In classroom environments, it’s very often that we find ourselves, as teachers, having to “deal with”, or respond to, or comment on students’ performance and language. This is part and parcel of our role as communication facilitators in a foreign language class.

Sometimes, however, we might, in our eagerness to stick to plans and “cover” what is there to be “covered”, find that devoting time to one particular student’s language struggles, especially if we were not anticipating or “planning” to deal with them, is making us feel anxious and feel that the class is being waylaid in some way.
I certainly have had that feeling, despite being aware that I’m helping a student!

On their blog Demand High ELT, Adrian Underhill & Jim Scrivener blog about teaching “one-to-one” within a whole group, and state that it can benefit the whole group. They also offer specific techniques for carrying it out successfully.

After reading Underhill & Scrivener’s posts, I feel I’m much more aware, when such “one-to-one” situations arise, that I am helping everybody else in the classroom as well, and I’m finding myself “grabbing” the opportunity, even dwelling on it and cherishing it.

Thank you, Jim and Adrian, for your enlightening posts on the “one-to-one” teaching within a group and the specific techniques offered, and, of course, the concept itself.