The completed group projects have also taught us something about the challenges we may encounter when supplementing one-to-one tuition with group tuition.

Organisational challenges

Many of the teachers and students who participated in the project have mentioned the practical challenges associated with gathering groups of students with individual timetables and commitments. Group tuition requires a different level of planning compared with one-to-one tuition, and it can be challenging to embed the group lessons as a regular part of the tuition – both in the timetable and in the students’ conscience.

Involving the students

We have seen that the students were fairly unanimous in saying that the group lessons were valuable. Yet there appear to be variations in how much the students involve themselves and invest time and commitment in preparing for the lessons, for example. Weighing up demands and expectations against how much time and effort the students should invest in something that is additional to their “ordinary” tuition is a challenge. This is something that could benefit from being discussed with the group of students in order to reach a consensus on what is expected of each of them.

Another challenge is to ensure that all the students make an active contribution to the lessons. Some are reserved and shy, and especially students at the start of their studies may need encouragement and assistance to speak up. The experiences garnered from this project suggest they could benefit from structuring the tuition in different ways, e.g. by making everyone take turns to perform, by having the teacher set specific tasks in turn or ask named students to give feedback instead of a free-for-all. We have also noted that it can be difficult for the teacher to wait long enough for the students to put forward their feedback or input. Since the teacher is responsible for the substance and progression of the lesson, it can sometimes be difficult to sit and wait for the students to say something, and it can be tempting to butt in. However, this could serve to reinforce the students’ hesitance: they know that the teacher will take over if they only wait long enough.

Providing comprehensive and constructive feedback

Our experiences suggest that the students find it challenging to give feedback to each other beyond vague and tentative comments such as “nice” and “good”. The same can be said for the process of moving away from feedback focusing solely on the good/bad aspect towards making constructive contributions to each other’s continued progress in the form of ideas and shared problem-solving.

Providing comprehensive and constructive feedback is something that can and should be learnt, both in order for the students to get the most out of the group lessons and because it is an important skill for any professional musician. The teacher can play a key role in this, partly by modelling how to give nuanced and constructive feedback and partly by asking the students follow-up questions to help them elaborate on their feedback. They can also demonstrate to the students the kind of quality they should aim for in their feedback by complimenting them and continuing to build on the constructive and nuanced feedback.

The flexibility of the teacher

As previously mentioned, group tuition can take place in a number of ways and with a variety of objectives. The challenge is to create a teacher role that fits the objectives in question as well as the content and activities, which can of course vary from lesson to lesson. This could mean that the teacher needs to be fairly domineering in certain situations, while other times he or she will primarily act as an organiser or moderator. It also means that the teacher will sometimes be the one issuing instructions, while at other times the teacher’s role is to ensure that the students give guidance and advice to each other. This requires a broader repertoire of lesson management techniques and approaches than we may be used to in one-to-one tuition. Experience and training are undoubtedly necessary in order to adjust the role to different situations.