0:00 Hello, my name is Charlie, and this is my YouTube channel, Charlie’s Lessons. I’ve been teaching English for over 12 years, and here I am now to help you with your first day with your new English student. So, this is for any teachers out there who are about to start their very first class with an individual student, a one-to-one class. Now, you might have this class in the school you work at or in the academy, or you might have found the student yourself and you're teaching freelance. Either way, you need to know exactly what you're going to do in that first class because you know it's all about those first impressions. So, this is what you're going to do. Before the class even starts, contact the student by email and send them a level test.
0:45 The level test is going to give you an idea of what level they have. Ask your student to go to test-english.com to find out their level, and ask your student to send you the result. They can either take a screenshot or take a picture with their phone and send that to you. You could ask your student to take the level test with you in class, but there are 60 questions, so it's best to do it before the class starts. This website will provide your student with a level from A1 to C2. A1 to C2 are levels that we use in Europe to define the level of a language learner, A1 being the beginner level and C2 being the most advanced. For the sake of this video, I’m going to assume that your class is going to take 60 minutes or one hour. Okay,
1:31 so you're in class with your student, and the time starts now. What are you going to do first? Well, start the class with an informal conversation about some personal information about the student. When I do a level test with my students when they come into my school, I choose a set of questions that are going to give me an idea of what level the student is at. Here on the screen right now is a set of questions that I use with my students and what level each question is set at. As you can see, the questions for A1 and A2, so beginner or pre-intermediate, are very simple questions like 'What's your name?' 'What do you do?' If the student is able to answer all of these questions with no difficulty, it means I can move on now to the B1 and B2 questions and start testing them for questions at that level. I then
2:18 repeat the process and ask them those questions, like 'How long have you studied English?' 'What is your objective with English?' And I’m again listening for any mistakes that they might make. When I get to a point where the student either does not understand the question, that is when I decide to stop, and at that moment, I decide the initial level of the student's speaking skills. Okay, we finished this informal conversation to get an idea about their speaking level, and that has taken us, let's say, about 10 minutes. But there's still 50 minutes left. What are we going to do next? The next thing we're going to do is what we call a 'needs analysis,' which basically means we're trying to get an idea of what the objectives are of the student and why they are in English class at all. So, the needs analysis
3:04 starts with questions like 'What is your objective with English?' 'Do you use English at work?' 'Do you need English at work to read, to write, to speak, or to listen?' If you don't use English at work, why are you learning English? Have you learned English before? Did you enjoy learning English when you were at school, or did you hate it? Get the student to talk about what they think their strengths are in English and what are their weaknesses. From my experience, most of the students that I've had in class have described their speaking and listening skills as their weaknesses and their reading and writing skills as their strengths. So, you can immediately identify what areas to work on. I suggest putting these questions into a Google Form and completing this in class with the student. This way,
3:51 you're going to have a record of everything the student says, so you can use it for later. And the next part is really important. In the same needs analysis document, you're going to have a second section, which is about what the student's interests are. Create a list of topics, anything from sport, music, technology, fitness, fashion, anything you can think of that the student might be interested in. And then ask the student to grade each topic from 'not interested' to 'interested' or 'very interested.' Go through each topic with your student and decide what they're interested in and what they're not interested in. If the student says that they are very interested in a topic, then why don't you delve a bit deeper? Ask them some more questions about this topic to learn why it is that they are passionate or interested in this topic.
4:39 When you finish looking at all these topics, you should have a bank of topics that the student is very interested in or at least interested in. Okay, so we finished the needs analysis document, and that's taken about, let's say, 20 minutes. So, we're halfway through. Well done. But we've still got a whole half of the class to go. With the last half an hour to go, it's time to relax, and we're going to get to know each other, and the teacher is going to go first. One of my timeless activities that I always use in the first class with groups or individual students is a teacher presentation activity using a mind map. I write my name in the middle, and I come up with, let's say, six to eight questions about myself, but I don't write the questions. I write the answers. So, let's say, for example, I write the word 'bath.' What's
5:30 the question? 'Where are you from?' Very good. So, you move on to other answers about yourself and get your student to think of the questions that they would need to ask to get that answer. Now, you already know, or you should know, the level of your student by this point, so think about what kind of questions you want your student to come up with. Obviously, 'Where are you from?' is quite a simple question, and perhaps if your student is of an A1 or A2 level, then you might want to continue with questions in the present simple, like 'What do you like?' 'What do you do?' If your student is of a higher level, so let's say a B2, then you might want to ask some questions like 'Where have you traveled this year?' or even 'What would you be doing if you weren't in class with me right now?'
6:16 When a student has found a correct question to all of the six or eight answers that you've put forward as part of your teacher presentation, then your student is going to do exactly the same thing. Give them access to the online whiteboard you're using, or if you're in an in-person class, ask a student to come up to the front of the class and start writing on the board six or eight answers to six or eight questions that they would like you to ask. Doing this gives the opportunity for the student to learn more about you as the teacher, but also for you to learn more about them and also give you an insight into how able they are to form questions in English. So, the presentations, let's say they've taken 10 minutes each, so you've now used 20 minutes. So, you're nearly there. You're 50 minutes in. You've got 10 more minutes. What are you going to do in
7:03 the last 10 minutes for the whole class you've been making notes, haven't you? Haven't you? Yes, you've been making notes of all your student's mistakes, both grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, etc., and now you're going to use these 10 minutes to go over and correct some of these problems. Now, if your student has made a lot of mistakes, then make sure you're selective, as you only have 10 minutes. So, choose a couple of mistakes that you feel are important to correct and go through them together in the class. There you go. You've done it. You've got to the end of the class. The 10 minutes are up, and that is the hour complete. You now know what level your student has, you know what they're interested in, you know why they're learning English, and you've also got an idea about what mistakes they tend to
7:48 make. And now you've got all the information you need to begin planning their course. So, you've said goodbye to your student, and now you need to think about planning. So, do you remember you asked your student what topics they were interested in in that Google Form? Well, now we're going to take a look at that, and we're going to think about what we can do with this student in the following classes. Take a look at the topics they're most interested in and use these topics to start looking online for learning resources or lesson plans that are related to those topics and to the level of the student. I actually made a video about how to build a course plan using Google Docs. Right here, if you're worried about how to structure your classes in general, then make sure you go check out my other video right here about the basics of teaching online to individual students.
8:34 Well, I hope that your first class goes better than my first class did. My first class was a nightmare. Now, with the experience that I have and the advice I’ve given you today, your first class won't be a nightmare. It will be a success.
