Group Lessons - Physical Set-Up

The next few posts will be specifically about teaching groups.  Group teaching requires different skills than teaching 1-1.  I love that group lessons are social, and it’s easier to create that sense of community that the very essence of music.  Group lessons are ideal for teaching ensemble skills and provide a ready-made audience for solo playing.

In a group lesson I like to have the students in a semicircle with me in the middle.  This way I can see everyone and everyone can see me.  I can keep an eye on things like posture and fingering, and it’s easy for me to reach over and gentle correct, say, the angle of a student’s flute.

Ideally I’d be facing the door.  I like to know who’s entering and exiting the room, especially if I’m teaching in a classroom in an after school programme.  Looking after the room is my responsibility [LINK XXXX], so I need to know what’s going on.

You’ll need to keep an eye of the time – and ideally the clock will be somewhere where it’s easy for you to see. I always wear a watch or have my phone with me, so I could check the time that way, but I feel it’s rude for someone to be looking at their watch all the time – think about when someone did that to you.  It felt like they couldn’t wait to get out of your company.  Same goes for your phone.  Never answer calls or texts when you’re teaching.  It’s rude, and it tells your students that you don’t really value them.

I try to have one music stand per student.  That way they can use their own music and write any annotations directly on it.  It also means the stand can be adjusted to exactly the right height for them.  If you have to put two students per stand, make sure they are a similar height.  Make sure the stands are spaced out enough to accommodate the instruments.  Obviously there’ll be more space between stand if you teach flute than if you teach clarinet.

My stand is lower than theirs, much lower than I’d normally have it.  This is because generally I know the music (especially the tutor books) and I can easily look up and see what the students are doing.

If I’m teaching little kids, I have them in a circle around me and we sit on the floor.  Girls, if you teach a class like this, remember if you’re going to wear a skirt, then you probably also need tights or leggings and a top that doesn’t gap and show off your worldly assets.  If I’m teaching recorder I put the kids in a line in front of me.  This is because I play recorder with my right hand at the top, mirroring what they do.  Little kids can be wriggly – I’ll often put stickers on the ground (just those cheap, white name tag ones).  Kids like the challenge of staying on the stickers.

For all my classes I like a clean space – no rubbish on the floor and nothing in middle of circle.  Sometimes you don’t have too much control over the room you’re in, but do your best.