Becoming a great tutor in English needs a combination of elements and factors. To be a great English teacher, here is what to do at a glance:
- Have a warm-up discussion with your students in English
- Understand their relationship with English
- Figure out the reason they want to learn English
- Assess their English level with two simple tests
By doing some of the points that I mentioned above, you can showcase that you are a good teacher who knows what to do and understands student’s needs and preferences. Now it’s time to delve deeper into the world of How to be a good English tutor and understand how you can improve your skills to become a better version of yourself in the teaching realm.
Understand Your Student’s Learning Needs and Adapt to Them
According to the article How to Adapt Your Teaching Strategies to Student Needs there are many methods you can use to understand your student’s needs and try to adapt your teaching style to them. Suppose your students have difficulty understanding your accent or do not have strong listening skills. In that case, you can speak a little bit slower and try to pronounce every word completely. As time goes by, you can speak faster and challenge your students to improve themselves.
For instance, if your students have problems with writing various texts, you can use the following list of methods to help your students:
- Use games such as Scrabble
- Directly teach them how to write
- Use graphs and infographic tables for better learning
- Let them write on paper or type in a computer
- Provide them with outlines for their texts
Help your student develop a good foundation in English grammar, pronunciation, and vocabulary.
First of all, dedicate a whole session to assessment. Make sure you ask all sorts of questions to find out what your students need to learn and where they need improvement and try to create an outline of their weaknesses. Now, find resources that are toward your outline and include all aspects of the learning process, such as grammar, pronunciation, and vocabulary.
Develop a Lesson Plan That is Tailored to the Individual Needs of Your Student
A lesson plan is like a light at the end of a tunnel. It helps teachers and students get out of the darkness and understand what is being taught. After you understand what are the specific needs of your students, make a lesson plan for them that goes into detail about the learning objectives and materials. According to the English Tutoring Lesson Plans | English Lesson Plan Template article, you need to prepare a lesson plan for each session. Evaluate the needs of your students, find the right resources, identify the goals, and predict how much each task is going to take. Now, you can put all your data in a lesson plan such as below:
Prepare for each tutoring session by creating an outline or agenda that covers the topics to be discussed.
An outline or agenda is similar to a lesson plan. However, the difference lies in the fact that, at times, you need to hand out the lesson plan to your students, but the agenda is only for teachers. You can use it for yourself to remind yourself of the objectives that you are going to cover each session.
Utilize different teaching strategies such as role-play, storytelling, and problem-solving techniques.
Students can learn in many different ways. What do I mean by that? Some students are visual learners. They learn by watching videos, understanding pictures, and interesting infographics. Storytelling and role-playing also play an important part in a student’s learning process. These activities captivate the student’s attention and engage them in fun activities that reinforce the things they have learned.
Be patient with your student and provide support throughout the learning process.
Patience is key for any tutor. Whether you are an online English tutor or a math teacher, having patience while dealing with students is key. Try to listen to them carefully so you can understand their needs and give them custom solutions for their problems. The best tutors are those who can understand their student’s needs and provide the best answer in a format that is digestible by their pupils.
Encourage Your Students to Practice Their English Skills Outside of Class Time
According to the article How to Successfully Teach English One-to-One, for online tutors, teaching one-to-one can be a challenging task in the beginning. However, as time goes by and you get to know your student one session after another, you need to encourage them to pursue their educational endeavors outside of class as well. Introduce some helpful materials so that they can watch, read, or practice at their own pace whenever they need it. Try to inform them of materials that help them in more than one skill. For instance, watching a video while writing down the scripts can be good practice.
Design your student’s learning goals in a way that you get to encourage them whenever they have achieved a milestone, no matter how small or big. This comes from assessments or quizzes that you take as well. This encouragement can be verbal or in the form of extra points or even a fun surprise.
Make Use of Various Digital Tools
Various digital tools out there can help you run a tutoring session more smoothly. Online Dictionaries and Grammar Lessons are two of the best examples out there. Using digital tools can help students comprehend more complex subjects such as grammar more easily. Online dictionaries help students to access the meaning and example of any word they want at any moment’s notice and other tools such as online grammar lessons and quizzes make learning these subjects smoother.
Know the Material You Are Teaching
One of the most important tips you need to remember at all times is that you need to be familiar with the English Language, Grammar Rules, and Writing Conventions. Why? As you begin your teaching career or you are already advancing your tutoring skills, it’s vital to have a grasp of the material you are teaching. The more you know and understand the content you are teaching, the more confidence you will have in tutoring various students.
Are you looking for English-speaking tutoring jobs? Join Ostado
In Ostado, we proudly offer our tutors the benefit of our six years of experience in the private tutor space. Becoming a tutor in Ostado is a remote job where every tutor can teach from anywhere and anytime. Our selection process ensures that only the best tutors are chosen to join our team, and we closely monitor our tutors’ performance to provide the highest quality education possible.
As an Ostado tutor, you’ll have professional growth and development opportunities as we recruit tutors based on the number of requests in each course and try to make our tutors do as much as possible. Additionally, each tutor is assigned a dedicated supporter who takes care of administrative tasks quickly and efficiently, freeing up time for you to focus on teaching.
What is the best online English tutoring website?
Remote tutoring jobs at Ostado for English teaching include duties that each teacher must meet. These duties include various responsibilities to facilitate practical learning experiences in a virtual environment.
- A private online teacher must have sufficient knowledge and expertise. Online English tutoring jobs require skilled and motivated teachers.
- The private teacher is responsible for preparing and presenting attractive lessons and must adapt to the learning level of the language learner with various teaching methods.
- An online English tutor must create a supportive and motivating environment and actively participate with his students.
- Assessing student progress, providing constructive feedback, and handling learner problems are other parts of the duties of private online English tutors.
- The private teacher is vital in expanding the study, organizing resources, and providing valuable suggestions to improve learning.
Ultimately, the duties of an online English tutor revolve around fostering academic growth, positive learning experiences, and empowering the learners to achieve their goals.
Become an Online English Tutor at Ostado. Join us!
● How to find students to tutor English online?
Go to the Ostado website and register as an online English tutor; we will evaluate your resume, and after qualifying, you can have an introduction page on the Ostado website. Many students worldwide can see your resume as an online private teacher. Join Ostado Tutors and increase your income with a remote tutoring job!
Listen Carefully To Your Student’s Questions and Concerns
Having great listening skills is an important factor that we have mentioned many times. It is so simple, yet a great number of teachers ignore this. As is mentioned in the Ten Tips for Listening to Our Students article, you need to listen carefully to what your students are telling you. Then, you need to show them in a way that you have fully listened to them and understand what they have said. Practice to create a calm environment when there is comfortable silence. Then answer their questions based on your knowledge and also reference what they have mentioned earlier.
Use a Variety of Instructional Methods
There are many instructional methods that tutors can use to make things more fun and more interactive. The use of lectures, discussions, activities, written assignments, and reading/writing exercises can enhance the class dynamics and create a great atmosphere for students to thrive. Here is a list of some of the best instructional methods an online English tutor can use:
Remain Patient, When Teaching Difficult Concepts and Troubleshoot Common Mistakes
Keeping your composure as a tutor goes beyond teaching. When you are facing difficulty with your students, whether it is answering their questions or trying to teach them something, it is important to take it back a step, think it through, and try to troubleshoot it again. It is alright to take some time to think about how you can solve this problem and then let your pupils know. Just make sure to tackle this issue in the best way possible.
Provide constructive criticism of student’s work while also encouraging their efforts.
Encouraging is great and leads to confidence. However, encouragement without constructive criticism is nothing. As a tutor, you need to be able to give criticism of your student’s work whenever needed. Praise their efforts, but also call out the times they have lacked to get something done. Make sure you inform them of the fact that you have noticed this issue in their performance and give them solutions on how they can improve it.
Being a good tutor in English is not as hard as reaching the top of Mount Everest. All you need to do is gain some of the relative skills or improve them and then try to understand your students. Clear communication with honesty is the best approach. Try to be honest, listen to your students carefully, create an engaging and positive environment for them to learn and now you are on the path to be an amazing tutor!
FAQ:
How can I be an effective English tutor?
Here are some of the specific skills that may help you be a successful Online English tutor:
- Communication
- Organizational skills
- Active listening
- Lesson planning skills
- Patience
What would make you a good English tutor?
A good English teacher can build strong rapport, is a good listener who understands that each student is unique, is professional and reliable, and motivates students in the right way.
What is the hardest part of being a tutor?
Tutoring can be rewarding and fun but also demanding and frustrating at times. As a tutor, you may face challenges such as a lack of progress and feedback or even a lack of support. Your students may also lose their interest, confidence, or enthusiasm when they face obstacles.
How do you know if a tutor is good?
Here are 3 factors that you can find in a good tutor:
- Giving simple explanations of concepts
- Being patient and listening to students
- Having transparent communication skills
What is an Ideal tutor?
An ideal tutor is an experienced teacher who has experience in delivering the curriculum in several ways and can adjust teaching for different learning styles.
What are the 5 steps of teaching English?
Here are 5 essential steps to teaching English:
- Presentation with Recognition
- Demonstrating Comprehension
- Explaining Grammar
- Practicing Exercises
