Teach English in TiAnjin KAifAqu YixiAn Kexue Gongyeyuan Xiaoqu [Tianjin Development Zone: Yixian Science Industrial Park] - Tianjin

Difference between groups and one to oneIn recent years, with the phenomenal explosion of students entering university or studying english, many classes can have up 100+ students. It is up to the teacher to reach these students, overcoming problems associated with classes of large groups. One of these problems is motivation. Many chinese schools have english courses, but they are mainly grammar and reading ? oral skills; don?t affect their english mark and the students know this. As a result, those who are not motivated to learn english don?t participate or even try. Individual students, however, are motivated for a variety of reasons, including the desire to study abroad and must pass IELTS or TOEFL, to dealing with business personnel in the west. John Deere in Beijing is a US based company and employees must be bilingual. When motivation is lacking, those who are poor in english will not progress. Varying abilities is another factor to consider when teaching groups. There may be good english speakers in a class, while others can?t even understand simple, basic english. For many, the oral english class is the only exposure they have to practice english and they take full advantage of the situation, while the poorer speakers may feel intimidated and not speak up for fear of ?losing face?. In this situation, the teacher faces a dilemma. If they teach to the lower level students, they will lose the interest of the better english speakers and vise versa. While there are some solutions, such as pairing a lower level student with a higher level student, it may still take all the teacher?s ability and imagination to hold the interest of both groups. Teaching one to one does not pose this problem, as the student must communicate with the teacher and in most cases is more than willing to practice their english. In groups, the teacher must try to reach all the students, but this is not a problem with teaching one to one. The entire teacher?s attention can be focused on one student. If the student?s ability is low, they can also feel intimidated but when they get used to the teacher?s accent and become more familiar with english, this doesn?t usually pose a problem. There are, however, advantages to having a large class over a one to one student. It is imperative with large groups to know what interests the students, cultural differences and plan lessons accordingly. No one can please everyone all the time, but with any topic relevant to their lives, or of interest to them, the majority of students would show some interest. For those who really don?t care, it doesn?t matter what the topic is ? they won?t be interested. It is also a challenge at times to find relevant, interesting topics when teaching one to one, unless it is specialized e.g. IELTS. If the topic isn?t interesting, there won?t be much dialogue between the teacher and student. So, just as with the larger groups, it is necessary to ascertain what the student?s interests are. In large classes, there is a sense of group dynamics that is missing with one to one students. Role plays and games can engage a student?s interest in large groups. Role plays can also provide examples to the lower level students to copy and may encourage them to speak up. This component is missing with individual students. Role plays and games are possible with one to one students, but seem to lack the impetus that the larger groups demonstrate. Some activities, such as spelling bees, making up plays using three objects from the classroom, or trying to explain a computer to their great grandmother are suited to large groups. With the exception of the latter, an individual student could not do these. As can be seen, there are advantages and disadvantages of teaching large groups and one to one. It is up to teacher to decide which they prefer. If they prefer one to one students or smaller groups, an english training school may be a more appropriate place to teach rather than a university or public school.