How to Conquer Free-Talk Lessons with Absolute Beginners

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Sometimes beginner students request “free-talk” lessons even though they aren’t able to … talk freely. 😭😭😭 How should we handle lessons like these? What questions should we ask? And how can we best help the student?

Here's some advice from experienced tutors to help make these lessons more enjoyable for you and the student!

Suggest Materials

Luckily, many absolute beginners are open to using materials. As Tutor Jeff C. (🇵🇭) shares, “Many absolute beginners request free-talk lessons because they are new to the service and not familiar with the materials. They tend to appreciate it when you suggest materials.”

However, if we suggest materials too early in the lesson, the student may feel that we are disrespecting their request or are underestimating them.

Instead, we can start a conversation about an easy topic (hobbies, for example), then softly suggest using a basic Conversation lesson focusing on that topic (such as this lesson on hobbies).

For your convenience, here are the topics covered in our basic Conversation course:

Ask Beginner-Friendly Questions

If the student insists on not using materials, you'll need to switch gears and continue the conversation. Here are some short, easy questions that you can ask:

Notice that the questions are in the simple present tense. For instance, instead of “Why are you learning English?” (present continuous tense), you should say, “Why do you learn English?” This is easier for beginners to understand.

During the Conversation

What should you do if your student doesn't understand your questions? You’ll need to:

Break down your questions
Help them say something (anything!) in English

1. Break down your questions

There are several tools available that can help you get a point across when speaking alone doesn't do the job. For example, you can:

Type it into the chat box
Send them pictures
Use a translation site

Don’t feel bad if you need to translate the question; many experienced tutors said they use Google Translate or Microsoft Translator when tutoring absolute beginners. After all, it’s most important that your student understands you, and we don’t want the following to happen:

Also, in situations like these, in which you need to take the lesson beyond the Lesson Page itself, our screen sharing feature makes it easier for you and your student to stay in sync with one another. So take advantage of it!

2. Help the student to reply

Once your student understands your question, they may still struggle to respond to it. In this case, you’ll want to:

Make some suggestions (“a dog?" ... "a cat?”)
Provide a sentence structure they can repeat (“I have …”)
Provide a sample response (“You can say, 'I have a dog.'")

However, don’t be frustrated if the student only gives one-word answers — even after all your patience and encouragement. As one tutor (🇺🇸) put it, “Sometimes it's just ‘yes’ and ‘no’ for the rest of the lesson … I do my best, and that's most important for me.” Give yourself an A for effort, and even if it doesn’t feel like it, know that you’ve helped the student!

📌 Takeaways

To recap, here's our game plan for free-talk lessons with absolute beginners:

Ask if they want to use materials.
If they don't, start asking them beginner-friendly questions.
Break down your questions using all of the tools you have available.
Help them say something (anything!).

And if the student only gives one-word responses, know that you've tried your best!

free-talk lessons