What makes an outstanding English tutor?
Are you thinking about becoming an English tutor? If so, then you might wonder what separates an average English teacher from an exceptional one.
There are several factors which determine whether or not someone will become an excellent English teacher.
Some of these factors are related to personality traits, while others are based on the quality of their teaching English skills.
An outstanding tutor is a professional educator who is dedicated to helping students develop a positive attitude towards learning.
A tutor should help students achieve their goals, be available to students with 24/7 access, and encourage an enjoyable learning atmosphere.
An outstanding English tutor is also focused on future career success with the student.
What are the qualities of a good tutor?
A good tutor is patient, calm, and kind. Tutor should have a willingness to help students understand the material, even if it means re-explaining the concepts multiple times.
A tutor should encourage, helping students to remain focused on their goals.
Below are they must have qualities of a tutor:
1. Dedication
The most important thing in any job is dedication. You need to have a commitment at all times, even when things get tough.
It’s easy for people to give up when they’re struggling, but it takes real determination to keep going.
2. Professionalism
Being a successful tutor means that you must act like a professional by having a consistent approach to your work. This includes being punctual, reliable, organised, and well-mannered.
You may think this sounds obvious, yet there are many tutors out there who don’t follow through on their commitments.
They either arrive late or leave early without notice, making them unreliable and unprofessional.
3. Respectfulness
When working as a tutor, you’ll often come across different personalities: some can be very nice and polite, while others are more direct and outspoken.
However, regardless of how much respect you show others, always remember that you still owe them respect yourself.
4. Honesty
Tutoring requires honesty because it’s impossible to teach anything properly if you aren’t honest. When tutoring, you need to tell students exactly where they stand, both academically and personally.
This doesn’t mean telling lies, just being open about your expectations.
5. Enthusiasm
Enthusiasm isn’t something that comes naturally to everyone. However, enthusiasm plays an essential role in motivating students to learn new information.
If you lack energy, it won’t matter how hard you try; you simply won’t succeed.
6. Organised
Organization helps you stay productive throughout the day and prevents unnecessary stress and anxiety. It allows you to focus on specific tasks rather than getting distracted along the way.
7. Flexibility
Flexibility is required to adapt to changing circumstances. As a tutor, you will encounter situations which require flexibility, such as unexpected changes in schedule and unforeseen obstacles.
8. Knowledgeable
As a tutor, you need to know what you’re talking about so that you can effectively communicate your ideas to students.
9. Positive Attitude
To motivate students, you need to adopt a positive mindset. If you look around you, you’ll see plenty of individuals who seem happy despite facing difficulties.
10. Responsiveness
Responsive communication is key to effective interaction between teachers and pupils. The best tutors respond quickly to questions from students, allowing them to ask further clarifications before moving onto another topic.
11. Patient
Patience is one of those attributes that seems simple enough, but not everyone possesses it. Some people take too long to do things, especially if they’re unsure of themselves.
Patience also has its limits. For example, if someone keeps asking you the same question repeatedly, then it might be time to let go.
12. Encouragement
Encouraging students is crucial for success. Without encouragement, no amount of effort will lead to results.
13. Adaptability
Adapting to change is a necessity, since life never remains static. Therefore, a dedicated learner should possess the ability to adjust his/her study habits accordingly.
14. Self-discipline
Self discipline means having control over oneself. This includes controlling emotions like anger, frustration, impatience, and jealousy.
It’s important to remain calm when dealing with tough issues. Otherwise, you may lose your temper and make mistakes.
How to become an English tutor?
You don’t need any special skills to tutor. All you need is determination, passion, persistence and dedication. You could even offer private lessons while working full time.
But there are some basic requirements:
- A good knowledge of grammar rules and vocabulary.
- Good listening skills.
- Bachelor’s degree or higher.
- At least 3 years teaching experience at high school level.
- Proficiency in spoken and written English.
- Experience working with young learners / teenagers aged 10–18 years old.
- Ability to work independently.
- Strong organisational skills.
- Excellent interpersonal skills.
- An interest in helping others improve their common language abilities.
- Some experience working with children would certainly help!
What are your skills and experience?
Before starting out on this path, consider whether you want to teach adults or kids. Adults demand more attention than kids.
In addition, adult learners usually appreciate feedback better because they feel responsible for improving their own performance.
Kids often prefer activities where they can enjoy playing without worrying about grades.
Do you have previous training and experience? Do you already work outside school hours? Have you ever taught anyone else? These are all factors that influence the type of curriculum you choose.
There are many types of courses available to prepare you for becoming a teacher. Choose whatever suits you best.
The different types of tutoring
Tutoring comes in various forms, such as individual or private sessions, group classes and online tutoring.
Each method requires specific preparation and practice.
- Private tutoring
Private tutoring is a one-on-one learning experience that takes place in a student’s home or a private setting, usually led by a certified teacher or tutor.
Individual sessions allow you to focus 100% of your energy on each student individually. However, you’ll likely end up spending most of your time waiting around for clients who won’t show up.
- Group tutoring
Group tutoring is where a tutor works with a few students at the same time.
Tutoring can supplement formal education, improve grades, provide extra help, and prepare for college entrance examinations.
Group classes are ideal for busy parents looking for quick answers to common problems.
Students learn by interacting with each other rather than just answering questions posed by the teacher. Although group classes require less planning, they still involve a lot of coordination.
- Online tutoring
Online tutoring is tutoring conducted over the Internet. Students and choice of tutors can communicate and from anywhere in the world.
Online tutorials are small English lessons that teach you specific skills. These tutorials are usually shorter than the same tutorial that you would find on CDs or DVDs.
Online tutorial services are convenient ways to get extra income while learning new content. They provide immediate access to the latest information through video lectures combined with interactive exercises.
However, these methods lack face-to-face contact, which makes them harder to master.
Tips for your first tutoring session
Good tutoring sessions start with a firm foundation of respect and trust between the tutor and the student.
The first session with your tutor can be stressful, especially if you’re new to tutoring jobs.
Here are some tips to ensure you and your first-time tutor will be off to a great start:
1. Check your materials beforehand.
It’s important to make sure students have everything they need before your session starts.
Of course, there may be some last minute questions, but check that they have their homework, that you have all the materials you need, and that they’re ready to get started.
2. Start by reviewing what was done previously.
Ask them how things went in class yesterday. Was it easy to understand? Did they do well? What did they learn from doing so well? Ask about their strengths and weaknesses.
3. Explain why certain topics were covered.
Explain to your students why you chose the topic you did for today’s lesson. If you cover too much material during one lesson, ask which parts they found most interesting and useful.
4. Make sure everyone understands the objectives of each activity.
Make sure they know exactly what they’ll be expected to accomplish. Don’t expect them to remember every detail of the lesson unless they’ve been told ahead of time.
5. Provide simple instructions.
Tell them exactly what to do. For example, “Read chapter five.” Or “Answer question number four”
6. Give lots of examples.
If possible, give real-life situations when appropriate. This helps reinforce concepts such as punctuation marks and capitalisation.
7. Encourage participation.
Encouraging active learning is an effective way to engage students and keep them interested throughout the entire session.
8. Set realistic goals.
Don’t set impossible expectations for them. You don’t want to discourage them from trying hard. Instead, tell them what they should aim for – not necessarily what you’d like them to achieve.
9. Keep track of progress.
Have a notebook handy to record notes about specific areas of concern. The next day, review those points together and see if they’ve improved.
10. Remember to reward good behaviour.
Giving praise or rewards motivates people to continue working on tasks even after completing them successfully.
11. Use positive reinforcement.
When something goes wrong, calmly explain what happened instead of punishing the student immediately.
It might help to say something like, “That’s okay; we still got through this part!”
12. Take breaks.
You shouldn’t feel pressured into giving your full attention to any task at once. Allow yourself to take short breaks occasionally.
They refresh your energy and allow you to return more focused and energised than if you hadn’t taken a break.
13. Build rapport quickly.
A successful relationship begins right away. Show interest in your business students’ lives. Find out who they hang around with, what games they play, and what movies they watch.
14. Enjoy yourself
Remember that learning comes naturally only through practice. So relax and take pleasure in every moment spent together.
Remember that the most effective way to motivate a range of students is by showing them you care. Ask lots of open-ended questions during your conversation.
Advantages of tutoring in English
There are many benefits to tutoring English students, including:
- Assisting university students in their education goals
- Helping A level student improve their grades and/or standardised test scores
- Assisting English language learners
- Assisting English student in better understanding their coursework
- Assisting students in improving analytical and critical thinking skills, and in developing good study habits
- College-age students mostly benefit because teachers focus more on helping struggle learners rather than correcting mistakes.
Benefits of tutoring English as a teacher:
- It can help build self-confidence
- It can help develop strong communication skills
- Helping others learn English may also lead to new friendships
- Learning how to speak another language will make it easier to communicate with native speakers later on
- It opens up opportunities for travel
English tutoring is fun because I get to work with different personalities.
Some kids just need encouragement while other kids have superior standards, so being able to teach them all well keeps me motivated.
The best thing about teaching children is seeing them grow and become happy adults. When I first started tutoring my son, he was shy but now he’s talking and understands his studies much better.
Disadvantages of tutoring English
Using tutoring services is a very popular way to learn English, but they’re not always the best option. If you want to learn English, online tutoring may not be the most efficient way to learn.
The disadvantages of tutoring English as a private tutor include the fact that you will have to learn a new language, you will have a lot of responsibility, and you need a lot of patience.
- The quality of instruction varies from person to person.
- You won’t know exactly where your potential students stand academically or socially before starting lessons. This makes it difficult to gauge whether you should continue working with someone.
- Online courses don’t offer personal interaction between instructor and learned. As a result, some people felt lonely when using an online service.
- Learning English isn’t easy. It requires constant effort. Some people aren’t cut out to do so.
- Here are no real consequences for making mistakes. Mistakes happen — there’s no one to scold you except yourself.
- Many companies charge large amounts per lesson.
How can I make my English class more interesting?
If you want to keep your classes lively, try giving your students tasks that require them to think.
Having the students work together to make an interesting lesson is a great way to make things interesting.
Here are some examples:
Have each student come prepared with ten words, at least five syllables long, which means something similar to what they would like to say if asked a question such as “What does this word tell us?”.
After listening to everyone else, ask each group member to explain their answer to the rest of the class.
Then discuss why the answers were given and give feedback on any answers that might need improvement.
Give each student two minutes to write everything they remember from today’s lecture. They must use only those items they learned today; anything they already knew goes into the list, too.
Allow each group to compare notes and then add together all the lists in order to see who remembered the most things. The winner gets extra credit!
Another way to make your class interesting:
1. You can make your English class more interesting by researching new ideas for topics. You can also include real-life examples to make your lesson more engaging.
2. You can try teaching songs, creating games, or watching movies. The more interesting the lesson, the more likely your class will keep the information.
3. You can make your English class more interesting by bringing in books, newspapers, and magazines in English.
4. One way to make English class more interesting is to learn about the language’s history.
5.You can also change up your routine by changing your seating arrangement or changing your seating arrangements by learning in different areas of the classroom.
6. You can make your English class more interesting by creative writing an essay about a level of experience that made you realise that English is important.
Final Words
In conclusion, tutors have a lot of things to look out for being a good tutor. They have to have a correct tutoring method.
The tutor should be an excellent writer and should have a great vocabulary. The full-time tutor should also be a good listener and should have a good flow of communication.
As a tutor, it’s important to remember that students aren’t just there for you to correct or grade. Students want to learn, and it’s your job as a freelance tutor to help them on their path.
As you can see, there are many ways to be a good tutor and it helps if you remember that students want to learn and want to meet with you.