International TEFL InstituteTutoring – Teaching English One-to-One
Tutoring is an extremely beneficial approach to education. Students who work one-on-one with a professional TEFL teacher have positive learning experiences, improved attitudes and self-perception, leading to increased confidence, and better grades. Students report feeling more confident and enthusiastic and parents feel more relaxed and secure knowing their child is receiving professional one-on-one support. Tutoring can also be extremely rewarding on both a personal level and financially.
Here are some guidelines for tutoring:
Get to know your student
When meeting your student for the first time, it is important to take some time to get to know your student on a personal level. Try and establish some common interests and initiate positive communication. Make sure you are able to say your student’s name correctly and that your student knows your name.
A constructive learning environment
Ensure that your tutoring takes place in a relatively quiet location with little or no distractions. Check that you and the student have everything needed for the lesson to avoid interruptions.
Establishing an appropriate level
It is a good idea to begin tutoring at a level your student can cope with and one that provides a certain degree of success. After listening and observing your student for some time, you will be able to establish his / her level. Be prepared to be flexible in your teaching methods and approaches to suit the particular student’s personality and learning needs. It is important to assess the student’s strengths and weaknesses to formulate an approach that will best help them improve. It is also important to remember that some students are quiet and reserved and may take some time to open up to you so take heed of the subtle ways in which they may try and tell you what they are thinking, how they feel and whether they really understand.
Beginning
Once you have established areas of weakness and have formulated a step-by-step plan for helping the student, ensure that the student understands what needs to be done. This will give you and your student clearly defined objectives to work towards and will provide the student with a sense of progress and success every time one of the set goals has been accomplished.
Motivate your student
It is essential that you attempt to keep your student motivated. This will involve a certain measure of creativity and imagination. Furthermore, try and divide your lesson into a number of short sections to maintain interest and change the pace. You may wish to begin with a “warmer” to set the tone and transition into your lesson. This may be followed by ten minutes of reading, ten minutes for a fun communicative activity, then 15 minutes for writing etc.
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