Because I am a native English speaker I was in high demand immediately in Russia. The school I work for very kindly only set me up with individual students for a few months. They call me a "polisher", I polish English skills and generally work with speaking skills.
After having proven my credentials, my TEFLOnline certificate, I was asked to put together a lesson plan. I had many of those already created for my TEFLOnline course, so I just re-adjusted one of them for this upcoming business student. I had to do this in 4 hours so I was VERY happy I already had many templates created from my online classes.
The head coordinator went into a classroom with me and I went over what I would do for a class and she was rough on me, but I'm glad she was. She told me it was not nearly enough material and that I needed to give an introduction to each part, explaining WHY I was teaching it. "You need to make your students excited about the course!" This was invaluable advice.
My first student was Anastacia, a 27 year-old business student from Kazakhstan. I now know that this was my most beastly assignment because no-one takes classes that last for two and a half hours, except Nastya. And not by her choice, it was set up by her work.
The most important thing in the first lesson is to find out why the student(s) is(are) taking English. If they're taking it reluctantly it's a completely different experience from those that are eager and have paid themselves.
Okay, so Nastya does not want to be there. She obviously doesn't want homework. Two and a half hours is monstrous in teaching English because how do I hold her attention for so long? (One and a half hours is the limit, as far as I'm concerned. After that students just start yawning and making mistakes.)
The negatives: Nastya would rather be home with her boyfriend. She's not really interested in learning English. She hates reading and never does it. Our classes are crazy long. Nastya hates to speak and has told me repeatedly that she doesn't care about her surroundings so much, she's just happy to have money to feed her extended family, and she is extremely indecisive. Her accent is extreme!
The positives: She knows more English than any of the Russian students I've ever had. When she writes me emails (I make my students write me emails), you would never know she wasn't a native speaker. She's very responsible and doesn't jack me around (this is important, believe me). She has a better grasp on English grammar than I do (as far as rules--we native speakers don't really learn the rules, we just speak what we hear).
The solution: For me, it was easy. I live in Russia. I speak terrible Russian. I am very used to being an idiot. With Nastya, I initially spoke a lot! I told her about all the times I was mortified by my poor Russian skills and we laughed about that. She could see quickly that I'm not a hard-nosed teacher and it's perfectly okay to be wrong in another language. In fact, it's better to speak stupidly because you'll learn faster.
Very early on I saw that she was someone comforted by structure so I structured our lessons. The first ten minutes we talk about things that have happened since we last met (I see her Mondays and Thursdays). The next hour and twenty minutes we dive into the Business book her work has purchased. The last hour we go over a social skill book higher than her business level book (business skills are generally below social skills) and after that we talk about upcoming plans.
Nowadays, I can't get her to stop talking. How wonderful! This is exactly what I wanted. And now she's not being so self-conscious and not closing down her "th" sounds.
We only have two more lessons. She asked me on Thursday, "Will we have a test?"
"Do you want a test?"
"No!"
"Okay, no test. It's not necessary."
I only use tests in classes, because some students never speak up and because I think they want to know how they're doing. For individual students I never use tests because HI! I know you pretty well and I have already corrected the things you were doing wrong.
Yes, there is the whole "getting into the building" rigmarole that is extremely tiring and sometimes frightening (Where is your passport?!) with business students. Then the "oxrana" (security) get to know you and are very pleasant afterwards.
Russians, overall, are extremely kind people and will go out of their way to help you every time. It's part of their culture, to help. Be appreciative and you're okay.
