During our first meeting, I gave him an assessment lesson to assess his English lesson level. In our second meeting, I was able to begin teaching him business English skills. Just before we begin the lesson he pulled out his cell phone and then he said, `Ha, ha, ha, I will record the lesson.` I abruptly told him that he is not allowed to record my lesson. I said, `If you want a recorded lesson then I can pre-record your lesson on zoom.` He said, `But if you record the lesson then then what does it matter now?` I told him that in Japan, according to Japan privacy laws, you are not allowed to record people without permission because it is against the law. Needless to say, he stopped recording and we continued with my lesson.
I find it very strange that many of my Japanese students want to record our lesson in class. If they are recording an online lesson that I am conducting and I am not aware of it, then I cannot do anything about that. However, in the lesson I am in control and if I say you cannot record the lesson then you cannot record the lesson. Have you guys had anyone try to record your lesson while teaching, and if so, why did they tell you why what is the reason that they decided to record your lesson?
I understand that some students want to go over notes, but I am not giving a lecture I am giving a Private English Lesson. Lectures are used to teach a large group of people, while Private English Lessons are meant to teach one-on-one lessons or smaller group lessons. I can understand people wanting to record and lecture because it's more of a formal way of teaching.
Also, I teach online lessons using Zoom, so I do record the lesson and send those recorded lessons to my students. However, recording an English lessons in the public eye with distracting background noise is out of the question. In fact, I am not the only teacher that enforces this rule. When I was in Hong Kong in May 2018, I attended a huge seminar with 300 other participants. Even at that seminar, which was taught by Rockstar Industry, we were told that we were not allowed to record or audio record anything.
The point of this blog post is to encourage Private English Teachers to have healthy boundaries with your Private English Students. If your student does something that you do not like you need to tell him, her, or them to stop and if they continue to do this action than simply do not teach them.
So, how do you set `healthy` boundaries with your Private English Students? Happy learning!