Whether through schools, institutes or online platforms like StudyMind: Many parents and students are looking for private tutors for their homes! It goes without saying that tutoring as a student is a popular part-time job.
But not all tutors are the same!
In addition to the most varied forms of tutoring – group lessons, homework help, for students or pupils – the teachers (unfortunately) often differ in their quality. This is not surprising, because it takes a lot of specialist knowledge, pedagogical instinct, knowledge of human nature and creativity to be able to give good tutoring! For instance, in this site,https://www.studymind.co.uk/subject/gcse-chemistry-tutors, the GCSE chemistry tutor provides extensive tutoring in the same scenario. If you want to learn more, want to get tips for good tutoring or need more suggestions for prospective private teachers, the following is an overview of the most important elements for successful private lessons.
The ideal process for tutoring
Unprepared to go to a tutoring session is risky and can lead to you and your students the overview will lose. That doesn’t help anyone. Although improvisation and spontaneity are definitely important, a well-prepared process will contribute enormously to the success of your tutoring.
How do I best structure my private tutoring?
Unfortunately, there is no single answer to this, because every student and teacher is different and learns in their own way. Here are six steps and basic rules that can help you structure your lessons well:
- Take time to identify student needs;
- Set concrete course goals together;
- Adapts the lesson structure to the student;
- Support the learning process by evaluating progress;
- Rewards your student’s efforts;
- Be open to feedback!
Of course, these are only general rules that should also be adjusted depending on the type of tutoring – such as for intensive courses, language lessons or group tutoring! However, communication with the students – and often the parents too – is always decisive!
The first meeting plays an important role, which shouldn’t be about professional help, but about setting expectations and getting to know each other. Why does my student need tutor? Why did his parents contact me? What should be achieved? Where are the difficulties? Are any learning problems more of a content or methodological nature?
Not only the technical skills are required here, but above all the pedagogical skills! You should maintain this honest and open communication in the course of your joint lessons. Because you will surely get to know your student even better. This means that you can adapt your lesson design to him or her even better. Thanks to this individual support, your open ear & your motivation, you will certainly be able to quickly notice progress in the child’s learning process!
How can I give good tutoring?
This question is of course closely related to the previous point. The same applies here: There is no one-size-fits-all recipe with which you can bake a good lesson! However, there are a few ingredients that are essential to becoming a good tutor. The first question you should probably ask yourself: Am I made for this job? Of course, expertise is a very important factor. What is just as important, however, are interpersonal skills: an open ear, patience, curiosity and empathy are very important when working with a tutor. Because the children and adolescents often lack positive attention, care and consequently the motivation to work on their tasks.
In everyday school life, individual students can drown in the crowd of their classmates – because a teacher cannot deal with 30 children at the same time.
As part of private lessons, you can give your pupil the lack of individual support and help them to have fun learning again!
Keep asking yourself – and your student (!) – the following two questions:
- What expectations does my student have?
- Where exactly is my student having difficulties?
With these questions in mind, you can then tailor your lessons to the needs of your protégé.
Regardless of whether you want to teach English as a foreign or second language, give math tutoring or give music lessons: It is always important to listen carefully to your student and to take into account the individual needs of the class.
Finally, here are some valuable tips to make your time together more entertaining:
- Install learning apps on your smartphone and integrate them into the tutoring lesson (e.g. vocabulary trainer or dictionaries).
- Review online courses and recommend them to your student. You can also do this together or give it as homework.
- Use Dailymotion videos or YouTube tutorials as an introduction, visualization or additional explanation for the subject matter.
- Conduct online tests together to get to know your student or to evaluate their progress.
Thanks to tutoring, you can recognize the individual difficulties of students and strengthen their potential
Nobody really likes to be approached about their mistakes! And students who are subject to grading and often the associated criticism all day long understandably have even less desire in their free time to deal with their weak points. But this is precisely what private tutoring is about.
It’s about working together on the difficulties students have. And for such individual support in the context of private tuition, you need a lot of pedagogical instinct.
You should point out to your student his weak points and work on them without demotivating him or her! It helps to take turns dealing with the stronger subjects and topics of the student, so that the student’s self-confidence is strengthened and he / she notices that you believe in him!
But how do I even recognize my student’s difficulties?
Here, too, it becomes clear that good and open communication with your student is the be-all and end-all of a successful tutoring! You can also carry out small tests at the beginning and during the course of the class. But make it clear here that these are only there to see what you still have to work on together!
The parents of the student are also often good contacts. Include them in the dialogue to find out their point of view. They can share their observations with you so that you can better identify where your student needs more support.
How do I deal with these difficulties?
In order to be able to answer this question, the individual case must of course be taken into account.
Depending on the “construction site” and the character of the child, you should react differently and orient your lessons accordingly.
However, the following bullet points could help you a lot:
- Combines theory with practice! Explain to your student where they can apply what they have learned. Or integrate his hobbies into joint exercises.
- Motivate your student by believing in him, empowering him and addressing his interests! Take enough breaks and go out into the fresh air together.
- Integrates memory training & regular reading promotion in your lessons!
Teach your student how to organize and organize themselves well. Creates common lesson plans and learning plans.
