The Advantages of a Private EFL Lesson

I've found that the private lesson best serves an EFL student when it's used to help the individual with pronunciation problems. Teaching foreign students to make themselves understood in English is one of the hardest parts of teaching EFL. And students who have pronunciation problems are less likely to want to speak.

A private EFL lesson can range anywhere from 45 to 90 minutes. Typically, an EFL student, depending on where he/she comes from, may have trouble with making four to five important sounds correctly. Improving each sound can take at least a couple of hours of practice within the total lesson time. Even if the sound is perfected or improved significantly, it will take many hours and attempts until the sound becomes more automatic.

In a private lesson, you have the time to devote to the pronunciation of the language. There's no one else to become bored with hearing the same sound over and over. However, in a classroom full of students, you don't have enough time to help just one student with pronunciation. You can help a few students from the same country with correcting pronunciation, but you are limited; other students may not have the same difficulties in making the same sounds. And by spending too much time with the student (s) who do, you risk losing the rest of the class's interest.

A private lesson also gives a shy student the chance to speak more freely and try out some new vocabulary or sentence structure without being embarrassed in front of other students. A private lesson is a place where a quiet student can finally speak up

Here's another pro with a private lesson: You and your EFL student have the time and opportunity to focus on the student's personal interest. People like to speak about what they're most interested in and tapping into a student's pastime or passion, such as music or travel, for example, gets the student very enthused.

Reducing fear in speaking is a major goal of an EFL teacher, and the private lesson is a perfect place to encourage the hesitant student to use the language in a safe atmosphere.

Ilene Springer teaches EFL in Malta and is author of An-American-in-Malta.com.