Category Archives: Speaking

One-To-One Teaching

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Introduction

Much ESP is taught in one-to-one situations. When I first started teaching businessmen English in Japan in 1976, the classes were mostly one-to-one. I then spent five years teaching English to adult professionals in an ESP institution in the UK mainly in a one-to-one context. More recently, I have been teaching a Syrian refugee through CARA. in a one-to-one situation online. The participant was an agricultural engineer working as a project manager. It was then that I first started thinking seriously about one to one teaching and what it involved and I will probably continue for ever!.

Some thoughts:

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ESP and Common Sense

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I remember a number of years ago, after a morning of evaluating student oral presentations with a colleague and wondering why they sometimes said strange things, I mentioned that it seemed to me that people lost their common sense when they were speaking a language they were not very confident in. My colleague – who was a good linguist and had never experiences such issues – disagreed.

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Mastery of Speech (1919)

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My daughter was recently given a series of 8 books with the title Mastery of Speech, written by Frederick Law and published in New York in 1919.

It is described as: A course in Eight Parts on General Speech, Business Talking and Public Speaking, What to Say and How to Say It under All Conditions.

The titles of the eight books are:

  • Book One: How to Speak Correctly and Pleasingly
  • Book Two: How to Use Words Correctly
  • Book Three: How to Speak Well Under All Ordinary Conditions
  • Book Four: How to Speak in Daily Business Life
  • Book Five: How to Speak under Trying Conditions
  • Book Six: How to Speak In Private Life and in Public Places
  • Book Seven: How to Speak on Public Occasions
  • Book Eight: How to Find Material for Talking and Speaking

Book 4 might be useful in ESP business contexts! Books 5, 6 & 8 might be useful in EAP situations!

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