Question:

Submitted by Masoud Forghani, Iran

What advice would you give to someone who wants to teach English privately, but who has little experience?

Dr. Richards responds:

I would hesitate to recommend a learner to take private lessons with a teacher unless the teacher was well qualified and had relevant experience. If the teacher was qualified to teach privately his or her first task would be to find out what the learner’s level was, and what were his or per specific needs. Then the teacher should choose appropriate materials that could be used as the basis for one-to-one teaching. These could be published materials or materials developed or chosen by the teacher.