Reading in one-to-one classes
Recently, an online teacher friend of mine, Mark Bain, was reflecting on his blog on what teachers can do in one-to-one classes while their students are reading or writing. A situation that many tutors are in and find challenging. Here is my reply:
I’ve read your post with interest because I had similar thoughts when teaching one-to-one. This is why I never asked students to read longer text in detail in class and also mostly avoided writing and instead set it as homework. This was not very satisfactory as students would often not find time for homework. Another problem was that these writing tasks were very traditional; students would write and I would correct. Only later did I learn how I could help and guide them through writing tasks so that they would really improve their skills.
What can be done?
Reading:
You could do a kind of jigsaw reading or information gap activity. Your student could read part A and you part B. Then, you could tell each other what you’ve read. With longer texts this could be repeated.
You could even both read the same text/paragraph, clarify vocabulary only where necessary and talk about the content. Alternatively, you could read about the same story from different newspapers and then find out about the differences in the story, the style, vocabulary, etc. The Internet makes it easy to find different accounts of the same story.
One technique that helps students improve their reading comprehension is being read to aloud. Typically, teachers let students read aloud, which is often not very helpful. However, research* suggests that if the teacher reads a text aloud, students reading comprehension improves. By doing this, you would be actively participating in the reading, could justify it to your student (research), and you would feel better 
* Amer, A. A. The effect of the teacher’s reading aloud on the reading comprehension of EFL students. ELT Journal Volume 51/1 January 1997
You could also spend some time in class on writing each other letters and reading and responding to them instead of speaking. These could be formal or informal letters or even a discussion. Your students would practise both writing and reading, you would be busy with a relevant task.
Hi Nergiz
You have some really good suggestions here and I agree that long silent reading or composition during class time is not making the most of the teacher’s time. As a one-to-one teacher (online), I can say that I am very aware that the student is paying for the time and I doubt many students want to pay to read to themselves or to write a text.
However, I don’t have many problems with getting students to write texts for homework – perhaps because students are asked to choose the subject. You can see examples of what students have written (and recorded as audio and even presented as PowerPoints) on this page… http://www.avatarlanguages.com/studentwork . They choose a wide variety of subjects and I think the freedom to choose helps them feel more in control of their own learning.
That said students do spend time reading texts in class, but always aloud (to include pronunciation practice). You’re right that jigsaws make this a more interactive exercise.
Another suggestion I have is to look for things that will motivate the student. Recently students have been writing texts for Wikipedia (Simple English version) – and they love it! It gives them a real sense of contribution, because their text becomes something useful for Wikipedia readers. You can read more about this on my blog… http://www.avatarlanguages.com/blog/
Students also read aloud in class and the student is then invited to correct their own mistakes (highlighted by the teacher). Using Google Docs makes this very easy to do online.
I find your point about reading to students a really good one. I must say, however, that I am reluctant to spend time reading to students (although I am sure it benefits them), preferring instead to give students YouTubes or audios (to listen to out of class). This gives them practice with listening to different accents. http://www.eslvideo.com allows teachers to create multiple choice quizes for YouTube videos.
Hi Howard
I agree with you that listening to various accents is extremely important. And the Internet provides us with all the material we need. So, I also wouldn’t limit students listening to their teacher only. However, if we are talking about a specific text and not about practising listening or pronunciation in general, then, it is much more powerful and effective when the teacher reads a text aloud.
Having students read aloud does have it’s place, too, especially if they need to present a topic orally and have written notes (like it is the case with your student’s projects).
A lot depends on why we want our students to read a text. If the purpose is comprehension of a new text (and this is what I was referring to in my post), reading aloud of students is not recommendable as this will hinder their comprehension and not help with improving their pronunciation either. Furthermore, it will be very frustrating and demotivating for weaker students.
Having your students write for a real purpose and audience is a very good idea. I can observe how much more energy my students put into the writing and proof-reading process and how much better the results are if it is about their chosen topic and they know it’s going to be made public. I am happy to see that more teachers are becoming aware of this and implement it in their lessons.
Thanks for contributing to the discussion!
Hi Nergiz
Your point about the purpose of reading (aloud or silently) is a really good one. You are right that students reading aloud are not going to gain so much in terms of comprehension skills as reading to themselves. I disagree that it doesn’t help their pronunciation – I feel that reading is a good way to focus on specific words and it gives the teacher to refer the student to the word they mispronounced. This is an enormous advantage over conversation, where it is most important to keep the pace going. I always ask students to correct their own pronunciation errors and what I find interesting is that they often know the answer themselves. At the end of a lesson I give the student a list of words they had difficulties with and I also send them an audio recording of me pronouncing the words for them. This seems to be popular with the students (although, admittedly they could use a dictionary like http://www.thefreedictionary.com to listen to (both American and British) pronunciations.
What I would also add to this, is that students often want lessons because they feel that they have an uneven skillset. Students have often done far more grammar and passive reading than they have done work on pronunciation, fluency and compositions. I therefore wonder how even a 1on1 lesson should be, if it is to address the individual’s specific needs. A question of balance, for sure, but where should this balance lie?
Howard, I agree with everything you say here. Using a text to work on pronunciation specifically can be very efficient, especially if noticing takes place and they hear the difference between a good version and theirs. That’s what you are saying, right? I was pointing out that when the aim is reading for comprehension, reading aloud is contra-productive and this also doesn’t help pronunciation. Noticing cannot take place here because the student is too pre-occupied with making sense of what he or she is reading. So, the only thing I’m saying is to separate the two task/aims: reading a text for comprehension (better done silently) and reading a text to improve pronunciation (text read aloud by maybe both student and teacher or student compares his pronunciation with a recording).
Hi guys,
Hello again, after an extended break from my online life – my wife and I have recently had a baby girl. As you can imagine, the ‘real world’ has been taking up a lot of my time lately!
I’d love to post an extended comment on the debate which has arisen regarding reading aloud. However, rather than do that, I’ll just post the following link to a discussion on the BBC/British Council site about reading aloud. I am clearly in the minority, according to the poll!
http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/talk/polls/reading-aloud-class
Hi Mark
What a pleasure to read you again and to hear such good news. I hope all are fine.
Marcus Murilo from Brazil sums it all up for me:
“I guess the real issue here is: what’s your aim in having your students read texts aloud? If you’re using this technique when you actually want them to comprehend a piece of writing, then it’s completely worthless. If, however, your aim is to work on pronunciation, then it’s very effective indeed.”
This is why it is so important to think about your aims when planning teaching activities. There is a place for both, you just need to be crystal-clear about why you are doing it. The question is so general, it had to lead to differing opinions and debate.