities, the
student will receive more individualized lessons.

In larger classes, there are always students ahead of and behind the average. Those students
either become bored or frustrated; either way those students don’t receive the lessons they
need to succeed in English. Those same students can be given better-focused instruction in a
one-on-one environment—advanced students can be challenged while lower-level students
can be brought up to speed to keep up with their peers.

How to Become an English Tutor

Thanks to the internet and global demand for English education, it’s relatively easy to
become an English tutor these days.

Follow the general steps below to ensure that you’re delivering the highest quality classes and
maximizing your teaching potential!

1. Choose your form of one-on-one teaching

There are a few options for becoming a one-on-one English tutor, whether you want to work
online or in person. Check some of the most popular options below:

teach privately in your local are

work in a language academy
tutor at the local university
teach online through a tutoring platform
teach online through a video streaming program

2. Consider your qualifications

You might be asking, “what qualifications do I need?”

This is one of the most common questions for those who are thinking about getting into
English teaching.

Well, depending on the type of ESL classes, you may be required to undertake some
assessments. This is especially true for work in an academy or signing up for online
platforms. In this case, you may need to hold a TEFL certificate which is the most popular
and standard ESL teaching certificate.

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If you’re teaching privately or in your local area then this certification may not be required.
Some online platforms don’t require a certificate, either. However, without a certificate, the
pay scale may be generally lower.

3. Choose your approach and platform

Once you get your qualifications in order, you may be wondering where to begin your one-
on-one ESL tutoring journey.

One of the easiest ways to begin is by setting up an account on an online platform such as
Cambly or italki, which will connect you with English students. They take care of all of the
connections, timetables and other considerations you might have when thinking about
teaching online.

Be sure to set up an attractive profile with heaps of personality and to mention your approach
to teaching English, which materials you use and whether you speak any additional
languages.

If you don’t want to teach through a platform, you can take out local ads offering your
services or create a website with your profile and availability.

After this, you can teach through an online platform such as Skype or Zoom. In this case, you
may need to do some basic marketing and build a brand (positive comments and
recommendations are great) to attract students.

4. Grow your business or student base

This step might be considered optional, depending on your goals as a teacher. You might only
have the time or desire to teach a small handful of students. In that case, once you get your
group of students, you can enjoy your job and take no further action.

However, if you plan to make teaching your primary source of income, you might want to
work on building a larger student base to work with.

There are a few effective ways you can use to grow your business. Here are just a few
suggestions:

Acquire additional qualifications. If you didn’t get a TEFL certificate yet, it might
be a good idea to do so now, as it can make you more appealing to potential students.
Consider specializing in a particular field such as business English or exam
preparation.
Use social media to grow your user base and reach more people.
Encourage your current students to leave a review for you so that future
potential students can see what a great teacher you are!

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 Use word of mouth and grow your business organically. You can even offer a
discount for your current students for signing up their friends.
Try paid advertising. If you can afford it, this can be a quick way to get seen by many
people in a short period of time.

Once you have some more clout in the tutoring world, you’ll be able to charge a higher rate
and take on more students.

How to Hold Your First Class with a Student

“You never get a second chance to make a first impression.”

This should be your motto for your first class with a new student. In this very first class,
you’re not only meeting a new student but you’re also selling yourself and your services.

Don’t be intimidated! Below is a sample lesson plan which I use when teaching private
students both in-person and online for the first time. Feel free to use it as a basis for your
own first class:

Start with names and a brief introduction. (5 minutes)

This is an important step and will help you learn more about your student. Don’t forget to ask
your student which name they wish to be called, as depending on their background, they may
have several or prefer one over the other.

What is your name?

What do you prefer to be called?

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Tell me a little bit about yourself.

Ask about their previous English experience. (10 minutes)

Ask your student about their experience with the language. During this time you should be
able to roughly determine the level of your student. This is both from their speaking level and
the amount of experience they have with the language.

Some possible questions you can ask include:

How many years have you studied English?

Did you learn English at school?

Do you enjoy learning English? Why/why not?

Needs analysis and objectives (5 minutes)

You may now want to analyze the needs of your student. This shows that you’re interested in
their progression and will set you up for future classes.

I usually start by asking the students if they have a specific goal related to English.

What are your English goals?

Why are you learning English? (You can prompt the student further by asking about specific
goals such as study/work/travel/ personal interest etc.)

Which level would you like to have in half a year? What about after a year?

Strengths and weaknesses (5 minutes)

In this step, you can also assess the level of your students. You can follow up with some
additional questions to determine the level of your student.

What do you think are your English strengths?

What about your weaknesses?

Do you feel confident speaking English? Why/why not? (Give a little bit of encouragement
here!)

What is one area you’d like to improve the most?

Play some get to know you games and break the ice (25 minutes)

OK, enough of the serious stuff.

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You also want to create a relaxed environment and let your student know that it’s not all
assessments and questions.

Get to know you games are a great way to break the ice and create a welcoming atmosphere.
I’ve also found that this is a stage to search for any common interests and shared passions
that you may have. This helps encourage conversation and makes the student feel at ease.

Popular games like “Would You Rather” are a great start as they give you a little insight into
your student.

Would you rather holiday on a beach or in the mountains?

Would you rather go to the movies or for a picnic?

Final questions and organization for next class (10 minutes)

Be sure to ask your student if they have any final questions or would like you to explain
something.

Here, you can take the time to re-establish their needs, reiterate your teaching strategy and
make plans for the next class.

Good luck!

The Formula for Structuring a One-on-one Lesson

Once you get past the first lesson, further one-on-one ESL lessons can be structured in a
similar way as group lessons, but without the group work. Many activities can be adapted for
individual students, though there are some that are impossible without additional students
(most children’s games are designed for multiple students to encourage social interaction).

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While you’ll need to add your own unique flavor to the lessons, and you’ll also need to make
adjustments based on the individual student, the following formula will help give you a basis
for one-on-one teaching. These are the major steps that should be covered over the course of
any class, regardless of length.

Build rapport
Get warmed up
Conversational exercises
Reading and writing exercises
Homework

Now, we’ll explore these in further detail.

Build rapport
Usually, a one-on-one lesson won’t begin the same as a group class—instead of jumping right
into a warm-up exercise, you’ll want to rebuild your rapport with the student by having a
friendly conversation (the content and length of the conversation will vary depending on the
student and how often you meet).

The questions you ask during that conversation should lead up to your planned lesson or
warm-up exercise.

For example, you may ask about the homework you assigned last time or about a story in the
news that’s related to your student’s interests. These conversations are fun for the student
and reinforce grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation lessons.

Warm-up exercises
You can now do a warm-up exercise, which could be a review of the previous class or a
preview of the current one. Asking the student leading questions about vocabulary or
grammar will help the rest of your lesson run more smoothly. Depending on the level of the
student, you may incorporate some dictation or other listening exercises.

Going over the last session’s homework is always a good start since they’ve thought through
the assignment thoroughly and should be able to start on the same page as you without much
preparation. This is a good time to make corrections and cover any lingering questions and
areas that were confusing.

Conversation exercises
Because your one-on-one lessons are really just constant conversations, you won’t have to
provide too many extra opportunities for your student to speak.

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For some students, you might prepare a dialogue—business English students usually want
these exercises to focus on their specific career needs. The warm-up exercise will usually
involve eliciting information from the student to incorporate in the planned dialogue, such as
a situation, vocabulary or verb tense.

The conversation/dialogue exercise can be combined with a reading exercise, but the two can
also be entirely separate. When using a reading exercise in a one-on-one ESL class, it’s best
to have the student read the material aloud so you can correct pronunciation.

Another option for this is to have the student read the material before class and use it as the
basis for a conversation. In the second case, you can ask the student some questions to
ensure that they understood the text.

Writing and reading exercises

Writing exercises are the most difficult part to integrate into a one-on-one ESL class. Just
like the reading exercise, older students will feel like it’s a waste of time because they could
have done it at home, alone. To avoid this common complaint, you can use some short
editing exercises or grammar exercises.

When providing grammar exercises, it’s important for the student to write out a complete
sentence to get a feel for the overall structure. If you’re teaching a student about the past
progressive verb tense, you can provide a few sentences written in simple past or present
progressive tenses and ask the student to rewrite the sentences and then read them aloud.

Because you’ve just taught this grammar point to the student, they won’t see it as an exercise
that can be done at home. Instead, they’ll understand that you’ve organized things this way to
double-check their comprehension of a freshly taught concept.

Homework
Before you finish the lesson, you should give the student some homework. Be careful with
what types of assignments you provide.

Why? In a group class, you might correct homework while the students work in groups on
another exercise. This can’t be done in a one-on-one class.

To correct a writing assignment you can either review the assignment with the student and
try to get the student to recognize the mistakes along the way, or you can ask the student to
email the assignment to you before class so you can correct it beforehand. You could also take
the homework assignment and correct it after the lesson, being prepared to discuss mistakes
in the next lesson.

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One other option is to use a program that lets you see your student’s work before the class
starts. FluentU is one program that lets you do this. On FluentU, students work with real
native English videos, like music videos, movie clips, commercials, news segments and more.
These are made approachable through interactive subtitles (where students can click on any
word to get a definition or add a flashcard version to a vocabulary list) and personalized
exercises.

You can assign your student to watch specific videos, complete exercises or review vocabulary
flashcards. Just set the due date through FluentU to be a day before your next lesson, so you
have time to review the work.

From your teacher dashboard, you’ll be able to see information about the work completed,
including which videos the student watched, their progress in learning the content, the total
number of questions answered and how many of these questions they got right.

Gear homework toward whatever major goal they’re striving for—whether that’s an English
proficiency exam or submitting job applications with an English language company.

Overcoming the Challenges of One-on-one Classes

You can’t fall back on group work

When we teach classes, we typically plan our lessons to incorporate group work. It’s easier for
some ESL students to work with their peers than to participate individually, and they’re able
to learn from each other. Students with a better grasp of the material are able to assist their
peers and help them improve.

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All of this cuts down on teacher talk time and allows students to spend more time talking and
actively practicing English. Unfortunately, this isn’t something that can be done in a single-
student class.

One-on-one classes involve more discussions between the student and teacher, which can
also lead to more tangents within the lesson. In some cases, students will steer the class in
directions they want, which means you’ll have to steer the class back to its focus to ensure the
student learns the target material.

This doesn’t mean that veering off course every now and again is bad for the class. Students
might lead you to another topic that needs to be covered, or bring up important questions
they have regarding challenging or confusing points. This often helps to ensure that there are
no major gaps in learning.

Lessons need to be more personalized

If you haven’t had experience teaching individual students, the first lessons can be some of
the hardest. In fact, the first few one-on-one lessons with any new student will present a
challenge—even if you’re totally experienced—because each student has their own
personality, learning style, interests and educational needs.

As we mentioned earlier, the first step to creating an environment conducive to education is

to build rapport with your student. This is just a matter of getting to know your student and
what they need to get out of your classes.

Students may have an idea of what they want to learn, but it’s your responsibility to figure
out if they’re ready for these subjects. It’s also your responsibility to determine how to best
help them reach their language goals.

Students will get to know you better

In many cases with adult students, you may need to prove your knowledge of English to gain
the trust of your student. Since the two of you will be alone, this allows the sole student more
opportunities to scrutinize your knowledge and teaching methods. This requires confidence
and self-assurance.

Once you’ve earned their trust and proven your merit as a teacher, you can lead the student
through the lessons that you know will be most beneficial to them.

You’ll have to keep the ball rolling

One of the greatest struggles in a one-on-one class is dealing with silence. It’s not as bad as
the awkward silence during a date, but it’s close.

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In group classes, you may give students an assignment to work on as you go around and
check on progress. You may decide to split everyone into groups and have them work on a
project together. You may even go around the classroom and have everyone talking or
practicing a certain concept.

It’s much more difficult to tell an individual student to work on something all alone while you
check out for a little while. They might think you’re a lazy teacher because they could just as
easily do the assignment outside of class, without you being present. Any such assignments
will need to be completed in a conversation style with the teacher discussing each answer
with the student.

Students in private lessons, particularly adults, want to talk more. They appreciate the value
of strong conversational skills. For those who need a little extra push, there are ways to get
them to do more talking in class.

There may be times when a student is unresponsive, creating silence in the class. This more
often occurs with younger students who are being required by their parents to attend class. It
rarely happens with adult students because they tend to be more self-motivated and are
probably spending their own money to have class.

When the student remains quiet, it’s up to your creative lessons to generate a response. In
these cases, it’s acceptable to give the student an assignment that requires
independent reading or writing. It may take time to get a quieter student to open up and
discuss topics with you, but using a variety of activities that are fun or specifically geared to
the student’s interests should produce results.

You’re on your own!

Another problem that may come up with lower-level students in one-on-one ESL classes is
translation. In some group classes, teachers have a local assistant or co-teacher to explain the
language in the students’ native tongue. Even without a helper, you’ll often have some more
advanced students that can help out their peers along the way.

None of this is possible in one-on-one lessons. Given that language lessons are more effective
when the entire class is conducted in the target language, the student will have to really step
up their game, and you’ll have to make sure they’re keeping up.

Teaching technology is part of modern language instruction

Some students will rely heavily on bilingual dictionaries and electronic translators. These
tools are beneficial for beginners, but they don’t help intermediate or advanced students who
may still be clinging to a safety net.

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You may also have to teach students how to use their translation resources properly. For
example, too many students make the mistake of typing entire sentences into the translator,
which generates gibberish. Poor usage will slow down the lesson unnecessarily, and poorly
generated translations will only serve to further confuse students.

One-on-one ESL lessons can even be more beneficial to students and more enjoyable for
teachers over time! With the right strategy, you can form a meaningful connection with your
student and help them become an incredible English speaker!

Don’t forget to follow the steps above and remember to start small. You’ve got this!

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