There are many ways to learn a foreign language, but one-to-one training can be one of the most effective when it comes to making quick progress and learning language that is specific to you and your needs.

The advantages of one to one training don’t stop there though, and other benefits include the following…

1.) You can go at your pace. Because one-to-one training courses are tailored solely to your needs, it’s much easier for the tutor to go at exactly your pace. If you learn in a group there can be less flexibility when it comes to how much time you can dedicate to each topic or grammatical area.

2.) You get the optimum chance to speak and practise the language you’re learning. Although all teachers in a group scenario will try to ensure that all students get equal opportunity to speak in class, sharing tuition with other people will always mean that you have slightly less ‘talking time’. Whilst this suits some people very well, others are keen to get as much time to speak as possible, which is best achieved with one-to-one tuition.

3.) You get to dictate any specialist areas that you’d like to cover in your training. A real benefit of one-to-one training is that you can ask your tutor to include specialist topics or vocabulary in your lessons – something that it would be trickier to do in group lessons. This can be great for people who have a specific hobby or profession that requires them to know technical words or phrases.

4.) You can choose the time and location that suits you best. People who live outside of big cities or towns can sometimes find it hard to get to schools and colleges for evening language courses. For people in this situation, private, individual tuition can be a great option. Tutors can come to your house, or a convenient location close-by can be found. Equally, for those who are unable to get out in the evenings, individual tuition can take place at any time of day.

5.) You learn more intensively and therefore more quickly. When you learn ‘one on one’ with a tutor, the learning is always going to be more intensive. For this reason, it’s great for people who want, or need, to learn quickly as you can progress from level to level in a shorter space of time.

6.) If you miss a lesson it’s easier to re-arrange it so that you don’t miss out on a week’s content. For some people, committing to be in a set time and place every week just isn’t feasible. It could be that they work shifts, or have a job that demands long, unpredictable hours, but in any case is very useful to have a more flexible set-up when it comes to foreign language lessons. As long as enough notice is given, it’s not normally a problem to re-arrange a lesson so that you don’t ‘lose’ a week.

7.) You can focus on the skills that you need most help with. Normally out of the four skills in language learning – speaking, listening, reading and writing – you will find some easier than others. With one-to-one tuition you can spend more time working on those that you find more difficult – something that is not always possible in group classes.

8.) You can learn more about your tutor and their cultural background. With one-to-one training, it’s inevitable that you’ll have more of an opportunity to get to know your tutor. For this reason, you’re likely to learn more about the culture of the countries where the foreign language is spoken than in other training scenarios.

9.) It’s less intimidating for shy or beginner students. Generally speaking it has to be said that foreign language classes attract sociable and friendly people, but group-scenarios can nevertheless be daunting for particularly shy, or beginner students. If this is something that you think would impede your learning, one-to-one lessons are much less intimidating than being in a group and having to speak in front of other people.

10.) It’s easier to pursue points that you haven’t understood. Most teachers in a class situation will always encourage students to speak up if a point covered in class hasn’t been fully understood, but in reality students can sometimes feel awkward and embarrassed to say so. For this reason, if you feel that you’re likely to need extra explanations, you might feel more comfortable learning one on one with a tutor.

Whatever your requirements, why not contact us by clicking the link (above) to find our how Cactus can find a perfect language course for you ?