Date: Sunday, July 26th 2015

Participants (from 13 countries):

Panel PRO: Rick, Marwa, Himalay

Panel CON: Sunita, Faiza, Rojhano, Roya, Joe, Jami, Mohammed, Lala

AUDIENCE: Huong, Aziz

Host: Rick

Moderator: Johny

Panel PRO summary:

Building relationships with the teacher or tutor would enhance the student communication skills.
In a one to one class the student can focus better on pronunciation.
Group of people can make it challenging to concentrate.
Quality over quantity: the fewer the students, the more effective the class.
In a group class, students miss more opportunities for interpersonal communication, such as asking questions to the teacher.
Some student cannot cope with larger classes so they need private classes.
In a one-to-one class, the student can improve his/her level faster than in a group.
In a one-to-one class, the teacher can focus on the weaknesses of the student.
Not having to deal with many students in a class creates less stress to the teacher and thus, more cheerful interaction with the student.
In big groups, the teacher has less control of the class and misses teaching opportunities.
If the teacher focuses on each problem for individual students, there will be significant waste of time and overall student performance would not improve as quickly.
In a group class, students often do not focus on the lesson but in gossiping.
When the teacher is good, it may make the student fall in love with the subject.
The subject is more important than making friends and the teacher is trying his best to deliver his knowledge and the student shall focus in the subject not on the other students.
We have limited time with students, so we want to provide the highest quality opportunity and minimize the waste of time by making all students remain at the same level.
When learning a language, in the beginning phase is important to learn the basics: speaking, writing, pronunciation and grammar. Transitioning to a large group is most effective once the student has gained the basic skills.
Multiple students does not always mean that they can help each other, younger learners could bully, mock and make fun of the other students.
It is the teachers responsibility to identify individual performance and structure the class accordingly.
When you have a shy student, you can come up with a strategy to help that student.
Just like learning our first language, we learned from our mother or parent first (one-to-one teaching/learning) before we speak with other people.

Panel CON summary:

It may be more motivating to attend a group class.
In a group class, students can compare themselves with others and see they also make mistakes and that may help them to feel understood.
In a group class, students can exchange knowledge to improve their comprehension skills.
A student may feel intimidated to deal one to one with the teacher.
In a group class, students can learn how to interact with others, learn the sense of competition to improve your capacities and start challenging yourself, as well as to learn to read and expose their ideas in public.
In a group class, students have a good opportunity to present themselves and talk in foreign language in public.
In a group class, students can debate in a friendly way and decide what argument and idea is better.
In a group class, students can share ideas and choose which one is better.
Private classes can sometimes be more expensive, so financial limitations often prevent individualized learning environment or small teacher to student ratios in classes.
Students get bored with private teacher.
Same teacher, same experience every time, students may get fed up.
The subject is not all. The interactions and learning how to deal with others could bring more knowledge not only about the subject.
Communication involves body language. Is important in the learning process and students get more of these in a group class.
Collaborative learning can take away the shyness that some students present.
Mixed-level classes can help everyone learn more. The lower-level learners will be pushed more than if they were alone, and the higher-level learners can solidify their knowledge by helping others.
Game play for learning makes a more effective learning process and this in only possible in group.

AUDIENCE summary:

Aziz chose team A.
Huong chose team B.

For this tie, the moderator was asked to break it however, Johny considered that both teams did a good job therefore, he remained undecided. Both teams are the winners.

There was a bonus chat discussion after the debate and the topic was “Describe your country with three adjectives and then convince a participant to visit it.” This will be posted in a separate blog.

Below is the link to listen this debate:

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Private Class vs Group classes – Recording file 26-7-2015

For people who did not join the live discussion, feel free to contribute the ideas in the comment blanks below.