Having a class with exactly three students is something that can totally throw new teachers, especially those whose teacher training emphasised pairwork. It can also make even experienced educators have to rethink their ideas for speaking activities. This article looks at why extra thought is needed, and then gives some solutions to the issues.
Problems with three-student classes
Possible issues with lessons with three students include:
- finding a way to do pairwork activities that are not easily adaptable to three students such as information gap activities (Student A and Student B picture differences, etc)
- problems with activities where they are supposed to discuss and then compare with another group
- a huge change in the classroom dynamics when one student is absent
- difficulties getting the students to ask questions (because there might not be an outgoing student in the class, and/ or because there are enough people there to make shy students too shy to speak out)
- problems finding a suitable seating plan, e.g. in a meeting room with one long table
- few easy options for changing classroom dynamics
- two students who get really involved in a discussion and so shut out the third
- two students who share knowledge, interests, cultural background, experiences, etc, having a discussion that the third student cannot join in with or even understand
- needing to bring two other students into the conversation if just one student dominates
There are also general issues with having a small class which also affect those with three students, including:
- differences in personality, willingness to speak out, etc meaning that it is difficult to plan suitable classes for all three students
- one student really changing the atmosphere of the whole class (because they dominate, take forever to speak, etc)
Three-student classes solutions
Possible solutions to the potential issues with three students include:
- using activities that naturally work best with three people (telephoning reception and then getting through to someone, meetings with a chair and two participants, a wedding planner and a couple, a middle-man/ arbiter helping two sides negotiate, etc)
- adding a Student C worksheet (for a second interviewer in a job interview, with different trivia questions for the other two students to guess, with different things to dictate to the other two, etc)
- two students taking the role of one person, e.g. one Student A and the other two students sharing the Student B picture
- the third student taking on another role, such as giving feedback after the other two students finish, scoring, or making sure that the other two have an equal chance to speak
- the third student listening and taking notes to help when they take part in the next stage (perhaps in a form that you have given them with categories like “Good language I hear that I’d like to use”)
- the teacher taking the role of Student B in one of the pairs
- one of the students taking the teacher role, e.g. one student setting the next roleplay and then giving feedback on how the other two students did, perhaps while sitting in the teacher’s chair
- occasionally splitting the students up, e.g. having two students prepare a list of possible interview questions while the teacher interviews the other student in another room, then comparing the list with the questions that were really asked by the teacher
- always having a Plan B for if one or two students are absent
- activities where all three students interact with the teacher, e.g. trying to get the teacher to say yes, guessing personal information about the teacher, or asking questions which get the personal answers written on the board
- similar activities with someone who is not in the class (on Zoom, etc)
- students taking turns bringing in topics to speak about
- students sometimes standing up, e.g. to roleplay meeting someone for the first time at the airport
Of those, perhaps the most obvious and in some ways easiest is the teacher taking a student role. This works best with genuinely communicative activities such as small talk where the teacher doesn’t have to pretend not to know what is on all the worksheets. However, with a bit of acting the teacher should be able to feign the performance of a normal student even if there is no actual “information gap” due to having chosen or written the worksheet themselves.
The other big complication with the teacher taking a student role is being able to monitor the other group while they are taking part themselves. This is a skill that most teachers develop naturally, but it’s still worth:
- making sure the instructions are even clearer than usual
- starting your group’s pairwork later and/ or ending it earlier than the other group
- doing a similar activity again after changing pairs (in case you didn’t spot that the other pair did it completely wrongly, and so that more students get to work with the teacher)