Stop laughing with me; Start the business?

Part One

            I found out some information last week that I meant to blog about before now.  For a couple of weeks, one student in particular, “Jill” has been somewhat standoffish toward me whenever I ask her a question.  After class one day I finally asked another student (who seems to be a friend of hers) about the situation.  She informed me that when I ask Jill a question or attempt to elicit more of a response, I do so in a joking manner which she does not like.

            I have to say that I was a little surprised by this discovery.  Rather than keeping the class from getting boring and maintaining a positive atmosphere, my sense of humor has caused a student to be less motivated.  As of late, I have been trying to be more aware of how Jill feels and more mindful of how I prompt her.  I think the situation is improving, but it isn’t really about what I think.

Part Two

            This past Tuesday, only three students showed up for class.  Two of them were a married couple, so they always come together, and one was a brand new student.  This is the first time that I have had less than five people show up for the advanced group.  I was so frustrated that more people did not show up for class, but then after class I started thinking about it some more.

            By only having three students, I really got to spend more time focusing on each of them.  When we were having discussions, I didn’t have to worry about keeping them all engaged because they didn’t really have a choice.  All of them got more chances to practice and had more chances to get feedback (corrective or otherwise) on their answers.  I don’t necessarily want a large number of students to miss class every time, but it is certainly nice to be able to spend more time answering specific questions that students may not want to share in a larger group setting. 

Tuesday really made me start thinking about private tutoring or some sort of very small group setting.  I thought about a couple of issues that would almost certainly come up with this.  Where would we meet?  Where does the funding/pay come from?  How would I find students?  There are definitely more hurdles to this idea, but I am willing to explore and research this more thoroughly.