Agile English teaching. What is it?

Modern-day agile English teaching has come to take the place of rigid,
cut-and-dried lessons that are fast becoming a thing of the past.
Let me clarify what I mean by agile teaching that is bound to substitute
conventional teaching.

Some decades ago and up until recently it was perfectly valid to choose
a certain textbook and go through it module by module together with
your students (be it a group or individual learners). Given the abundance
of high-quality materials readily accessible online and offline, it is
completely unthinkable to proceed with this outdated approach.

What teachers / tutors should do instead is not only to customize the

course but to customize all the lessons of the course (each and every
one of them) to make them relevant and true to life. It sounds like an
awful lot of work, which it is. However, these tailor-made classes are a
product of continuous self-development and self-perfection — so, this
kind of teaching involves learning (for teachers / tutors) as well. All the
students who start learning English have their own reasons for doing so
and most of them need a set of specific topics or skills. Believe me, no
single textbook can meet their requirements in full. A halfway decent
solution would be to select a few textbooks and shortlist the topics from
them that might be relevant for the trainee at hand and then to align your
choice with the student’s vision of what’s necessary for him or her. This
is an acceptable approach, but not the ultimate one.
Let’s now move on to a more desirable option — agile teaching.

Its core principle is to customize whatever is customizable:

⦁ when and where the lesson takes place and how long it lasts, whether
it’s online or offline

⦁ the range of topics (technologies, books, films, hobbies, education,

etc.)

⦁ the set of skills (presenting, negotiating, email writing, etc.)

⦁ the vocabulary and grammar (based on the student’s needs)

⦁ the home assignment (depending on the student’s knowledge gaps

and interests: if they prefer to read articles or watch videos, etc.)

⦁ the small talk topics (at the beginning and end of the lesson)

and even

⦁ the attitude to mistakes correction (which errors to correct and whether

to correct them at all)
⦁ the attitude towards tests and any form of assessment (some trainees
appreciate evaluation, while others are still haunted by nightmares
connected to school exams and tests)

⦁ the level of strictness (some students like to be punished with extra

homework or hate to be praised for fear of becoming too confident or
lazy)

⦁ first language usage at English lessons (some students’ English

fluency is not affected by using a few first-language words at the lesson
for the sake of clarity, whereas others’ English acquisition can be
seriously impeded)

All the above-mentioned points should be taken into consideration

before and during classes. Ideally, the teacher must go to great lengths
to remember details about the trainee’s personal life in order to maintain
bespoke small talk with him or her. For instance, if your student loves
fishing, make sure to keep returning to that topic in order to kindle their
enthusiasm and get them all warmed-up and ready for the lesson ahead.
Alternatively, if they had said at the previous class that they were going
to attend a birthday party at the weekend, ask them if they had a good
time at the party.
As a rule, language schools usually take sides with this or that approach
demanding all their teachers to never ever speak the first language at
the lessons, unfailingly provide tests at the end of modules / semesters,
or to compliment students on good results and give some punishment for
bad results in the form of extra home assignment, etc. These are just a
few examples that go to illustrate that teachers at language schools
(even the best ones on the market) are not given total freedom to be
resilient and this is completely justified: there must be a clear-cut frame
of reference, a clear statement of what the company offers its clients.
When it comes to freelance teachers, they are literally free to adopt
resilience to be able to deliver made-to-measure lessons.

By way of illustration, take an experienced tutor who has quite a high

level of English (C1 / C2) and specializes in IELTS teaching. An
acquaintance asks him or her if he or she has a desire or an opportunity
to teach English to a young programmer who has just started working
and whose English leaves much to be desired. What this developer
needs is to improve general English speaking skills to be able to keep up
a small-talk conversation with colleagues. In addition, they would like to
become better negotiators, as they are going to work in a small team in a
startup, where there could arise a lot of potentially problematic
scenarios. An old-school tutor would most probably shudder at the
thought of having to adapt so much to the needs of one trainee, as
opposed to the agile tutor who would thrive on a challenge like that.

To recap my method of customization, it is necessary to:

⦁ find out the requirements of the student (regarding the topics, skills,
home assignment, tests, etc)

⦁ do a reality check from time to time to see if your vision coincides with
theirs

⦁ memorize the student’s interests, hobbies and whatever personal

information they share with you so as to be able to have meaningful
small talk (instead of mere time fillers)

⦁ research huge volumes of relevant materials (textbooks, online articles,

YouTube videos, Ted presentations, etc.) and select exclusively the most
useful links to use at the classes and send for homework. The chosen
materials must correspond to the trainee’s needs and interests, they
must be up to date and thought-provoking, ideally boosting not only
language awareness but also general knowledge.

Despite the fact that the tutor has a lesson plan and a few additional
links and exercises up their sleeve just in case there is spare time at the
end of the lesson, it’s essential to be spontaneous and not to be afraid to
incorporate other materials and topics that pop up during the lesson or to
alter the content on the go. For instance, if you have found a perfect
video about a modern art exhibition in Tate London museum and your
trainee admits that she can’t stand modern art, then it would be wiser to
switch immediately to something else instead of imposing the hated topic
on the student (for example, your best bet here is to hold a debate where
you will try to persuade the student that modern art is not deprived of
meaning and value).