Tips for English tutors

Tips can be divided into several areas: regarding teaching methods, organization of the educational process, as well as building relationships with the student and parents.

Tutoring is an interesting activity in which you can not only develop as a professional teacher, but also work on communication skills, expand your network of acquaintances and improve your financial situation.

The profession of an English tutor suits disciplined people who can work without superiors and achieve their goals without control, reporting and checks. If you know English well, master the art of time management, know how to independently set goals and achieve them, then this job is perfect for you.

Any advice can be divided into several areas: advice on teaching methods , organization of the educational process, recommendations on building relationships with the student and parents.

Tips for a beginner tutor

If you have just decided to become an English tutor , then you need to outline for yourself such important areas in which you need to develop:

• Organization of the educational process.
• Variants and formats of training.
• Methods, techniques, teaching technologies appropriate for the age of the student.
• Methods for monitoring and evaluating student knowledge, as well as criteria for their justification
• Empathy, flexibility of thinking and communication skills.

A professional tutor, in addition to knowledge of the English language, must meet the following characteristics:

• Honesty and openness are the main characteristics for those teachers who plan to work with children.
• Literacy and the ability to conduct a dialogue - it is very important to maintain normal relations with the student and his parents outside of the classroom, so the ability to communicate politely, express thoughts correctly is what many people pay attention to.
• Calmness, patience and endurance - it often happens that the lesson does not go according to plan, especially if the students are preschoolers or teenagers. In this case, it is important not to lose self-control, but to choose a type of activity that will allow you to continue the lesson.
• Punctuality and Responsibility - Being late or missing a lesson can be a reason for a student to stop your classes.
• A broad outlook - well-read and erudition will help make classes lively and exciting. It is always interesting to learn new, unexpected facts about the country whose language you are learning, as well as culture, art, world trends.
• Discipline and concentration - the teacher must be able to adhere to the planned lesson plan and the global learning plan, as well as monitor the student's homework, payment, preparation for the lesson.
• Lightness and goodwill - few people want to deal with a heavy, gloomy person who never smiles and sees a reason for discontent in everything. Both children and adult students are drawn to easy, laid-back, but at the same time well-mannered people with whom it is pleasant to talk.

How to start tutoring?

Start tutoring by identifying the area in which you are interested in working. There are many types of English, each of which implies different methods, sources of materials for classes, deadlines and goals.

If you want to teach English to adults , then you should deepen your knowledge in parallel, because the required level of language proficiency when it comes to adults is Advanced. If you are sure that you want to teach English to children , then you need to familiarize yourself with the methods of teaching preschoolers.

In addition to the division of education by age, there is a division by subject: technical, legal, business, marketing, spoken English, as well as English for passing international exams, moving to another country, employment in an international company, admission to an English-speaking graduate school, etc. For successful teaching, you need to identify exactly the area in which you feel easy and professional, which should be indicated in the announcement of tutoring .

Grounds for tutoring

Often, in order to recruit students and teach successfully in private, you do not need a specialized education. Especially if the student liked you, found an approach to his parents, or lived abroad for some time. The presence of higher, even non-core education, will also come in handy and will be a sign that you are a developed and competent person.

However, if you have an education, but a secondary one, you have not been abroad, but you speak English well and confidently, you can take special courses for teachers with a certificate. Today, various distance courses for teachers and tutors are.

The most convenient option to get a legal basis for teaching is to complete TEFL/TESOL. Remotely, you can learn the foundation of pedagogical science, get acquainted with a variety of teaching methods and technologies, the art of lesson planning, and, thanks to the successful passing of the exam at the end, confirm your level of English.

A particular advantage is the ability to arrange training modules in such a way as to study areas that will definitely come in handy for you.

Having received a teaching certificate once and for life, you can further improve your skills through various webinars, online lectures, master classes, conferences, etc.

The specifics of training

In the process of obtaining various knowledge about pedagogy as a science, you will get an idea of ​​what kind of lessons and how you want to conduct them.

Perhaps the most interesting for you will be the game method and teaching the language of children and primary schoolchildren, or you will choose the project method of learning English for yourself. There are a huge number of techniques, among which it is important to choose a few in which you will specialize in the future.

If in the future you want to get a teaching position in another country, for example, in China or in European countries, then employers will ask you in detail what methods you use in your work.

The specificity is reflected in your resume and portfolio along with developments on the topic in the form of photo galleries, video clips, developed plans, programs, creative projects.

In addition, a clearly defined specificity, as well as improvement in this area, can become a prerequisite for creating a professional blog that will help you find your audience, students and create the desired image.

You can choose one of the existing specifics or come up with your own version:

• Preparing for university entrance exams.
• Improving the final grade in the semester and year.
• Preparatory course for passing WEIGHT, IELTS, TOEFL.
• Improving spoken English.
• Early child development in English.
• Improving the general level of English.
• Teaching a certain type of English (for example, medical).
• Corporate training group of people.
• Classes in groups on a communicative technique.
• Preparation for the session, offset, exam, delivery of the course project.
• Learning British/American English for immigration.
• Dealing with debt or backlog in English.
• Help with homework.
• Supervision of adults during self-study.
• Nanny for a baby with knowledge of English.

The choice depends on such factors:

1. Your level of preparation and knowledge of the language.
2. The degree of employment.
3. Professional plans and ambitions.

After the final choice of the specifics of tutoring, you need to go through the main areas of activity.

How can a tutor organize the educational process?

Of course, the process of conducting lessons depends on many factors: the age of the student, the purpose of the lesson, workload. With the correct organization of educational, the following conditions are met:

• Proper distribution of time. If you work only with adults, then it is convenient to study at home or via Skype. If your students are children, then the schedule should be made taking into account travel time, a lunch break, and a reserve for force majeure. For young children, choose the morning time for classes or at lunchtime, for schoolchildren - after school, for adults, the optimal time is in the evening and on weekends.
• Having an accurate timetable. This is important in order to be able to recruit additional students. Agree in advance how much you can cancel the lesson so that you can change your plans.
• Several sources with methodological materials. For convenience, it is better to arrange all textbooks, exercises, and literature according to difficulty levels and place them in several places: in a cloud service, on a flash drive, on a phone, in printed form, send one version to a student.
• Regularity. Try to choose a lesson time so that there is no more than 4 days between classes.
• Rest time. You should not score a working day to the eyeballs, this is fraught with professional burnout - take a break for lunch and between students.

What are the training options and formats?

The most popular format today is English via Skype . Both adults and children appreciated the advantages of distance learning technologies. If the quality of the lessons does not suffer, and you manage to teach English online, you can transfer tutoring to a remote format. With this approach, you can significantly expand the audience of students by recruiting people from other countries.

The format usually depends on the age of the student. If for a student only tête-à-tête or Skype classes are effective, then options are possible for kids and adults.

Popular adult education :

• Self-study + periodic verification of the tutor.
• Group training of several persons.
• Corporate training.
• Master classes or lectures on a specific topic.
• Spoken English course via Skype.
• Modular learning.
• Video or audio lessons.

Common formats for teaching kids :

• Nanny teacher.
• English weekend.
• Early development + English.
• Games in English.
• Educational walks.

The format can be anything, the main thing is that it suits both the tutor and the student.

The choice of method, techniques, teaching technologies

When choosing the appropriate teaching methods, it is worth knowing which are the most effective and appropriate for the age of the student.

Do not worry if at the beginning of your lessons you have not yet collected enough material for each method - in the process of learning, you will determine exactly which type of information is perceived better and select the necessary techniques.

How to monitor and evaluate student knowledge?

For each student, you need to have a special folder in which the following data is noted:

• level of knowledge from the beginning of your studies,
• The purpose of training,
• the materials you work with
• topics covered and number of hours of study,
• online test results with screenshots,
• home-assigned materials with assignments completed by the student,
• vocabulary from the beginning of the lessons,
• activities,
• dates of lessons and reasons for cancellation / rescheduling.

Information can be placed in special services, for example, on Google Disk, in Saved messages in any messenger or in a notepad. The main goal is to track progress or regression and have an evidence base in case the effectiveness is low.

Evaluation criteria can be drawn up together with the student, as well as a training plan - especially if it is an adult with the desired results. Assessment of knowledge should go in parallel with the training plan - this or that item was mastered within the set time period and in what percentage.

How to establish contact between a tutor and a student?

Responsibility for establishing contact in the case of children lies with the tutor. In the case of adult students, this is a two-way process. Here are some tips for establishing long-term communication with the student:

• 100% attention to the student. Only an absolutely involved tutor, who is not distracted by correspondence and calls, will cause a response desire to try during the lesson.
• Honesty. Children, especially teenagers, are very sensitive to being manipulated or deceived, so establish a rule of honesty from the very beginning. If the child is not ready for the lesson because he was really ill, let him have the right not to do his homework without your complaining to the parents. If you make such rules, don't break them.
• Interest. It will be interesting for every student at any age to study on those materials and topics that he really likes. It is good practice to ask about interests and use this information in your lessons. Interest in his hobbies and personality will help to establish contact faster.
• Politeness and respect. Even elementary school students want to be respected, so regardless of age, you should behave respectfully and politely.
• Modernity. Unfortunately, if you show complete ignorance about commonly used technologies or ignore advances (listening to irrelevant 10-year-old audio recordings along with a cool YouTube video, the student will be bored). Master all the technologies necessary for your work.
• Sense of humor. Very often situations arise that it is important to calmly “resolve” the problem, and this is where a sense of humor comes in handy. Sometimes you can joke about a difficult topic that is not given in any way or tell a funny story and unload the atmosphere a little. Jokes very often help out in unforeseen situations.

As a conclusion

Tutoring requires comprehensive development, organization, knowledge of not only English, but also many other technologies, methods, and human qualities. But to become a good tutor without it will not work.