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Teaching English one to one can have its advantages for example - only having to teach one student you only have one skill level as opposed to teaching groups where there can be many different skill levels depending on students different backgrounds, upbringings and schooling which can make teaching and juggling all your students different needs difficult at times. But here I am going to break down why teaching one to one can be harder than teaching groups. To start with, one to one is just you the teacher and your student, this automatically can eliminate a range of activities and games that are often a lot of fun and more engaging for groups, like Pictionary and Charades for example.Yes you can somewhat still play them but as a group the students different ideas of what the picture or thing being acted out is will help engage and further elicit more vocabulary from there peers, also hearing and learning at the same time because most students learn at differentiating levels, therefore helping to build vocabulary, confidence and get them greatly more engaged for the rest of the lesson. Secondly teaching one to one can come down to a lot more book work like work sheets from course books which the student might end up finding quite boring over time and therefore losing interest in lessons faster.Though worksheets are a great way to help your students learn during the study phase of your lesson, they aren't always needed and if you have a group to teach you can do activities that will keep the students in a more engaged mood for example - grouping your students together and getting them to brainstorm ideas for questions that may arise in a job interview and how to answer them to eventually have a role play of a job interview for the activate stage of the lesson. This can be difficult because as much as you can elicit answers out of your student in a one to one class and still do a role play game for it at the end of the lesson, it can put a lot of pressure on the student and bombard them to come up with answers all by them self, also the role play activity to activate the study period wont work as good because students aren't interviewing each other on there level of English and as much as you the teacher has to try teaching using a language range not a lot higher than your student(s) at times, the role play might end up feeling like more of an actual interview or test for them knowing the teacher is involved and they don't want to make a mistake. Another factor that could make one to one teaching more difficult is if you don't have a good rapport with your student - especially from the start. As a teacher of English language you don't want to come across as intimidating to your student(s).If you don't start off with a good rapport with you student in a one to one teaching situation this can make it very difficult for them as all the work done is only with you and not other students.This involves being the students only partner and person to get help from, in group cases it can be easier and less intimidating for students to ask for help from there peers, students of a higher level can vastly help other students whether the teacher puts them together for group activities or as partners, this can help the student of less knowledge or capabilities learn easier because though the student might be smarter than them they are also closer to there level and make it more comfortable to ask for help and learn at the same time. To avoid starting off with a bad rapport you need to have a really friendly attitude to the first lesson, be interested in what they want to learn and get out of you as there teacher so you can tailor your lessons to there specific wants and needs, and also definitely get them to complete a needs analysis form to help with this. Working one to one isn't always harder than with groups and that's not the argument here, this is merely to state a few examples of difficulties teaching one to one can bring.There are many examples of why each one can be harder than the other but its up to you as a teacher to take the right steps to make either one work so that your student or students can get the absolute most out of your classes and therefore become the best students possible.
