Personal tuition in the UK

According to many operators in this sector in the UK, there is a significant rise in the number of language school clients choosing to take a combination of small group and one-to-one courses, which is something that many providers can offer. John Miles at Canterbury Language Training relates, “Now, 80 per cent of our clients include an element of one-to-one in their training.”

At St Giles, Jane Wright adds, “We are witnessing more growth in combination courses than in purely one-to-one lessons. As people become more secure with the homogeneity of small groups, they are happy to back this up with one-to-one lessons in order to cover their specialist requirements.”

Wright makes the point about specialist needs of one-to-one clients: most indeed have a limited timeframe and particular learner requirements. Paul Gallina at Southbourne School of English in Bournemouth explains, “One-to-one tuition addresses individual needs in a personalised way that is not possible in a class.”

Carmel Engin at Lake School of English in Oxford explains that in her experience, one-to-one clients tend to be “motivated, older learners who know what they are trying to achieve and very-low level learners who need a lot of personal attention and explanation.” She agrees that “clients tend to take individual tuition in addition to a group class”.

At Lydbury English Centre in Shropshire, Duncan Baker believes that combination courses of one-to-one and group lessons are actually more effective. “Much of real life communication does not take place in a one-to-one situation!” he says. Heather Jackson at Pilgrims English Language Courses in Canterbury reports a similar trend for such courses. “This offers the best of both worlds,” she says. “The personal attention of one-to-one plus the benefits of a multinational group.”

One group of learners who have tended to favour personalised tuition is business executives who are time-pressed. Kate Hargreaves, Principal of Living Learning English, which is based in Bristol with host teachers all over the UK, points out that executives may also have been away from the classroom environment for many years and prefer a one-to-one option for this reason.

A new target clientele is friends, couples and even parents and children. Baker says that two-to-one tuition for friends or couples is popular “and very cost-effective. We only charge one tuition fee plus accommodation for the second person”. Jackie Verrall at English Language Homestays agrees. “Schoolchildren and students like to come with their friends,” she reports, “and also couples come as an unusual British holiday. We also find courses beneficial for business English with colleagues.”

While all providers listed can cater for two-to-one tuition, only selected providers cater for adults and their child/children. At Intuition Languages, Norman Renshaw reports increasing demand for such courses. He suggests, “This may be down to demographics changing, where there are more one-parent families and it is easier to bring children than leave them at home.”

Verall says that they offer such courses in the school holidays. “It’s a new idea, since 2004, but gaining in popularity,” she says.