How much authenticity is too much?

I've completed my extended assignment, which was about teaching one-to-one classes. I've researched this specialism extensively and learned a plethora of information that I hadn't known before, though I'd been teaching one-to-one classes for over 4 years. I clearly couldn't include everything in my assignment paper as there was a word limit, but I'll share with you some issues I've come across and some possible solutions. In this post, I share with you my reflection after having read an article called ' Teacher or Therapist?' by Lisette Allen, which I'll attach at the end of this post for your reference.

Being authentic and caring about his students is admirable on the part of the teacher. We don't treat our students as emotionless creatures that come to the lesson to memorize language rules and vocabulary items. When teaching one-on-one, the amount of caring may be greater as the teacher can devote all of his or her attention to just one student. In one-to-one contexts, the teacher and learner may interact more intimately than in other settings. As a result, the teacher may find himself listening to the learner extensively, and the learner may be tempted to share something very personal with the teacher, seeking sympathy or therapy rather than language support. What level of authenticity should we strive for? In other words, should we ignore language and focus on the learner's personal issue? And what are the dangers of doing so?

In one of my individual classes, my student showed up gloomy. I asked how she was, and she replied 'fine'. We carried on with the lesson and she seemed a bit under the weather so I asked 'is everything ok?' and she broke down in tears. She later explained that one of her family members was diagnosed with a serious illness. She kept talking about it and every time I tried to derail the conversation, she brought it back by expressing her worries.

It's necessary for teachers to understand their primary purpose: to help learners learn, not overcome their personal or emotional problems. In the aforementioned situation, what are the odds that that learner would've paid attention to my language correction, and won't it be inhumane and insensitive to exploit her outburst for language learning?

It is the teacher's responsibility to set clear boundaries and learners must be aware of them so they do not become accustomed to unloading their emotional baggage on the teacher and seeking therapy. My better response in the above situation would've been to briefly sympathize with the learner and suggest that she cancel the class if she isn't ready. It brings to mind Krashen's 'Affective Filter Hypothesis', which states that negative emotions reduce students' ability to comprehend input.

In most cases, learners won't seek therapy unless they're tempted to. In the same way, teachers may induce this process by sharing too much personal information about themselves or worse, offloading their personal problems, which they believe will make them more authentic, resulting in students feeling comfortable and talking to them. Being able to predict where a conversation is going is imperative for teachers not to slip up. If it's inevitable, steering the conversation elsewhere may help distract the learner or at least give a signal that you don't want to dwell on that topic. To read the full article by Lisette Allen, click here.