I’ve been teaching private English classes for a long time, and I often get a little anxious before the first class. This is because we never know what to expect spending one hour alone with somebody we’ve never seen before. My problems were solved when I found this activity in a book by Vivian Magalhães, which I’m sharing with you:
1) Before the class, cut 12 slips of paper. After you have a brief talk with the student, give him/her 6 slips of paper and keep 6 with you. Tell him/her to write 6 questions with information he/she would like to have about you, one in each slip of paper. Meanwhile, you also write 6 questions in your slips of paper. Include questions using different verb tenses, so that you can check how much your student know.
2) After both of you write the questions, fold the papers and write a number from 1 to 12 in each of them.
3) Take turns with your student to roll the dice and take the question that corresponds to the number you get. This way, your student can answer either your question or his own question, and vice versa.
This activity can last the whole class, depending on how much your student speaks. Encourage him/her to expand the answers, and try not to speak more than him/her. Every time you answer a question, you can ask “what about you?”, which will make your student speak more. This way, you can get to know a little about him/her and also cheack how much English he/she knows.
Hope you try it. See you 🙂
