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Each of the mentioned types of classes has its own benefits and drawbacks, and the approaches are quite different. Let me start with describing teaching one to one. I started my teaching career with working with individual lessons. It seemed to me very comfortable, as I could establish a good rapport, good personal connection with the students. It is easier to go through the course in a suitable pace responding to the student’s ability to percept new material, to his needs and interests. Warm-ups are still of quite a wide range, free discussion on a suitable topic, association games, describing pictures, «name 5 things that you can…(eat, put in pocket». Tracing the progress and noticing weak areas are also easier, because I can be completely focused on the student’s work, so weak points do not cement, we have an opportunity to get back and polish rough edges. But when I started to work with groups I realised the amount of opportunities a group can provide: wider range of actives, bigger speaking experience, because I’m not the only one the student has to communicate with. I discovered the role-plays from another side: I think now that a role-play with a teacher is not the same as with a peer. Despite the comforting atmosphere the student still see an observer and an evaluator in the teacher, even pretending to be in a shop and talking to a «shop assistant», looking for approval of his language while speaking. Playing with peers gives him more freedom, he doesn’t feel being observed all the time. On the other hand, together with freedom comes a temptation to use native language, or to use simplified language when student doesn’t feel like making a lot of efforts, he is not so motivated to do his best. I think the difference is more obvious at the Study and Activate stages. When we learn new material, whether it is grammar or vocabulary, we can do class surveys, prepare a project, play competitive games with a group, but we can’t have such activities conducting a one to one lesson. We use different worksheets instead, or games where student do not compete with anybody but himself - except those that require fast-thinking, e.g. word searching. Otherwise the work is individual: create and present his own company/restaurant - activities that are of much more fun with peers. The same concerns the Activate stage. As I noticed some students feel more comfortable doing even these activities at individual lessons. I can be mistaken, but I think it can hold up their final goal - to gain the ability of talking to other people in good English, because some of them are just afraid of stepping outside their comfort zone. With such students creative tasks can be used: to hold a survey outside classroom or to make a video, where he will be speaking English outside classroom. The conclusion I came to is that, in general, getting basic knowledge of grammar, building up sentences and proper vocabulary can be done with one to one lessons, but once the student feels quite confident he may try group lessons, as they provide very useful experience of communication with other people, discussions, reaching agreement inside the group and more creative tasks. Although I understand there can not be a one-size-fits-all approach, and a job of a teacher is to take advantage of the classes his students are taking.
