Sorry to be so late, but I hope I can still contribute something--

I developed sort of system where I teach a basic set of playing skills by using familiar songs--my beginners guitar classes run 8-10 weeks, and by the end, I want my students to be able to play in all the open keys, to be able to play a a number of basic rhythms, I want them to be able to know, use, and recognize several standard chord patterns, and to have learned and be able to play between ten and fifteen songs-

I also want them to be able to play in duple and triple, and compound meters, to count, and to memorize chord progression, and, most important, to be able to pull this all together when playing with others--

I have seen too many people who have taken guitar lessons for weeks, months, and years, without having anything tangible to show for it, and I was determined that my students would really be able to play the songs that they worked on, and that they'd be able to use what they knew as a basis to learn other things, either with or without me--

When I was hired to teach, it was not specifically to teach "folk",
but I discovered quickly that people know it and understand it better than popular stuff--also, songs that are popular today are often forgotten tomorrow, and I feel that if a beginner is going to invest a lot of energy in learning a song ought to be able to use it for a while--

One thing that I learned to do, with beginners, was to teach songs with easy to memorize chord changes--I have them count out and memorize the changes at the beginning of each lesson(even if they can't play them through) so there is one less thing to be confused about--

I run my classes as a benevolent dictator--the people who try to direct things themselves get gently but quickly pulled back on track--One of the my big challenges is to always make sure that the group's time and effort are not being wasted, and at the same time, that people are getting everything--

I always conduct class with a lot of back and forth, and spend time with each student in turn so that everyone gets personal attention, but no one is in the hot seat for too long--

I teach by breaking everything down into phrases, and I emphasize the importance of getting each part down before moving on to the next, I borrow a bit from dance teachers, and often the "One, two, three, four, five, six, sev-en,eight" thing--my secret trick is to select material that doesn't have too many parts--


I teach advanced classes as if I was leading a band(when you think about it, a bandleader is really a teacher), excepting that I teach everyone all the parts(I often write arrangements with with a series of interchangable parts and have each player play them in a different order)

As per the question about when people start to listen to themselves(and the people they are playing with), I think it only happens after they've mastered the part they are playing--I try to keep the parts/changes easy to learn so people can spend most of their time concentrating on the sound and feel--