One of my students sends me topics which he likes to focus on our 1v1 lessons. Today, he sent me a request to practice his listening skills for long questions and answers. I am a bit confused what he means about this, but I replied so hopefully will get clarification soon. He often misunderstands my questions if they are not short basic questions. He also has trouble answering in the correct tense if it is a more complex verb tense. I have a bunch of listening exercises for beginners and also encourage my students to watch Hollywood movies and listen to podcasts in English, but I'm not sure how to incorporate this into a class over Skype. I have considered asking him questions setting him up to answer using more complex tenses like present perfect, past continuous, etc. I also might ask him multi-part questions hoping he can remember everything I said and answer the question in full.
Does anybody have any successful teaching methods that might work for my student? I think I'm on the right track but am always open to suggestions. I know I put teachers in the title, but I'd love to hear from students too.
It's been a while since I've been stumped by a student and did not know how to explain the grammar rules, but this morning a very smart student asked me to explain why I kept telling him to use "the" in phrases like:
"part of the time"
"in certain parts of the process"
"one of the species of animals."
I told him I would give him a response next class because I would rather do that than make up something like many teachers might have.
My logic: Normally the article "the" is usually used to make something more specific, but I also know sometimes it is correct to use or not use "the" as in sentences like:
"There was a lot of food."
"There was a lot of the food."
which have the same meaning. Other times, you cannot like:
"She was one of many"
"She was one of the many"
which don't mean the same.
Or is this just one of those fixed expression types that do not follow a specific grammar rule?
Thanks in advanced!!
I've worked on other online teaching platforms and recently moved to iTalki. I absolutely love it and want to make it my #1 site, but have am having conflicting ideas on how to schedule classes so they do not run into each others time, but also where I am not sitting around after every class when I could be teaching and making money. With other sites, they often assign you 30 min blocks, where you teach 25 mins, take 5 off, teach 25, then 5 off. But you get paid a flat fee per class. It also forces me to finish every class with at least 2-3 minutes so I'm not late to the next class. The process to get to the next class is also done by hitting a "Next Class" button which saves time.
So I've considered doing 45 minute lessons every hour, then a 15 minute break. My drawback is if I teach for 4 hours, I'd only be getting paid for 3. While I know money is not everything, teaching English is my full time job and only source of income. I can't afford to sacrifice 25% of my potential earnings. On the other hand, I would absolutely never want a student who's paying good money to feel cheated on time.
For you other teachers out there, how do you manage your time and schedule classes? Do you or did you find similar issues when you started?
