How many students do you have per class?

When I started taking lessons, they were private lessons in my house with 3 friends. We didn't have any mirrors. Our instructor would do a lot of drills with a couple moves over and over, giving time for questions while she would lead them. Then, she would have us repeat the drills and she would correct us up close and personal.
It worked for us because we were weren't distracted by our insecurities in the mirror, and it let us just feel the move. Also we were forced to actually follow eachother correctly and not 'cheat' by relying on the mirror.

I think with a bigger class it would be difficult. You're probably going to have to take it slower and do more sequence drilling before putting them in formations.
Just my two pennies, I really have no idea.

Cheers! Carrie

I've only had to do it a few times and it was definately a bit tougher. In general, I would face away from them to demonstrate the move/concept/etc then face toward them for a bit of verbal explanation, then face away again and have them drill the move with me a few times. After that, I would set up a very informal lead-changing circle (where everyone leads the same move or combo for 8-16 cts or so and then the whole class rotates CW by simply doing Arabics or walking shimmies). While the "circle drills" continue, I walk around and give corrections to individuals as needed.

It also may be help to have one of your more advanced students face away and demonstrate the move while you face them. I've seen this at many workshops and seems to be very effective for teaching.

Good luck :)

Well, my hula class is held at a grade school's cafeteria/gym/auditorium because there are so many of us - it started with at least 100 per class! And there are no mirrors in there, so my instructor gets up on the stage and faces us doing the movements in a mirror fashion. So, when he says for us to move right, he moves to the left (his left, our right). It helps in some ways, but coming from an ATS background and always trying not to mirror a facing person, but do what they are doing, I have to switch my thinking a little.

I would suggest, if the room is small enough with good acoustics, face away from the students and talk to the wall. That way, they get the leader view as they would in a real lead-follow situation. For anything that is not R/L-side-specific, like arm flourishes, shimmy or zils, face them to break it down and face away to drill, then have them try it on their own so you can watch, then correct.

I like the idea of using someone as an example. We've done that in workshops and it really helps.