First lessons guide

The main objectives of a First Lesson are to:

  1. building rapport with a friendly, brief and professional introduction,
  2. discuss your student's English study goals and next steps—suggest a relevant course for your student to trial, based on their needs,
  3. teach something from a course to show what we have to offer or use our First Lesson Elevator pitch, and 
  4. share tips on how to get the most from lessons with us—explain our Homework system, recommend booking lessons in advance and maintaining a regular pace of study, and other good study habits.

After the First Lesson:

  1. complete the Lesson Record and add all useful information to the Message to Next Teacher,
  2. add information to the student profile, and
  3. write a Skills assessment / Study plan. 

Book orders for corporate students should be deferred to subsequent lessons when the student has had a sufficient trial period.

Introductions

Build rapport with the student. How?

  • If your student has added information to their student profile, thank them and refer to some interesting points to start a conversation.
  • If your student hasn't added information to their student profile, use your experience of teaching your regular students to get to know your student.
  • Be helpful and build your student's confidence with some praise and offer feedback and corrections as a suggestion.
  • Gather information that can help all teachers contextualise their class material to match the student's needs and context. Add this to your student's profile.
  • All subsequent teachers will contribute pertinent information after their classes. It's a collective effort to develop and maintain our student profiles.

Dig for goals. Ask about some of the following:

  1. Do they currently use English for their work? If so, in what situations and for what purpose? For example, write emails to suppliers, conduct expert interviews, discuss problems and solutions with co-workers etc,
  2. What would they like to be able to do if they improve their English? For example, get a promotion, take part in global projects, communicate more confidently when travelling abroad etc, and
  3. How have they studied English in the past? What did they like/dislike about learning English? How can we give them a positive learning experience?

Course

Principles of a First Lesson: 

  1. For Corporate students, teach from First Lesson Elevator pitch or a relevant course.
  2. For Independent trial students, teach from a relevant course.
    • Explain why you've chosen that course. 
  3. Allow the student time to practice.
    • Keep your teacher talk time low during practice.
  4. Finish on time.
    • Don't stress about finishing neatly.
    • Ending on a cliffhanger creates the need for the next lesson. So long as the student has practised, you can end in the middle of an exercise.  

Which course?

Tie their goals or abilities to a course. Explain why you've chosen it.

  • You may want to suggest two courses. It's good to have a backup if your first choice doesn't fit.
  • When levelling, aim low.

If your student doesn't know which course they want to do, do the Orientation course. This is recommended for most students, especially corporates.

If your student has a course already in mind—great! Do that course. 

  • E.g., if your student is focused on the G.B.C. test, then use Speaking Test Strategies. 

Next teacher

Share precise information on your Lesson Record to set the next teacher and your student up for a successful and productive lesson.

  • Specify at least one language point in the "Keep Working On" section for the student and next lesson teacher to re-cap e.g. "Keep Working On":
    • "Using plurals when talking in general"
    • "Saying 'industry' with stronger word stress on the first syllable".
  • Leave precise Next Lesson information—generally, we frontload with page numbers then exercise numbers e.g. "p21 exercise 3". This should be immediately obvious for the next teacher to know where to pick up from (avoid confusing acronyms).
  • In the Message to Next Teacher section, pass on information that will help the next teacher understand the context. This can be: sample PDFs you've already shared, any student concerns/needs for the next teacher to bear in mind e.g. "He is still choosing between Business Result and Grammar in Use".

Student profile

  • Add information that's useful in the lesson. Be thorough, but write concisely. 
  • Subsequent teachers will add information too, especially if you've put your student on the Orientation course.

Skills Assessment / Study plan

Whether you've put the student on the Orientation course or on any other course, it's necessary to write a Skills assessment / Study plan. Get this written within 12 hours, this also applies to the Lesson Record.

This is the guide to Skills Assessments / Study Plans.

Further First Lesson skills

The English Farm has in-depth resources for doing amazing first lessons.