Lesson Rationale: One-to-One / Online
When talking about one-to-one or online lessons it is important to keep in mind that before start it we need to have some time to talk with the student in order to find out his/her objectives, what he or she expects from the lessons and why he or she wants to learn. As soon as we have the information above mention we can identify the syllabus type that will be applying, the topics the student might be more interested and the purpose of learning or improving the language, structure the classes according to the number of hours taken, and most importantly let the student know how he or she will meet his or her needs.
The syllabus type must be chosen according to what the student shared in the first interview. Now, taking this fact into consideration and after hearing the student’s objectives and interests, I could easily take the topic-based syllabus since the student shows specific interests in environment, science, technology and current affairs. These topics will allow the student to be immerse into the language by using actual situations such as vaccines and economic situations in general terms.
Considering the specific interests I decided to choose the following topics: Introducing myself, Anti-smoking vaccine, spendings, and communication through letters or emails. As I could notice while speaking with the student is that these topics will definitely engage him and will trigger the best of the skills he already has.
As judging by what the student said and what I could noticed, the student prefers to have speaking, listening and reading as main skills to work on, since he wants to apply them into his work environment and daily life, and aside from those ones I decided to add writing so we can have the four main skills to be develop and having in mind the topics which they will definitely be a plus because writing will give also a sense of learning in a more meaningful way. Another point to highlight is that the student likes speaking and he is not afraid of making mistakes reason why the whole class and planning has speaking activities in a deductive and inductive way.
The structure of the lesson is divided as follow: taking into account the skills: 1. Speaking 2. Reading 3. Listening and speaking 4. Listening 5. Writing. Each class will have one skill to be worked in order to have a more systematic learning; and another reason why it follows this order is because of the topics chosen since they are connected, and of course this is part of having the student engage so it can be easy for him to remember in every class.
Another important point to cover is the methodology chosen to approach the student and develop each lesson which is known as ERKA (Experience - Reflection - Knowledge - Application). In the first stage, experience, we will deal by remember certain aspects of the students life which ca be related to the topic; in the second stage, reflection, we will be discussing on possible implications or consequences by asking questions regarding the experience; the third stage, knowledge, it is one of the most important ones since on this stage the basic grammar and or vocabulary will be taught, according to the topic, in order to apply it in the last stage; and the fourth stage, application, it is merely to work in an activity develop only by the student in which he has to use everything taught. This methodology helps the students to be more engage and most importantly to have a student-centered class all the time and motivates the student to speak and interact more which it triggers an immediate feedback and gives the student a more positive perception on his or her level.
The course here structured will certainly meet the student’s needs since it is fully based on the student’s expectations, the student’s interests which both combined will bring the best out of the student and what’s more, it has a direct methodology which allows a more freely interaction student - teacher and hence, it will trigger an immediate perception of improvement per class but most importantly the topics chosen will drive the sense of enjoyment into a better learning result.