Tutors, Inc.

UPCOMING: Tutors, Inc. Workshop

2012-01-11T11:01:00.000-08:00

TUTORS, INC

In this workshop you will learn how to start and successfully run your ESL tutoring business. You will learn the basics of what makes you a successful ESL tutor and entrepreneur. By the end of the workshop you will have valuable ready-to-use tools in the form of a portfolio that you can use directly with your students. Topics include: marketing your service, teaching methods 1:1, setting your prices, lesson plans, resources, motivating your students, adding value to your service, common mistakes and problems, challenging your students, time-management and many more. Students please bring a bag lunch.

Course number #BV87

Cost: $52

Saturday February 25, 2012 @ 9:00am-3:30pm
New Westminster Secondary School

Registration now open!
Call: 604.517.6345
or visit www.ce40.ca

A European Perspective

2011-01-09T08:34:00.000-08:00

I am in Europe at the moment and I am curious to find out what tutors here do to have a successful tutoring practice... in other words, I am curious to know how they do it :)

It seems that most of the tutors are still stuck with the old methods of teaching - "I know everything and my students learn what I say" or "Questions from students on things I have already taught them is a sign that they have not done their homework or memorized the material". Unfortunately, you can see the same methods in private extra-curricular schools where students are supposed to get a "different" learning environment than the one in their public schools. It seems that teachers use the same methods of teaching expecting different results. I have heard so many parents say: "We paid so much for a private tutor and my kid hasn't learned anything more than what they teach at school." And I am not surprised. I tried to explain to a friend of mine that she should have a better understanding of how a private tutor approaches their students and how they teach the material. This preliminary "interview" is necessary in order to set the expectations on both sides.

Another conflict I see in Europe is the fact that word-of-mouth is extremely strong and yet parents and students are not happy with a tutor. So how do people refer tutors to their friends if they are not happy with the service? I mean the concept of "word-of-mouth" suggests good (or bad) publicity and yet tutors get referred although they haven't really been entirely helpful. My only guess is, if a tutor has a certain old fashioned teaching style and has, say, 20 students, 7 or 8 of them will find this style appropriate for their learning style and the results will actually be satisfactory. It could be a match between teaching and learning styles, help from the parents, or short-term learning achieved only for a test at school and later disappears. The rest of the students will struggle with this teaching style. They will not find it helpful. However they will reluctantly continue attending the lessons because 7 or 8 of thier friends find the tutor good. Applying the old fashioned thinking, parents compare their kids to the successful ones and think that their kids are not smart enough to achieve what the 7 or 8 other kids have achieved. In other words, if a tutor is referred by so many (7 or 8) kids, my kids should be able to learn as well regardless of their continued poor academic performance. In fact, their poor performance is due to my kids' lack of learning skills/habits and the fact that they are not as smart as the other 7 or 8 kids. How strange is it that no one even for a second entertains the idea of trying another tutor? Or two? Or three? Finding a tutor is difficult. It is sometimes related to poor qualifications or teaching skills. But most times it is related to a mismatch in learning objectives of the tutor and learning style of the student. Often it is related to a mismatch in personalities if you will. I am amazed how this possibility doesn't even occur to parents or even adult learners.

Somehow in North America, and more specifically Canada, the choice of a tutor is a process rather than a one-time event. Instead of deciding to go with a tutor only because their friends are happy with him/her, students require to meet and talk with this tutor ahead of time. The so-called trial lessons are extremely popular and important. All of my tutor friends offer trial lessons and consider meeting with the student before both sides decide if they want work together. At the trial lesson the student asks questions about teaching methods, homework, etc. The tutor explains what the expectatations are and how they are going to help the student reach their goals. One of the first questions I always ask my new students at the trial lesson is: "Why do you need these lessons? What do you need to learn English for? Is it for work or for fun?". These are important matching points - can we work together and how do I need to approach this student so I can teach them in the best for them way?

Pro-D Day - Reward Yourself!

2010-11-08T23:28:00.000-08:00

Pro-D and the word "reward" in one sentence? That is a joke, right?!

Wrong! Everyone needs professional development - we are life-long learners after all. But pro-d doesn't have to be the worst nightmare of all teachers. Everyone is scared of "d-day"... as if it's the end of the world. And with its current format it may as well qualify as the end ... of happiness, motivation, drive. It's true. Today's pro-d days are considered the most boring and least anticipated time that a teacher can spend. Listening to a speaker, participating in a seminar or workshop, reading latest research, etc. How bad can it get? (Forum discussion on pro-d day from Castanet.net)

Instead of following the usual format... why not reward yourself with a "me" pro-d day? It is about your own personal development as a teacher, isn't it? Spend the time doing the things your like, the things about teaching that make your happy. This is a well known technique that companies use to motivate their employees and get new fresh ideas to the company. All employees get one day per week or month when they can do whatever they want as long as they come up with new ideas for the business. They go hiking, visit a museum, go to the beach... anything. At the end of the day they bring an idea to the team and describe their inspiration. Why can't this be applied in teacher professional development?

Instead of chasing what is new in the world of education, look for what you need in your own world first and if you can't find it yourself, look for it outside. So go backwards... spend the day brainstorming ideas on how to make your teaching better. What are the things that will make your students happy and motivated? How can you transform your lessons into fun learning experiences? Sit down and mind-map your teaching. Revisit older lesson plans and reflect on what you have already done. Once you determine the areas of opportunity/development, try to improve them. Use your existing knowledge and creativity to add flavour to your lessons.

Then sit back and take a look at what needs to be improved but requires additional knowledge or information you don't have at the moment. This is when research and innovation begins. Search the academic articles and new technologies, innovative ideas and even suggestions from fellow teachers on blogs, forums, and other social media. Watch an educational video, talk to a coworker, go to the library, find out more information and idea that will bring a sparkle in your students learning.

Go back home and revisit your teaching portfolio. See what part of the new information you can include. Consider meeting with other teachers to discuss your findings. See what they have to suggest.

Remember, pro-d is about self-development and discovery. It's not just about learning new things. It's about learning about you and your own teaching. It's about becoming an outside observer of your classroom. It's about motivation and fun. After all, you cannot make your lessons fun if you are not having fun while creating them.

It's the "why" that should drive us

2010-07-18T18:11:00.000-07:00

Tutors have an amazing power - we actually incorporate everything that education at large should be. I mean, think about it:

1. Smaller classes We usually have one or two students or perhaps a small group of 4 or 5 people.

2. Student-centered It can't get more personalized, student-center than this - tutoring is all about addressing student needs.

3. Motivation to teach and learn Both tutors and students are motivated to teach and learn respectively. I mean it's the students who choose their tutors and it's the tutors who "advertise" to students. Our students aren't usually "assigned" to our class. They called us because they have a learning need and they heard we could help. That motivation makes the energy and learning environment extremely effective.

4. The tutor is a mediator, not a "know-it-all" We are there to facilitate learning, not "make" someone learn something. Usually our students come to us with a specific task in mind, we figure out their particular learning style and we accomplish maximum amount of achievement in a minimum amount of time.

5. ...for a minimum amount of budget Yes, when you think about it, there is never a budget shortage or a crisis to negatively impact learning. How many time have you told your students: "Sorry I couldn't make copies because I didn't have money today".

6. We start with the WHY What is the regular school's principle of operation (and that's why it's so boring too): "We have a school, which will teach you how to be successful in life by predicting where you might have problems later in life - so you MUST come to us" How does tutoring work: "Have you already experienced a difficulty? We have a method to solve exactly that problem you are having. So do you WANT to sign up with us?"

Upcoming Events!

2010-06-27T14:15:00.000-07:00

Tutors, Inc. Workshop

Starts:	Saturday October 16, 2010, 09:00AM
Ends:	Saturday October 16, 2010, 03:30PM
Event Type:	Training/Seminar
Location:	New Westminster Secondary School 835 8 St New Westminster, BC V3M 3S9 CA
Price:	CAD $57
Website:	http://www.ce40.ca/GI.html
Industry:	education management
Keywords:	tutor, workshop, ESL
Intended For:
Organization:

In tough economic times, we try to find sources of extra income. In this workshop you will learn how to start and successfully run your ESL tutoring business. You will learn the basics of what makes you a successful ESL tutor and entrepreneur. By the end of the workshop you will have valuable ready-to-use tools in the ...form of a portfolio that you can use directly with your students. Topics include: marketing your service, teaching methods 1:1, setting your prices, lesson plans, resources, motivating your students, adding value to your service, common mistakes and problems, challenging your students, time-management and many more.

"Spread the Word: Marketing for Tutors" (part of Tutors, Inc. Workshop series)

Starts:	Wednesday October 20, 2010, 07:00PM
Ends:	Wednesday October 20, 2010, 10:00PM
Event Type:	Training/Seminar
Location:	New Westminster Secondary School 835 8 St New Westminster, BC V3M 3S9 CA
Price:	CA$ 57
Website:	http://www.ce40.ca/GI.html
Industry:	education management
Keywords:	marketing, tutor, ESL, workshop
Intended For:
Organization:	E.S.Team (Educational Solutions Team)

In this workshop you will learn in detail how to plan, produce, and distribute your marketing materials in an effective way. Choose your marketing materials and create your first tutoring service ad, flier, business cards, blog, etc. Receive feedback from peers and the instructor on how to use them to sell your service. Learn how to set your prices and use them to offer attractive deals for your potential students. Learn what the best way to market your services is and how to go about creating it.

"Resources for Tutors" (part of the Tutors, Inc. Workshop series)

Starts:	Wednesday October 27, 2010, 07:00PM
Ends:	Wednesday October 27, 2010, 10:00PM
Event Type:	Training/Seminar
Location:	New Westminster Secondary School 835 8 St New Westminster, BC V3M 3S9 CA
Price:	CA$57
Website:	http://www.ce40.ca/GI.html
Industry:	education management
Keywords:	resources, tutor, workshop, ESL
Intended For:
Organization:	E.S.Team (Educaitional Solutions Team)

Find out about valuable resources that you can use directly in your lessons. Learn how to find ready materials as well as how to create your own tailored to your specific students. Share effective materials that have worked for you in the past. Learn how to search for resources and carefully select the ones that are effective. Discuss materials that fit the format of your tutoring: online, face-to-face, or both.

"Teaching Methodoly for Tutors" (part of the Tutors, Inc. Workshop series)

Starts:	Wednesday November 03, 2010, 07:00PM
Ends:	Wednesday November 03, 2010, 10:00PM
Event Type:	Training/Seminar
Location:	New Westminster Secondary School 835 8 St New Westminster, BC V3M 3S9 CA
Price:	CA$ 57
Website:	http://www.ce40.ca/GI.html
Industry:	education management
Keywords:	methodology, teaching, tutor, workshop, ESL
Intended For:
Organization:	E.S.Team (Educational Solutions Team)

Grammar & Writing (1 hour) In this component you will learn how to teach grammar and what it takes to significantly improve your students’ grammar. Learn how to use writing to teach and correct grammar. Learn how to teach essay writing, help your students write their resume, short stories, etc.
Speaking & Conversation (1 hour) In this component you will learn methods to effectively correct mistakes during a conversation, how to start a conversation, ask questions to make the conversation flow, and let the student initiate the next one.
Reading and Pronunciation (1 hour) In his component you will learn how to effectively teach reading and pronunciation. Learn methodology that will help you improve your students reading skills and pronunciation as well as techniques for accent reduction.

We need to talk... technology

2010-03-15T12:42:00.000-07:00

I have heard so many teachers say that their students are too tech-savvy and are way ahead of the game when it comes to using technology and multi-tasking. A teenager can text on her phone, read a book and chat online all at the same time without even losing her train of thought. How are teachers supposed to keep up with that? Are they supposed to be even better than that teenager? I mean, a teacher should know more than the student. Right?

Well actually… no. Learning how to multitask is not something you just go to school for to learn. You don’t get a certificate in multitasking. It’s something that comes with the needs of every day life and the way the world works and changes. A teenager in the 60s would have been perfectly happy to sit down and write a letter on paper, fold it, put it in an envelope, and send it by mail to his friend who lives in another country. Then he would have waited for about 20 to 30 days for a response to come back. While writing the letter though, this teenager would have had no way of doing anything else at the same time, because he had to hold the pen, the paper, and put all of his mind into actually putting the words together so the letter makes sense. If he was watching TV at the same time or was walking around the house, his letter will either look ridiculously confusing and out of focus, or will not be readable because we can’t walk and write clearly at the same time.

Nowadays, however, technology completes a few of these steps for us and we don’t even think about it. You can walk (some people even drive) while writing an email or a text message, which you will send with a click of a button. Less than a minute later, your friend who lives abroad will receive it, open it while watching TV or walking, or driving to the local drive-through ATM, and respond to you in detail before the cash comes out of the machine. How long was that? 10 minutes? Less?

So why are we expecting kids to change? And more importantly, why are we expecting us, the people who merely 15 years ago were happy to have saved for a personal computer for the house, to change? We shouldn’t! Life will continue going in the direction of technology and multitasking because this is the coarse of the future. So instead of trying to understand why teenagers are able to put us down by a simple phrase as: “You haven’t heard of Facebook?” with a look of shock in their eyes, we should look into what we can do to actually use this new “power” kids have today.

So when using technology for learning, we should not stress out about not being able to reach the level of tech-savvy-ness of our students because we won’t be able to. The question we need to ask ourselves is whether we need the technology to teach in the first place, and also, if we do, what type of technology will make our teaching more effective? Designing a sophisticated video game is not going to help us teach decision-making any better than using a simple mind-map created with construction paper, scissors and a large sheet of paper to stick all the “bubbles” on. As long as the process is collaborative, your students will appreciate the engagement in the classroom. Besides, remember that you are in charge. You can make a simple tool engaging by altering it, adapting it, and applying it in an effective way.

Having said that, I don’t mean that teachers shouldn’t try to at least be up to date with what technology tools are out there. There are some really good resources that a teacher can use to make teaching interesting and engaging. For example, I have used many podcasts with my ESL tutoring students where I would design my lessons around one topic but I would include different sources and types of information. I found that one of my students was staying at a home-stay family that lived in a very noisy neighbourhood and my student didn’t know how to express her frustration about the situation. She simply didn’t have the vocabulary, confidence, pronunciation, and etc. to come forward and speak with her home-stay coordinator about it. So I prepared a lesson around the problem. I included a textbook passage on “Noisy Neighbours” to focus on vocabulary, sentence structure and grammar. The passage had a few reading comprehension and grammar exercises so we used them in class. I also added a newspaper article about a city’s noisy streets and traffic noise as a discussion piece – we spent almost an hour discussing the article which let her use the vocabulary and grammar while speaking and also practice discussing the topic. I also added a great free podcast in order to enhance listening comprehension, that I downloaded from a website and I also included the transcript of it so my student had a reference to look at when she was listening to the recording at home. The podcast was a story about a noisy neighbour and it was written and read in a funny way so it added some humour to the situation. After all this, my student told me she felt confident to speak with her coordinator and in a couple of weeks she was moved to a new home in a much quieter part of town.

The idea of including different technology into your teaching is not in order to show off to your students that you are tech-savvy. It is to help you teach. So if using cell phones and texting in class is not effective to teach grammar, then you don’t use cell phones and texting in your teaching. It is as simple as that.

Tutors, Inc. Workshop

2010-03-11T14:00:00.001-08:00

TUTORS, INC

In tough economic times, we try to find sources of extra income. In this workshop you will learn how to start and successfully run your ESL tutoring business. You will learn the basics of what makes you a successful ESL tutor and entrepreneur. By the end of the workshop you will have valuable ready-to-use tools in the form of a portfolio that you can use directly with your students. Topics include: marketing your service, teaching methods 1:1, setting your prices, lesson plans, resources, motivating your students, adding value to your service, common mistakes and problems, challenging your students, time-management and many more. Students please bring a bag lunch.

Course number #BV87 1
Cost: $52

Saturday May 15 9:00am-3:30pm
New Westminster Secondary School (ROOM 160C)

Registration starts March 22, 2010
Call: 604.517.6345
or visit www.ce40.ca

New Year's Resolutions

2010-01-13T11:37:00.000-08:00

As tutors, we are constantly making plans, looking at our schedule, envisioning the near and far future. If we don't manage our time and goals properly we may not advance in our work and it will be difficult to achieve long term goals.

What are your new year's resolutions for 2010?
And how are you planning on achieving them?

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

2009-12-24T12:25:00.000-08:00

Dear friends,

Thank you for your continuous support throughout the year. We are looking forward to working with you again in 2010. We wish you a prosperous new year full of new exciting projects and financial success! We wish you lots of health, love and true friendships!

Cheers,

Tutors, Inc.

Tutors, Inc. Workshop

2009-12-06T15:28:00.001-08:00

TUTORS, INC at NWSS

Course #: BV87-2 Cost: $52.00

In tough economic times, we try to find sources of extra income. In this workshop you will learn how to start and successfully run your ESL tutoring business. You will learn the basics of what makes you a successful ESL tutor and entrepreneur. By the end of the workshop you will have valuable ready-to-use tools in the form of a portfolio that you can use directly with your students. Topics include: marketing your service, teaching methods 1:1, setting your prices, lesson plans, resources, motivating your students, adding value to your service, common mistakes and problems, challenging your students, time-management and many more. Students please bring a bag lunch.

Registration starts at 9:00am Monday, January 4^th 2010

Number of sessions: 1
Start date: Feb 6.10
Time: 9:00am - 3:30pm

Days:SAT
Site: NWSS Room 119
Instructor: TEDDY PARVANOVA

Online Workshop Catalog

2009-11-17T11:22:00.000-08:00

Hello friends,

It's been a long wait but the new online workshops catalog is now on our website. Take a look and sign up for the workshops that most interest you. We are preparing a Christmas surprise for all workshop participants.

Details @
http://www.edsolutionsconsulting.com/

See you online! Tutors, Inc.

THANK YOU!

2009-10-18T12:48:00.001-07:00

Huge THANKS to all participants of the Tutors, Inc. workshop this Saturday.
It was a pleasure meeting you and I wish you success in your venture.
Please do not hesitate to contact me if you need further support.
I'm always happy to help! Cheers, Teddy.

Tutors, Inc. Workshop

2009-10-15T12:55:00.000-07:00

TUTORS, INC at NWSS

Course #: BV87-1 Cost: $50.00

'In tough economic times, we try to find sources of extra income. In this workshop you will learn how to start and successfully run your ESL tutoring business. You will learn the basics of what makes you a successful ESL tutor and entrepreneur. By the end of the workshop you will have valuable ready-to-use tools in the form of a portfolio that you can use directly with your students. Topics include: marketing your service, teaching methods 1:1, setting your prices, lesson plans, resources, motivating your students, adding value to your service, common mistakes and problems, challenging your students, time-management, and many more.' Students please bring a bag lunch.

Number of sessions: 1
Start date: Oct 17.09
Time: 9:00am - 3:30pm

Days:SAT
Site: NWSS Room 119
Instructor: TEDDY PARVANOVA

The three basics of being a successful self-employed tutor: Business, Academics & Personal life

2009-04-12T17:51:00.000-07:00

You are a brilliant tutor and have a well-established list of long-term students who refer their friends to you constantly. You spend the time to prepare for each of your students and go the extra mile to be original, creative, and even more entertaining so your students learn effectively while enjoying their lessons with you. Your collection of testimonials is growing and now you almost do not even need to advertise… students call you only because they heard of you from someone else. You have turned into a tutoring celebrity keeping a busy schedule and at the same time desperately trying to sneak in a moment for a massage, run in the park, or even a quiet day of reading at home with your phone off.

Now that you have established your business, you will have the opportunity to step back and look at it as exactly… a business.You are your company. The sooner you realize this fact, the easier it will be for you to maintain it and further develop it. A very good start would be to write down everything that you have achieved so far and then list all the goals you foresee that you will achieve in the future. This simple exercise will give you direction – what are you aiming at? More clients? Sub-contracting other tutors? Increasing your price? Improving the quality of your service? Now that you have all answers (please remember that this is only a beginning point for you and your goals and perspective may change with circumstances or as time goes by) you can draw the map, which will get you there. Your map is your portfolio – business, academic, and personal.

Business
Your business portfolio is going to provide the financials and business development information. Create a system of filing every piece of paper that will be relevant to your business. Example of documents you will need:

Revenue spreadsheets: expense and profit
Include both current (where you are) and future (where you want to be in a certain period of time). Record all discounts, sample lessons, promotions, etc. Include everything that brings or spends money from your bank account. The easiest way to keep track of all profit and expenses is by creating invoices/receipts for your clients. Number and date them and file them accordingly – by student name, by topic, or by date. Meanwhile, keep all receipts from your purchases and expenses for accurate calculation of your costs. Remember that as a business owner (even if you don’t have a registered company or business name you must keep these records; in Canada you don’t need to register a company if your revenue is under $30 000/year – consult with an accountant!) you must provide all income sources and write off eligible expenses when you file your income tax. Your business revenue is your personal revenue if you are a sole-proprietor or have a home-based business.

Marketing: Ad campaigns and referrals
Record all your advertising sources and keep track of how students hear about you. This will show you which sources are worth expanding and which you need to stay away from. For example, if you have been paying $100/month for a newspaper ad but no students actually found you through it, you will not need that expense and it is a dead-end source. If you spent 2 days and $200 to print and distribute flyers and 80% of your students come to you with this very flyer in hand, then maybe you should relocate the $100 from the newspaper ad into printing out more flyers and even pay someone to distribute them for you.

Keeping track of all referrals is extremely important. Who sent whom to you? Are you going to give some sort of reward for the person who referred 3 new students to you? Record all relationships of your students who refer other people to you. Maybe you have included a “buddy discount” in your ad campaign and now people are taking advantage of it. Make sure you know whom these people are. Give them incentive to keep sending you students and reward them for “working” for you.

Academics
Your academic “map” scripts who you are as a tutor and educator. This is your academic portfolio where you store your teaching materials, research, articles, professional development pieces, ready-to-use materials, demonstration materials, sample lessons plans, etc. This virtual academic bank starts with your educational philosophy and goals, and finishes… never. This is the ongoing work of a professional educator who collects, revisits, reflects, and develops every artifact in it. Your academic portfolio will not only demonstrate your methodology and resources, but it will also help you organize your work as an educator. Remember to include your testimonials in this portfolio. There is nothing better than being able to open a page and show your potential clients what past students have said about you or what gifts they’ve given you. Choose the best format to represent your academic portfolio – paper-based, electronic (webpage, blog, etc.) or combined.

Your academic map will also include your students’ files. Keep track of what you teach. Knowing how your students progress and what you have already taught them is precious. It is very important that you include lesson plans you have already used – did they work? Why or why not? Every student has different interests and personality and you will benefit from keeping a diary of your interactions. Believe me, when you have so many students and so many lessons, you will start to forget or mix up students. This is a normal course of the tutoring process and you are not a robot or computer to memorize every little detail. That is why it is worth recording it instead.

Personal
That’s right! Your personal life also needs organizing. As you are your company, you need to make time for work and you need to make time for rest, vacation, coffee time, breaks, etc. Make sure you always have a calendar handy so you can record appointments, dinners, etc. There is nothing more embarrassing than calling a student to cancel a lesson because you forgot you had a hair appointment at the same time. A calendar is an excellent time-management tool which is a lifesaver when it comes to scheduling.

In the news

2009-04-10T22:41:00.000-07:00

Tutors work to boost Native students

http://www.adn.com/news/education/story/754940.html

Dropout rates are higher, test scores are lower than for students overall

By MEGAN HOLLAND
mholland@adn.com

Published: April 9th, 2009 09:13 PM
Last Modified: April 10th, 2009 05:56 PM

Shafts of sunlight stream through the windows and illuminate the four sixth-graders gathered around the table with Kerri Wood.

Wood is working to solve a vexing problem: Get these kids up to grade level.

Wood is the Indian-education tutor at Tyson Elementary in Mountain View. She is part of a multi-pronged effort involving the Anchorage School District, nonprofits and tribal groups to close the test-score gap between Anchorage's 4,200 Native students and the rest of the district's 48,000 kids.

It's not just poorer test results. Native students have also historically had the highest dropout rate in Anchorage.

Wood works for the school district but her salary is funded by federal Indian Education Act money. The district spends about $2 million of federal money a year on tutors like her. And while administrators say modest gains have been made, the gap is still big.

Last year, scores took a dive. Results in math, reading and writing lagged behind all students by some 15 percentage points.

In December, with the district saying more Native kids are moving into the city from rural Alaska, the School Board tapped the district's own general fund for the first time to increase the number of tutors by a third.

"The needs of Alaska Native/American Indian students are profound," the district said.

STRADDLING TWO WORLDS

Among the grim statistics from last school year's data:

• By the end of ninth grade, only 58 percent of Native students had enough credits to be on track to graduate in four years, compared with 77 percent of all students.

• Only 1 percent of Natives took higher-level high school courses compared with 8 percent of all students.

• Two-thirds of Native students didn't get their diplomas after four years of high school.

The problem starts at a young age.

Many education experts, including former Alaska education commissioner Roger Sampson, say that if a student is not reading at grade level by the third grade, the student's chances of ever catching up are slim. It is an indicator of the future dropout rate, he has said.

Last year, 67 percent of Native third-grade students in Anchorage read at grade level compared with 81 percent of all students.

Educators don't know exactly what's wrong.

The problems are varied, they say. Teachers who reward the most animated students, when Native children are taught to be demure. Kids who show up at school without breakfast. Westernized curriculum that teaches young children unfamiliar words like teacup, cow and sailboat.

In a grant application to fund an upcoming program for Native boys, whom the district consider to be the most vulnerable, the district wrote that many Native homes are not highly verbal. Another problem may be how the students are being taught. Native boys, in particular, are not reached by many of the usual instructional methods, the grant application says.

"We are not understanding the home culture," said Doreen Brown, the district's Indian Education supervisor, who has the job of solving the puzzle. "We are so good at the academic culture we don't understand the home culture. We don't understand the home language. We, as educators, don't understand the experiences that these kids are coming to us with, and it's very different than white middle class. It's not bad, it's just very different."

Brown, who is Yup'ik, knows many of these kids are straddling two worlds, just as she did growing up in Anchorage and graduating from Service High in the 1980s. "My people have been educated for thousands of years, tens of thousands of years. We've been educated, we've survived in the harshest environments. And I can look at my own life and I'm technically only the third generation to go to school. That's not a large amount of time," she said.

Brown is in charge of 45 employees, including Wood. She runs summer enrichment programs and after-school tutoring. She works on dropout prevention. She does crisis-intervention. And she secures federal grant money, or any grants she can find, to make it all happen.

"What are we not doing right? I think one of the strongest components is that we're not making (education) culturally responsive," she said.

"A lot of Native students don't want to be the center of attention. They don't want to raise their hands, 'I know the answer! I know the answer!' "

Before she became supervisor, when she worked directly with Native students, she would have kids practice raising their hands, she said.

Brown says there's not enough money to reach every kid. She has to be selective. In the end, tutors are placed at the schools with the highest population of Natives, and within those schools, it's the kids who score the worst who are tutored.

Brown says there are about 9,000 Natives and part-Natives who are eligible for the Indian Education services. She says her staff is reaching about 30 percent of them.

Asked if she thinks the tutoring is making a difference, she paused. "It can be effective. I think that our students and our parents need a point of contact. ... I would say most of my staff are very overwhelmed."

Research shows that if tutoring is to make a difference, students need to see their tutors at least three times a week for 30 minutes, she said. That's the formula. But sometimes, Brown says, that isn't happening.

Wood, at Tyson, said Native fifth-graders at the school aren't being tutored because of scheduling conflicts, and some of her sixth-graders get tutoring only twice a week.

SAFE LEARNING

Back in her classroom, Wood, who is Athabascan, asks sixth-grader La-Vera Wise about the noun she is looking at on the textbook page. "Is it a person, place or thing?"

She moves from one child to the next, reviewing each of the children's work as they locate proper nouns and common nouns. The four sixth-graders are too big for the undersized plastic chairs and low-hung table.

Wood works with 45 of Tyson's 140 Native kids.

She points to a sentence. "Can you find one here? Can you show me?" she asks, goading La-Vera.

Later, Wood explains she circles the children and watches over their shoulders to catch mistakes as they happen. She also prefers to correct them one-on-one, not in a group setting. "You need to create a safe learning environment," she says.

Sometimes Wood re-teaches what the children's teachers have already covered. Other times, she pre-teaches so kids are ready with answers and concepts.

"Sometimes it's setting them up for success," Brown explained of the tactical ego boosts. "It feels good."

Every month, the children are tested and their scores combed over.

"Looking at the data and making adjustments to teaching style is something that we take very seriously here," Wood said. "If things aren't working, we have to change it. And if it's still not working, we need to change it again."

She said the goal is to get the kids up to grade level so they don't have to see her anymore.

La-Vera, who is 13, lives in Anchorage with her stepsister while the rest of her family lives in the Western Alaska village of Upper Kalskag. Her father, Andrew Wise, said he thinks the tutoring is making a difference -- it's one of the reasons he lets her live in the city.

It is important that his daughter graduate from high school, he said. "I put myself through school," he said of getting his diploma. "It made a difference."

Counting Native students

Test score results for ethnic groups are based on how students self-identify. In October, the number of Anchorage School District students who said they are Native on district forms was 4,200.

However, the number of students eligible for Native education services is 9,000. This larger number includes the students who are part Native. On school district forms, some of the additional students might self-identify as multiethnic.

In the news: Canadians make learning disabilities breakthrough

2009-02-24T14:41:00.000-08:00

Canadians make learning disabilities breakthrough

Updated Tue. Feb. 24 2009 2:54 PM ET

CTV.ca News Staff

The dream of treating learning disabilities with a drug is a little closer to reality now that Canadian scientists have identified a brain protein crucial to learning.

A Toronto research team discovered that this single protein, known as Neto1, helps brain cells talk to one another. If the protein is missing or not working properly, it can result in learning disabilities.

What's more, further research has found that a drug being tested in Alzheimer's patients may also help those missing this key brain cell protein.

The research is still preliminary and was cconducted on mice, so it's not clear whether the findings will translate into humans. But if they do, the discovery opens the door to the possibility that drug treatment could help those with learning disabilities.

Lead investigator, Dr. Roderick McInnes, a geneticist at the Hospital for Sick Children, made the breakthrough while hunting for genes involved in eye development in 2000. That's when he and his postdoctoral fellow David Ng came across Neto1.

"It's an unexpected surprise," McInnes told CTV Newsnet on Tuesday.

"One would hope ... similar effects might be possible some day in patients with learning disabilities," McInnes added.

Research from his lab proved the protein to be very active in sending messages between cells in the hippocampus, the part of the brain region heavily involved in memory and learning.

To find out how important the protein was to learning, the researchers decided to breed mice that were missing the gene that makes the Neto1 protein and then evaluate the cognitive abilities of those mice.

They found that the altered mice had no obvious physical or behavioural problems but did have trouble learning new skills compared to normal mice.

The mice missing Neto1 failed a simple test in which they were made to swim through a water maze and find a hidden safety platform that would get them out of the water. Normal mice swimming through the maze were able to find the platform faster with each try, but the mice missing Neto1 got lost every time and did not seem to remember how to find the platform.

Dr. Michael Salter, head of the neuroscience and mental health program at Sick Kids, found the altered mice could only generate electrical signals between brain cells at half the strength of normal mice.

The researchers conclude that mice missing Neto1 have fewer receptors on their brain cells that are crucial for forming memories and learning, known as NMDA receptors.

Dr. John Roder at the Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute at Mount Sinai Hospital then wondered if a medication now being tested in Alzheimer's patients might fix the problem.

The drugs, known as ampakines, don't increase the number of NMDA receptors, but they do seem to help them function better. In the Neto1-deficient mice, their brain cell connections were strengthened so well that they could then perform cognitive tests as well as normal mice.

Salter said the effects of the drugs were almost immediate.

But the use of ampakines for learning disabilities is still a long way off. The drugs have passed Phase 1 safety trials and are now being tested in larger Phase 2 trials to test their effectiveness for Alzheimer's patients. But it's not known when, or if, they can be tested in people with learning disabilities.

The research is published in the current issue of PLoS Biology.

Resources

2008-12-10T12:21:00.000-08:00

I found this wonderful tool for learning vocabulary. You may have already seen it but I thought it's definitely worth sharing here on the blog. Check out the Lexipedia flash vocabulary tool. Type a word in the search line and press Enter. It will show all possible connections to that word including synonyms, antonyms, verbs, adverbs, etc. You can click on any one of them and drag with your mouse to re-arrange them in the way suitable for your needs. Try it out... it's a lot of fun.

netWorking with a capital "W"

2008-11-28T13:19:00.000-08:00

“It takes hard work and persistence”
Have you heard this before? I bet you have. Especially regarding sports, studying, hobbies, etc. I would like to also add networking to the list. A network is what every self-employed tutor should be working to get and most importantly, keep and expand. Get into the communities that will need your services, get in touch with organizations helping newly arriving immigrants and let them know that you can supplement their English language acquisition. The best places to meet professionals from the ESL field are local events, conferences, and even sports events that are being organized around town. Read newsletters and bulletins from your local library or community center. Remember that no favour comes for free – you need to offer something in return to people referring students to you even if it means taking them out to coffee or even informal lunch.

Once you have established yourself as THE tutor, you need to work to keep and expand your network. It takes a lot of PR work to be successful. Get in the habit of collecting people’s contact information and create a database of potential and present clients of yours. I am sure they will be delighted to receive a nice funny Christmas card or even wishing them a great first day of spring with a creative witty card. Some tutors use email to remind their client of their services. I would recommend this method only if you have something new to report to your clients. Lets face it – people hate bulk emails and unless these emails are informative enough for them, they hit “delete” to get rid of them as soon as possible.

It might be old-fashioned but try to meet people face-to-face. Remember that you build trust by materializing what you offer in contrast to describing it in an email. When people see you they get their first impression of you and how professional you are. I know that you are probably thinking: why would I meet all these people if they are not actual potential students of mine? Remember, you never know where an opportunity will come from. Maybe you get invited to speak in front of somebody’s class. Maybe someone will remember you when they hear that a student needs help. You are always going to be better off having more contacts and letting people hear your name over and over again, than stay at home and wait for a student to call you. It is very important to be out and about. You can even organize specific language workshops for students. How? The best way to do it (and cheapest too) is to contact your local library and see if they have study rooms available. Usually these rooms are free. And even if they are not, putting a low price for your workshop will cover the cost: believe me it’s not that expensive to rent a room in a library. Make simple fliers and post them around the library. Let people know when and where the workshop is going to be. Make sure you have your contact information handy for potential students to pick up.

Once you have established your networking methods and have spread the word about your services, it is essential that you start keeping track of your contacts. When you receive a call from a student, ask them how they heard about you: was it a reference from a friend, or they picked up your number from your workshop, were they referred to you by an agency and which one? Keeping track of the sources of references will give you an idea about the strongest points of your network. This information is absolutely precious. Knowing where business is coming from lets you focus your effort in that direction. Now that you know who is referring students to you, you can afford to ignore sources that are not so efficient and concentrate on the ones that bring you business.

Following the dynamics of your sources of business is essential also because you need to be aware of any changes happening in your network. If you find that an agency that used to be very passive in referring students to you has changed managers and their new policy is to emphasize on academic achievement of students, you need to get in contact with them immediately. Your tutoring services could be a very good supplement to their students’ education. Renewing contacts and shifting focus within your target market is crucial to your business. Knowing that a community center, which used to send a large number of students to you, has ended their support for international students can save you a lot of dead-end attempts to continue promoting your services there. Obviously they cannot refer any more students simply because these students will be seeking academic support somewhere else. In other words, your network changes constantly and it is up to you to keep track and stay up to date. Yes, it sounds like a lot of work and it is. That is the meaning of being professional. This type of work is making you different from everybody else.

Talks: Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity?

2008-11-06T19:58:00.001-08:00

Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity.
Watch the talk here.

How much are you worth?!

2008-11-06T19:42:00.000-08:00

You hear the alarm clock early in the morning ringing its batteries off and you are thinking: “I am not getting paid enough to be getting up so early for work!” It’s probably true. Think about all the hours of preparation you put into every class you teach – the research, the copying, the lesson plan, the thought and time you put into being a great teacher. I don’t have to convince you that this is a HUGE amount of work. Well is this HUGE amount of work worth a HUGE amount of money?

I mean we all know that becoming a teacher is a calling not a chore (although some pseudo-teachers may think it is). You have to be passionate about what you do and how you do it. Are you THE best teacher or are you slacking off whenever you can? The truth is, most teachers (luckily) accept their profession as a life-style. Talk about identifying yourself with your profession (which in many cases sounds and looks pathetic). Think about it: don’t you thin it is really sad to hear that an accountant identifies herself with her profession and with what she does. I mean there is nothing wrong with being surrounded with numbers and papers but if they were to be taken away, who will you be? That is how you realize whether you are really identifying yourself with what you do. Don’t get me wrong… I am not saying accountants are lousy people. Rather, I am trying to exaggerate for the purpose of comparison in this essay. So back to teachers… if students and schools were to be taken away… who will you be? I dare to think that the teaching profession is one of the few where outside it, the person is still the person they were while in it… except they would be a person with… more time on their hands. You will still be the sociable, cheerful, funny, smart, entertaining person who makes everyone laugh and even occasionally learn. You will still be the person who knows how to know people. In other words, you have the unique skill to read into people’s personalities and know exactly how to talk them and how to be their friends. Forgive me for putting it so bluntly, but you will still be useful to society. We do need people who would not answer: “I am a teacher” when asked “Who are you?”

Even if you are making less money than you think you should be, think about how lucky you are to just be practicing a profession which lets you be you. And if you want to raise your fees for your private tutoring lessons, do so. Make sure you let your students know why. Be honest with them. Instead of coming up with reasons such as the increasing cost of paper and transportation, books and inflation (which I am sure are viable reasons), let them know that you are worth more because you have improved, because you are the best they can get, because you make them learn. Ask them to argue with you if they think it is necessary. Ask them to prove you wrong. See if they can show you what a lousy teacher you are. I bet they won’t be able to. And even if they do come up with all sorts of reasons and eventually decide to seek someone else’s services, remember: you are still you. The fact that a student decides to leave you because of a fee increase does not make you less of a person (not to mention less of a teacher). You will be able to find new students and you know it. No matter how many students you lose, you will never lose your personality and passion for teaching. Now THAT is worth a lot! So go ahead… go brush your teeth and head to work – it’s time to teach a lesson.

The logistics of tutoring

2008-10-06T10:27:00.000-07:00

Where do you tutor?
Logistics is an important element of the tutoring experience. Some tutors are located in colleges and universities where there are tutoring centers; or the more profitable tutors rent their own offices in libraries, community centers, churches, etc. Others prefer to be "on-the-go" tutors and offer flexibility to their clients by going closer to their location or even their own home, office, etc. We can argue about which option is better but I would suggest that all are efficient if your clients like them. Still, when choosing a location tutors should have a few things in mind.

You will have to generally look for the following characteristics (not limited to only these though) of a learning space:

Size
You don't want to feel cramped into a tiny room where there is hardly space for a table and two chairs. At the same time, you don't want to be hearing the echo of your words in a warehouse-like room where you feel too distant from your student. Choose a room where you will be able to stand up and walk around your desk/table; where you have space for your books, materials, paper; space for writing comfortably without having to constantly adjust your notebook because of lack of space.
Light
Are there enough windows? If it is dark - are there enough lamps to provide light? What kind of artificial light is there? Remember that the white fluorescent light can be hard on the eyes and create a sleepy irritating mood both for you and your student. Try to choose a place with soft, neutral lighting which will provide comfort. Make sure the space is not too dark - you are not aiming for a lounge-like setting.
Temperature
There is nothing more uncomfortable than a really cold or really hot room to study in. You want your student to concentrate on the lesson and be comfortable rather than be embarrassed that they sweat too much or their shivering is affecting their pronunciation. For example if you decide to have your lesson outside on a park bench, make sure it is a warm day outside and there is plenty of shade to sit under. You do not want your student (or you) to be worried about sunburn in the middle of the lesson. Consider the weather: is it windy, is it hot, is it cloudy, is it going to rain?
Noise
How many times have you read a paragraph 8 times without understanding it because of a nasty noise outside your door or window? Your student will be distracted too. That is why I think the worst place to have a lesson is a coffee shop. You have people constantly coming in and going out, chatting, laughing, shouting. The coffee machine is loud and the steamer prevents you from hearing your own words. Make sure you choose a quiet place to study with your student. It is essential that they repeat a word in order to remember it, not in order to outshout the jackhammer under the window.
Aesthetics
Last but not least: aesthetics. Ask yourself the question: Is my learning space pleasant to be in? Think about color, shape, texture, etc. The most unwelcoming space is the one which simulates a hospital - all white. Choose a place with more color. You want to provide a pleasant, natural colors and textures space. For example, plastic chairs and tables are cheap and easy to clean, but they also create static and are not breathable. You also do not want all metal furniture as it looks cold. The window coverings should also be appropriate for a study room - do they let enough light in; are they in harmony with the rest of the place? Photos and paintings on the walls also create comfort and a cosy feeling. You may want to avoid air-fresheners as many people are allergic to them.

Lets examine a few options for choosing a leaning place and see what we need to look for. I'll start with the most costly:

Renting a place
Often this option is preferred both by clients and tutors as it provides a neutral zone for both to meet and adjust to it together. The downside of it is, the tutor will have to pay for it. You can either increase your fees (be very careful though) and include the rent in the lesson fee or you can rely on volume of students you get and assume the cost as a nature expense on your side. Remember that as a self-employed individual, you will be able to deduct this cost from your income tax (consult your accountant).

Student's accommodation
Going to the student's home is convenient for the student and a good reason for you to ask for a higher fee. Make sure that you ask the student if the room where you will be studying is comfortable enough (use the characteristics above to assess the space). You must be careful though especially with new students you do not know because their location may not be in the safest part of town or they may not have the best intentions towards you. Get to know them better before you agree to visit their place.

Tutor's accommodation
If you are inviting students to your place, I would suggest taking into consideration the same concerns as going to a student's place. Safety. Do you really want to let people so close as to letting them into your home? I would leave that option to a later stage when you get to know your students better. Still, sometimes you think you know someone... Just be careful.

Library
Lots of libraries have special study rooms which can be rented free of charge for a limited time. Visit your local library and ask for such spaces. Also make sure they are at a reasonable distance for you and your student. Explain to the student exactly what to expect and what the rules of the library are before you go.

Coffee shops & public places
As I mentioned, coffee shops are not your best choice simply because of all distractions in them. Besides usually they ask you to buy something in order to stay there longer. Any public space will have lots of noise and people. Consider these places as last-resort choice.

No matter what learning space you choose, make sure it is comfortable for both you and your students. Bear in mind that it is the place where learning should be fostered.

Survey: "How useful is it to have an organization that academically supports educators?"

2008-09-12T14:08:00.000-07:00

This question is being explored through a survey which aims to determine the need for a non-for-profit organization which focuses on academic support for teachers.

Please click on the link below to participate in this survey:

Click Here to take survey

Resources: How to keep your students alert during class

2008-08-10T22:57:00.000-07:00

Supplements to a learning habit

2008-06-03T12:11:00.001-07:00

The best way to foster a student's learning is first to discover his/her learning style and then supplement it with lots of materials. One great way to do that is by teaching your students to develop listening skills and habits through podcasts. The trend nowadays is to turn newscasts and blogs into audio format accessible to everyone on the Internet for free. The convenience of this type of media is that you can download anything you want to listen to and actually hear it later or at the convenience of your home, car, office, MP3 player on the bus, etc.

Luckily, such method is used for ESL learning as well. Podcasted lessons are the best way for your students to learn even when they are not in class with you. As a resource, podcasts are invaluable as they can be used for homework assignments, listening comprehension exercises and even creating some positive learning habits for your students. For example, listening to podcasts on a regular basis helps create a natural reaction in students to listen and understand conversations or stories they hear around them every day. Well prepared podcasts provide paced lessons for a typical level but also sometimes they might be universal for any level. In their podcasts on different topics, the authors from ESLPod.com include a slow recording, explanation of vocabulary, and a fast recording of the same story within one podcast. It's really helpful for students of all ESL levels as they hear the same story in a different pace and get to understand it better.

Another advantage of podcasts is that your students can listen to them repeatedly and remember vocabulary and pronunciation. You can use the podcast as an exercise and ask them questions about it. Ask them what the story was about and if they could tell you more details about it. They can even write a summary about it and turn it into a writing assignment.

Usually you can download the podcasts for free. Sometimes you may have to register with the podcaster's website and pay a membership fee in order to get full access to learning and teaching materials. When you provide these materials to your students, make sure you include the name and website address of the creator. It is important that you acknowledge the source of your information. This will also teach your students to do the same when they copy or use resources in their own learning.

Lesson plan or no lesson plan: depends on the mood?!?

2008-04-23T13:51:00.001-07:00

Have you been in a situation at school as a student, when your teacher gave you an assignment in class and you just could not concentrate in completing it because all you could think about was your new video game at home? If only you could write about it in your assignment... wouldn't it be wonderful?

Well, if writing about your new game in an English class at school is not possible, remember that it is a good option in a tutoring class. Tutoring is the fun part of schooling. So now that you are a tutor, you can actually allow your students to really write about their video game. Remember that no matter how long and how thorough you plan your lesson, you still have to feel the mood of your students and adjust accordingly. So if you notice that your students are distracted and cannot complete simple tasks that they are usually so good at, then it is time to reconsider your options, as well as theirs. Ask them about what is on their mind. Start a conversation about what they did "yesterday". I am sure that eventually you will get to the bottom of things and actually figure out what the reason behind that empty distracted face is. As a flexible tutor, you need to learn to use every situation in your advantage. All they can think about is their game? Great! Lets talk about the game... using the proper grammatically correct sentences of course! Keep correcting your student and giving him/her pointers and suggestions. Let your student even write about it. Believe me, they will much more appreciate your flexibility and willingness to listen to them brag about the new game, than you insisting that there is a lesson plan you need to follow.

Speaking about what they like is very engaging also because it is a virtual rehearsal for your students. Now they have told their story, it has been reviewed and corrected by their teacher, they learned how to express and describe something they like... so they are ready to tell this same story to someone else... but more confidently now. It is very important to convince your students that the place to make mistakes and have them corrected is in your class. They will gain confidence by knowing that you are always well prepared, but very flexible too.

Make ripples: collect testimonials from your students

2008-04-11T10:55:00.001-07:00

The best marketing for a private tutor is word-of-mouth. There is no question about it. In addition to that though you can spread the word as well. Ask each of your students to write something for you. Give them a piece of paper and ask them to express any feelings they may have about you and your teaching style, about the time they had with you. Believe me, in the beginning they will feel a little puzzled but then they will get really creative. Most of my students also draw pictures and put stickers on the paper. Once you start collecting those, you will have a very good pile of testimonials which you can use to convince potential students that you provide excellent service for your students and they appreciate it. You will demonstrate a positive feedback from your old students and you can also tell a good story behind each testimonial.

Testimonials are the indirect word-of-mouth between your students. By leaving something for you at the end of their study, and you showing it to your potential students, is a way of communication which you cannot provide in any other way. It's invaluable.

Resources

2008-03-28T11:10:00.001-07:00

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has been extremely active in the ESL industry providing excellent materials for teachers and students. BBC is one of the largest promoter of ESL education and one of the largest producers of ESL print, video, and audio teaching and learning resources. Consider using some of them with your students and you will see a huge difference in their motivation to learn and complete project work for your lessons.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/

Fieldtrips: learning by doing

2008-03-27T16:14:00.001-07:00

One of the best ways to engage your students in learning is to take them to a unique fieldtrip to a destination which corresponds to your teaching topic. There is nothing better than visiting the bank and trying to open an imaginary account instead of reading a boring imaginary conversation between a "client" and a bank teller. Take your students outside and show them situations in real life just as they would experience them on their own. This wonderful exercise will not only prepare them for real situations, but it will also give them more confidence to actually deal with such situation when they are on their own.

There are lots of places around town where you can go for free. Sometimes your students would not even think of going there just because they do not know that they could. One piece of advice is, make sure you visit these places when they are less busy. That way you will ensure some free time and motivation from personnel to actually help you out and be patient with your students while they learn.

Here are some examples:

- a hospital/clinic

- a bank

- a police station

- a firehall

- the market/convenience store

- a bakery

- a restaurant/coffee shop

These are only a small number of places, but be creative - you can always come up with many more interesting destinations. If you have the time, make sure you call or visit them ahead of time and arrange a meeting or at least let staff know you will be visiting. That way they will be expecting you and will even prepare to meet your students with some materials or tips. Enjoy!

Newzzzz

2008-03-27T11:56:00.001-07:00

Are you considering teaching English in France?

Check out the official website of the cultural services of the French embassy in the US:

http://www.frenchculture.org/spip.php?article602

Emotional teaching for emotional learning

2008-03-25T14:26:00.001-07:00

I recently read a wonderful report on emotional learning published on the George Lukas Educational Foundation (Edutopia) website. (http://www.edutopia.org/emotionalintelligence) It focuses on teaching through examples of events in our society that are happening around us every day but are usually not included in curriculum, or sometimes they are just avoided as topics for learning. This article addresses the issue of emotions streaming from evens such as violence, aggression, and conflict resolution.

In the context of ESL education, emotional learning is has an essential role for ESL students who feel uncomfortable getting into conflicts or arguments, because their English is not good enough, or simply because they do not want to be breaking a cultural norm they are not familiar with. The tutors' responsibility is to prepare these students for situation where they may have to enter as problem solvers or conflict mediators. While language proficiency is important, students must know that confidence and emotional intelligence are also important in such situations. "Social and emotional learning can help students successfully resolve conflict, communicate clearly, solve problems, and much more." (http://www.edutopia.org/emotional-intelligence-missing-piece)

Moreover, one of the keys to academic achievement is the ability of students to let go of emotional problems they may have in their personal lives. Being able to detach from family problems or personal issues increases the quality of learning and places the students in a positive learning environment. Being in a different country can also cause all kinds of frustrations and concerns for ESL students. Private tutors are an important factor in educating foreign students how to be "emotionally intelligent". Remember, if your students have too many concerns and do not know how to put them aside while learning, your work will also be very difficult and not efficient at all. If your students are efficient learners, then you will be efficient tutors.

Once a tutor, always a tutor

2008-03-21T10:46:00.000-07:00

When does tutoring end?

The good news is: never!

Once you have become known for your ability to improve people's skills, you will remain popular even if you try not to be. People talk and recommend and you will be asked for your services for as long as you keep providing good quality tutoring. And that is the essential key to maintaining your clientèle: quality. Word spreads when you are good at what you do, and when you are bad at it. Usually good tutors are booked immediately as people are afraid that you may get too busy for them. The are willing to make compromise with their schedules and finances, only to know that they got you.

Updating your portfolio and achievements is very important. Let your students know what you are up to and what you are working on. Let them know that your life is actually bigger than sitting down with them to teach them grammar. When your students know that there is something unknown about you which is good and is making you a better tutor, they are intrigued and are interested to stay with you longer. They want to know more about you and believe me... they will definitely brag about what their tutor has achieved or accomplished and how it makes them better students too.

"Three free throws."

2008-01-18T16:36:00.000-08:00

Pronunciation games are always fun for students. Take a look at the "Tongue Twister Database" for some good pronunciation tips.

"Which witch wished which wicked wish?"

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!

2007-12-19T10:01:00.000-08:00

Dear tutors, thank you for your support and contribution. I wish you wonderful holidays and successful new year!

Warm regards,

Tutors, Inc.

Newzzz

2007-11-29T21:57:00.000-08:00

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/071129/world/international_sudan_prophet_dc

British teacher jailed for 15 days in Sudan

By Opheera McDoom KHARTOUM (Reuters)
A British teacher accused of insulting Muslims after her class called a teddy bear Mohammad was found guilty and sentenced to 15 days in jail on Thursday, her defense team said.

Gillian Gibbons, 54, was also ordered to be deported.

"She was found guilty of insulting religion and the sentence is 15 days (in jail) and deportation," a member of the defense team Ali Ajib said after the trial in a Khartoum courtroom, which lasted less than a day.

In London, Britain's foreign minister said he was "extremely disappointed" with the verdict and called in the Sudanese ambassador for an immediate explanation.

Another defense lawyer said Gibbons had already served five days of her sentence since her arrest on Sunday and she may not have to serve all the remaining 10 days. The judge said she could leave once she had a compulsory exit visa, they said.

Gibbons was charged on Wednesday with insulting Islam, inciting hatred and showing contempt for religious beliefs because of the toy's name. Under Sudan's penal code, she could have faced 40 lashes, a fine, or up to one year in jail.

Robert Boulos, head of Unity high school where Gibbons worked, said: "We are happy with the verdict. It is fair. There were a lot of political pressures and attention."

He added: "We will be very sad to lose her."

Asked what he thought of the verdict, the head of Gibbons's defense team, Kamal al-Jazouli, said: "It was not bad."

The court finished the trial the day before Friday prayers, when protests were expected in the streets of Khartoum.

In court, judge Esmat Mohammed Youssef heard from the chief prosecutor and four witnesses from the prosecution. But the defense decided to rest after just two witnesses and Gibbons's own testimony, convinced of the clarity of their case.

BEWILDERED

Teachers at the school say that calling the teddy bear Mohammad, the name of the prophet of Islam, was not her idea in the first place and that no parents objected when Gibbons sent parents circulars about a reading project which included the teddy bear as a fictional participant.

The bear was first introduced to the class in September.

Gibbons, wearing a long dark blue skirt and black blazer, looked bewildered as she entered the court on Thursday afternoon, guided by police as she weaved through the crowds of officials, journalists and onlookers.

Ajib said Gibbons was calm when the verdict was read, as if she had been expecting it.

She was taken straight to Omdurman women's prison, a jail which is overcrowded and usually filled with women serving sentences for making and selling alcohol, illegal in mainly Muslim Sudan.

"We are extremely disappointed that the charges against Gillian Gibbons were not dismissed," said British Foreign Secretary David Miliband. "Our clear view is that this is an innocent misunderstanding by a dedicated teacher."

Sudan has had poor relations with Britain, the United States and most European countries for several years, mainly because of their disagreements over how to handle the conflict in the Darfur region in western Sudan.

The U.N. Security Council, of which Britain is a permanent member, wants to deploy a joint U.N.-African force to Darfur to restore order and help displaced people return home. Khartoum reluctantly agreed but is disputing many details.

"I'm utterly disappointed with this decision. We have been calling on the Sudanese authorities to show leniency, that this was a case of an innocent oversight, a misunderstanding," said Ibrahim Mogra of the Muslim Council of Britain, the country's largest Muslim organization.

"The question that I would want the judiciary there and the authorities to ponder over is: How does this help the cause of Islam? What kind of message and image are we portraying about our religion and our culture?"

(Reporting by Opheera McDoom and Andrew Heavens, additional reporting by Adrian Croft in London; Writing by Jonathan Wright; Editing by Tim Pearce)

Collecting makes perfect

2007-11-28T15:33:00.000-08:00

As strange as it sounds, collecting can actually improve your teaching significantly and let you look back in time allowing for a unique perspective on your past work.

When I say collecting, I mean keeping materials you have used in the past that were interesting for your students and highly educational too. These are materials such as newspaper articles, books, essays, photos, flashcards, etc. that helped your students learn better. This collection of materials is your activity bank where you deposit your teacher life-savers. The best advantage of having such a library is that it contains elements of your personality too. In other words, by choosing a certain materials to keep in the "bank" you actually involve in critically selecting materials that you review, test, modify, retest, deposit. These materials have stood the test of teaching and time and they will be always there for you to use and refer to when needed.

Choosing materials is also important in terms of better understanding your students' background. For example, you know that the article about the multicultural festival in Brazil is going to appeal mostly to your Latin students who will be interesting not only to read a review of this festival coming from a different country, but will also contribute to the topic and get engaged in interesting long discussions about it. Another example is that new shopping mall brochure that will be a perfect fit for your Asian students who will be happy to learn about shopping tips and ideas from you.

All these valuable materials are available for free and great to use in the right time with the right students. They will also provide the opportunity for you to look back and reconsider some of your teaching methods... maybe you can use that same brochure in a different more creative way next time...

Improving Learning

2007-08-31T11:16:00.000-07:00

Most ESL students assume that if they make mistakes during a lesson, they are showing a weakness. This misconception comes from the fact that they perceive their ESL lessons as similar situations as speaking to someone on the street for example. While talking to strangers does require a lot more attention to deliver your message in a foreign language, ESL lessons are just the opposite. Students must understand that taking their time and making mistakes is actually what they are supposed to do during a lesson.

In her article “Shared Responsibility: Achieving Success with English-Langage Learners” Betsy Lewis-Moreno brings up the well-known rule of thumb: “teaching does not cause learning; learning causes learning”. Repetition, trial, and error are essential for ESL learners. Set your goals with each individual student and make sure your methodology brings both of you closer to that goal. Your students must make meaning of what you are teaching. Let them figure goals on their own too. Let them understand that they are responsible for their own learning as well. Lewis-Moreno notes that “when planning instruction for [ESL] students, one should consider both content objectives and language objectives. The language objectives should indicate what the students are expected to do with language.” In this respect, the traditional lecture form of teaching is not appropriate for modern language learning. Teachers are not know-it-all lecturers any more. They provide guidance and support for students while students are exploring and taking initiative in their own learning.

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Lewis-Moreno, B. 2007. Shared Responsibility: Achieving Success with English-Language Learners. Phi Delta Kappan, 88, no 10, June

Paradox: Understanding your students well may not be in their favor

2007-07-21T09:32:00.000-07:00

Yes, it sounds like a paradox but it is true. As you progress in your tutoring career you will notice that you are getting used to all kinds of accents in English. With every new student, you will feel that you start missing some of the mistakes they make while speaking just because you understand them better.

It may sound alarming but you should not be too concerned about it if you identify the problem early and take precaution. There is a very simple solution and you as a professional should be able to master it. It is all about the mind and how it works. Everything that you repeat too often becomes a habit and you start taking it for granted. So train your hearing and attention by doing "attention drills" to recapture your students' mistakes and correct them on time. A fun and helpful way to do it is to change your attention focus so it is forced to be sharp. Every once in a while you can ask your students to do an exercise that concentrates specifically on pronunciation or sentence structure. That way you will fully concentrate on the mistakes they make. Exercises of this type will focus your attention too. I would suggest having these attention drills at least once a week. It is helpful for your student, it will bring variety into your teaching, and will make you more alert towards mistakes your students make.

Content-based intruction: vocabulary

2007-07-12T21:24:00.000-07:00

When teaching new vocabulary, it is difficult to find the easiest way for your students to remember words. It is common sense now that memorizing lists of words is not effective in the long run as we are triggering only the short term memory. Weeks later, your students will forget 90% of memorized words. What is even worse, is that even if they actually remember most of them, they will not know how to use them in actual sentences.

Content-based instruction is a common practice nowadays where the student gets to "discover" the meaning of a word within a text. First, he/she remembers better because the meaning is revealed by actual search, exploration that the student does. Second, he/she will know how the word is applied in actual speech by seeing it within a sentence and linking it to other parts of the sentence that make sense together. Lastly, by introducing new vocabulary within a text, your students will learn to relate certain words to a story or a feeling they had while reading the story which will eventually make them remember it for a long time, if not forever.

Quicknote

2007-07-03T22:54:00.001-07:00

Tutoring is the fun part of schooling! It is still schooling, but more fun than students would ever imagine! Bring lots of energy and positive attitude into it. Your students will love every minute of it!

Motivation

2007-06-30T11:17:00.000-07:00

In everything you do, you are always looking for the reason to do it. You must be motivated enough to take on something. Do you remember when you were a student how difficult it was for you to sit and study for hours about something that you did not find interesting and worth spending time on. I am sure we have all had moments like this.

Your students feel the same way if they do not receive the necessary motivation to be in your class. In one of the previous tipcards, I wrote about the first lesson and how important it is. It's the first lesson when you have to ask your students about what interests them and take into account when preparing your lessons. In their book "Tutoring Matters: Everything You Always Wanted to Know about How to Tutor", Rabow, Chin, and Fahimian note that it is very important to involve your student in the topic taught and "sometimes it is merely a matter of incorporating something that the student enjoys or is interested in into the lesson, such as art or animals, or sports." (Rabow, J., Chin, T. & Fahimian, N., 1999, p. 74) Ask your student what their interests are and incorporate them into your teaching. For example, if your student is interested in auto sports, obviously an assignment on make-up artistry is not going to be very suitable. Or if another student finds art and painting interesting, you will not leave a good impression if you ask her to do a report on space craft engineering. In other word, listen to your students and teach accordingly. That way you will also motivate your student to complete their assignment and to also explore further the topic on their own outside class. In this case, the benefits for your students are twofold: they will improve their English in a fun, interesting way; and they will expand their knowledge about a topic of interest by reading and researching on it in their non-native language. The benefits for you are obvious: you will have motivated happy students who will appreciate your own interest in their hobbies, thus you will expand your network of students willing to take your classes because their friends recommended you.

Rabow, J. Chin, T. Fahimian, N. 1999. Tutoring Matters: Everything You Always Wanted to Know about How to Tutor. Philadelphia: Temple University Press

Contribution

2007-06-22T16:55:00.000-07:00

Please feel free to contribute to this blog with helpful information and/or opinion on any of the topics.

If you came accross an interesting website that might be of help to other ESL tutors, please do not heistate to post it.

Thank you!

The first lesson (Part II)

2007-06-19T17:09:00.000-07:00

Now that you are prepared for your class, you can think about activities to include in your first lesson, such as “openers”, “engagers”, and “closers”. When you meet with you student, smile and welcome him/her to your lesson.

First, introduce yourself and remember your student’s name. Start with general questions about their interests and hobbies. I would recommend that in the beginning you stay away from usual questions about family, country, how long they have been in the country, etc. Most students know the answers to these questions already because everybody is asking them the same things. So they have memorized the answers from before and they anticipate you asking them these questions. Try to surprise them with something more unusual. For example, if your student is a girl, you can pay her a compliment (carefully: make sure that they do not get the impression that you are interested in them in an intimate way) saying: “Oh I really like your shirt, where did you buy it?” And then let the conversation go into a more routine type of a chat: “Do you like shopping? Where do you usually shop?” If your student is a boy, you can comment on something he is wearing (again carefully: it could be taken the wrong way). For example, you can let him know how impressed you are by his watch and how you always wanted to buy a similar one. A safe topic to talk about is also video/tv games, electronics, etc. “Does your phone play MP3s?” “What is your favourite car?” “What sports do you like watching/playing?”

Starting the conversation with a “surprising topic” is a good way to take your students’ mind off of the regular conversation they are already anticipating. Then you can move on to more specific things about country, friends, etc. These are your safe topics. They are regular and if you feel that a student is uncomfortable or still too shy to go into a “surprising” topic, you can always turn the conversation towards something that you definitely know they like talking about: their country, their family, friends, etc. Remember that this first lesson is all about recognizing your student’s comfort zone. You need to know where your limits are regarding the student’s language abilities and personality.

While in the conversation, try to watch your student. Watch the body language, watch the facial expressions. These will tell you a lot about their personality. For reference, please read the “Personalities Types” posting for more detailed view on students’ personality types.

Once you have established the tone of your lesson and you have also learned basic things about your student, you should start addressing the main issue of your tutor-tutee relationship. Feel free to ask them directly what they need help with in English. “What do you think is the most difficult thing for you in English?” Make sure that all they say, you write down on your notepad. Listen to them patiently. After they speak about their language needs, give them an overview of your impression of their language needs that you observed during the conversation. “I noticed that you use only one tense when you express your ideas.” “Your pronunciation is actually quite good; I think your use of prepositions may need more work.” This overview is your statement to them that you are already taking into consideration their specific needs and you are already assessing their English level. Your students will feel comfortable knowing that you are there for them and that you are “watching out” for their mistakes. That way, you will also show them that you already have a plan on how to improve their English based on what mistakes they make.

After you provide the brief overview of what you have noticed, you can start suggesting your intentions on how to fix these problematic areas and what kind of methodology you will use with them in the future. “I would like to give you more exercises on Present Perfect and Past Perfect Tenses and also use these two tenses in a conversation so you practice them in a more efficient way.” Provide specifics of what your intentions are and you can also show them examples of work you will be giving them to complete. Let them know that they can ask you questions any time during the lesson. Culturally for some of your students it may be very impolite to interrupt their teacher. However, you need to let them know that it is normal and even advisable for them to do so because if they wait till the end of the lesson to ask a question they may lose the line of thought or situation.

This is also the time to clarify your rules. If you need to, you can give them to your student printed on a piece of paper. Make sure they understand that they need to be responsible students and that although you are on very friendly terms with them, they still need to acknowledge certain duties. “I expect you to complete your homework on time.” “I expect you to call me at least 48 hours in case you need to cancel the class.” Assure them that you will do the same for them.

Remember to always ask them if they have questions for you at the end of the first lesson. Provide the opportunity for them to ask, comment, or inquire about things that may be of concern. Be very friendly and suggest that if there have no further questions, you could start discussing your future schedule and even book your next lesson right away.

Good luck!

The first lesson (Part I)

2007-06-17T10:58:00.000-07:00

You have already seen quite a few paragraphs where I mention the first lesson with your student. This posting is all about the first lesson and it is highlighting the most important aspects of it as well as the most important techniques for getting your student interested and wanting to keep you as their tutor as long as possible.

The first lesson is the crucial point where tutor and tutee get to know each other. This is the time to ask questions, give answers, watch body language, break the ice, and offer your assistance in the most friendly and professional way. Usually the first lesson is a trial lesson where the student is trying and the tutor is selling. Most tutors do not charge for this first lesson and to make it more feasible for them, they usually make it shorter (maybe 30 min.). It is up to you to decide how you want to "sell your product". In this lesson the student will make a decision whether to have you as a tutor or not.

A few rules are always useful to remember when you book a first lesson.
1. Time: make sure you have enough time before and after the lesson
Sometimes tutors would book a lesson very close to other lessons and they would get impatient with the student towards the end. The students will see that you are nervous and this will lower your chances of them signing up with you.

2. Place: choose a quieter place where there are not too many people, e.g. library, the park, etc.
If you have an office then you do not have to worry about the place. But if you do not have one, then consider the possible noise and distractions at the place where you will have the first lesson. You want to focus on your students' English, and you want your students to focus in the lesson. Also, make sure there is a table where you and your students can comfortably write and place materials on.

3. Food & drinks: avoid eating or drinking in a first lesson
First, it is not polite. Second, you may look very unpleasant if you are chewing while trying to convince your student you are the best tutor in town. Make this a requirement for your students too. Let them know that it is not pleasant if they eat and drink in front of you. If you need to, provide an etiquette lesson. I would not recommend eating or drinking during any class in general. However, if you know the student well and you have an agreement or feel comfortable enough to do that, then you may allow yourself to have a light bite or coffee in class. Make sure you do not turn your lesson site into a restaurant though.

4. Dress code: dress appropriately putting on clothes that reveal your professionalism
Absolutely no short skirts, see-through shirts, provocative clothing. Female tutors, keep it simple in terms of make-up too. Make sure you are always clean and professional. After all, you are giving an example not only by your perfect English language, but also by the way you behave and look.

The tutor’s survival kit: paper and pencil

2007-06-14T16:57:00.000-07:00

While teaching you will find that you can create a wonderful flow for your lesson where your comments, questions, instructions and jokes are blending perfectly with the student’s answers, laughter, chat and reactions. The least you would want in this harmonious situation is interrupt it with constantly correcting your students’ mistakes or making them wait for you while you explain a complicated grammar structure. Too much correction can lead to distraction from the main topic of the lesson and your students may lose their line of thought. You will not be able to regain their attention and will make them nervous about not being able to recall what they wanted to say. Keep it simple and put in on paper.

When you see that your student has “inertia” and his/her flow of conversation is good, i.e. he/she is brave enough to keep speaking in English, let them speak even if they make numerous mistakes. Some of them may be more major than others but at this point for you the most important thing is that they keep talking. So while they talk, use your pencil and a piece of paper to take notes of the mistakes they are making so you can revisit them later. This is the most effective way to keep track of mistakes you want to pay attention to and at the same time give your students freedom to express themselves without interruption. Most students expect tutors to take notes and provide these noted after the class so they can study later with them. I would encourage note-taking even if your students did not specifically ask for it. Make it part of your teaching style. When you meet a student for the first time, explain to them how you would approach their learning needs and what they should expect from you. For example,

“Usually when we are having a conversation, I will let you speak and while I am listening to you, I will take notes of the mistakes you may be making. Then I will go through them and will explain them to you in detail. You can ask me questions and comment of my notes any time. After the class I will give you these notes for you to study with later at home.”

Your student will know your style and this will also give them a structure for studying at home. They will know that what is written must be reviewed and will be addressed in a following class. Taking notes is also a good way of recording the material you went through with your student. You can always say: “Have you studies your notes? Do you remember we studies this last time?”

Note taking is essential. Make it a regular component of your class. Your students will appreciate it.

Quicknote

2007-06-13T16:30:00.000-07:00

Never write your Asian students' names with a red pen. In Asia it is considered to be bad luck and only dead people's names can be written in red.

Homework: awards vs. punishments

2007-06-12T16:26:00.000-07:00

Most students associate this word with adjectives like: unpleasant, duty, boring, etc. Most of them just do not want to do homework simply because they feel it is a waste of time. However, without practice outside the class, they will have little or even no improvement of their English skills. Your role would be to make them practice without demanding that they are doing a chore. You can easily accomplish that by completely placing the responsibility on them for their own learning. When you give homework, let them know what your expectations will be next time and also ask them what their own expectations are. “What do you expect to learn by reading this article?” “What new do you think you will be able to show me next time?” Questions like that will provide the needed anticipation in your students because they will have a better idea what the outcome should be. They know you know what the outcome should be, and they are aware that you also know that they know what they should achieve. The more you make it clear that they need to see the benefits of the practice, the more responsible they will feel.

Naturally, there are two outcomes of this strategy: they either complete their homework, or they do not. It is you who should decide what the consequences will be. Once again, your knowledge of your student’s personality will help you make the right decision. In other words, different consequences may work in a different way with different students, or they may not work at all. It is up to you to decide what measures to take. In case they do not complete the homework, you may either give them a “punishment” extra homework or you can simply say that they have not completed their side of the relationship by preventing you to do your job and it may lead to change of teaching methodology, or even cancelling a class with the student without reimbursement. Again, your decision will depend on your student’s personality. A simple light conversation in a friendly manner may fix the problem, although in other cases you may need to be firmer and gain the needed respect from your student with more severe consequences.

In case they do complete the tasks, award them. Pay compliments, say “thank you” and “good job”. Correct their homework in a friendly manner and let them know that completing the homework is a huge part of their success in the learning process. On the other hand, be cautious to not “over reward” them. Be positive about their work but also make it clear that it is common sense that they should complete it. They are expected to work and doing it does not make them superheroes.

Try to find the balance in everything you do with your students but most importantly let them be responsible for their own learning.

Privacy

2007-06-11T11:21:00.000-07:00

Privacy goes both ways when there is a tutor-tutee relationship. This relationship is based on respect and understanding between the tutor and tutee. Considering your leadership role in this relationship as a tutor, you will be expected to encourage and enforce this rule. Sometimes your students will tell you a lot about their personal lives and will expect you to keep their confidentiality. Always make sure you prove them right. There is nothing more embarrassing for a student than to hear from his/her friends: “Oh your teacher told me this about you.” It is important to remember that your role is very special in a student’s life. They consider you very close and this can only benefit the teaching and learning process. Compromising this trust will bring confusion and possibly loss of a student for you. This is not desirable especially considering you will be working in an industry mostly advertised by word of mouth.

Privacy is an issue you should address in your first lesson with a student. Assure them that you will never use or distribute any information they provide for you and in the meantime, make them understand that this rule is valid for them too. They should know that privacy is a serious issue and should never compromise it. Explain to them that it is a natural way to show respect to people and they should always strive to be a trustworthy person. Often your students may gossip about someone else and try to get your opinion on an issue that is going on in their private life. You can be helpful, but never cross the fine line between help and interference. You can even directly tell them that they are the ones making decisions in their lives, you do not know the people they are talking about so you can make a judgment, and they should try to resolve personal issues on their own. Remember, you can respond but stay neutral.

Life-long learner

2007-06-07T00:02:00.000-07:00

No matter what we do, we learn from everything that surrounds us and happens to us. As tutors, you should be aware that more than anything, in a lesson, you are learning too.

Along with your students you will be finding out things you did not know before. Sometimes you may feel frustrated thinking: "Hey, I am the teacher here! I should know that!" However, it does not work this way. Teachers are life-long learners. Imagine you are a sponge that soaks up everything that happens around. Your students may be older than you, they may have more experience than you in certain aspects of life. Use this information to become better and to know more. Experience is the best teacher.

For example, most of my first students were Korean and Japanese. After teaching them for a couple of months, I found out that I knew so much about their home countries, that new Korean or Japanese students would ask me if I had actually been in Korea and Japan. I had not. All I learned was from my conversation with my previous students. If you find that you do not know anything about a country or something that your students may know, use it as a topic for your class. It will be interesting for them to talk to you about it and actually feel as if they are teaching you something new (which always brings their involvement in the lesson to a higher level) and you will have a perfect lesson where your students get to practice their English and meanwhile you will learn a lot from them. It is always a two-way process. Learning never happens in one direction only. Consider it as your professional development and growth as well.

Keep a record

2007-06-02T09:40:00.000-07:00

Becoming a popular tutor is a wonderful thing. However, it may play a trick with your memory regarding your students' progress as well as teaching materials and methodology. You will be asking yourself questions like: "Did I give this article to her to read or it was the other Korean students?", "Where did we stop with this grammar exercise last time?"

Well, these are natural doubts and you should not be afraid to have a very simple solution. Keep a record of your students' progress and lessons. Create a file for each student of yours and put short notes right after each lesson to help you remember what you did with them in the lesson. This lesson diary will also help you plan your lessons. It will also demonstrate to your students how dedicated and professional you are. With time you can turn this diary into a collection of your work, called portfolio. I will speak more about portfolios in the next tipcards.

Stay neutral

2007-06-01T12:34:00.000-07:00

As you start teaching numerous students, you will notice that they all come from different backgrounds and this reflects on their language acquisition. They will want to discuss sensitive topics like religion, race, culture, society. Your role as a tutor is to stay neutral at all times and to try not to impose your own opinion about such topics. Your student may provoke a sensitive discussion with you assuming that this is a good opportunity to practice their English conversation skills. While you can listen to them and correct their language mistakes, try not to engage too much in the conversation expressing points of view or arguing about issues you do not agree with in general. Remember that you are working and your student is your client. When you feel that you might be pressured to express an opinion you can politely explain to the student that your culture teaches you to not engage in such arguments and that everyone has the right to an opinion. Tell them that you respect their opinion but you would not take sides, or give comments on it. Use this situation as an opportunity to teach your student about the culture and society in your country. It could be a good chance to educate them on how to stay “out of trouble” when speaking to local people. On the other hand, it might be a good opportunity for you to learn more about their culture too.

For example, I have had many students from Korea who would ask me how old I am and if I was married. And they did not wait to know me better before they asked. Well, in the beginning before I knew their reasons for asking everyone about their age, I was a little shocked. But then I learned that in Korea, people actually need to know everyone’s age, simply because they speak to different people in a different way. For example, if you are even 6 months older than a Korean person, he/she will speak to you with respect and will treat you as an older person. In addition, Korean people have the utmost respect for teachers. So to your students, you will always be the teacher, no matter how close you become as friends. So this student of mine explained to me that she needed to know these things because in I was married, she would look at me in a different way, meaning as a grown-up woman, rather than a single girl. So culturally for her this information was really important. As I smiled and answered her questions (I did not mind anyway) I also explained to her, that some people (especially women) may get offended if you ask them in public what their age and marital status was, because this is considered private information and a sensitive issue to some people.

My advice, use the situation to educate your student. Be very patient and explain as much as possible. If you try to understand them, they will understand you.

Planning: Choose a focal point

2007-05-30T14:43:00.000-07:00

When planning a lesson, try to focus on one aspect you want to teach that your student will remember. Once you have your focus, you can build on it and include related activities, readings, conversation topics, etc. It is important that your lesson has direction. Every time you plan an activity with your student, ask yourself: What is the aim of this activity? What do I want to accomplish by using it in my lesson with that particular student.

It may sound very rigid, but having a plan built around one aspect, does not mean you will have to strictly enforce it during the lesson. As you know one to one tutoring means that the tutor can accommodate the student’s needs and is flexible enough to change the initial planned activities. Your focal point though stays the same. In other words, keep your focus but leave activities and methodology open to change. For example, imagine your focal point is emphasizing on present simple tense and you have decided already that you will talk about your student’s regular activities on Saturday and you plan to have a light conversation where you can listen for mistakes using this tense. You have your entire plan and you even have pre-planned questions to ask your student. You meet your student and she tells you that she read a very interesting article on planting trees for reforestation which is one of her biggest interests. She says she does not entirely understand the article and she needs some help from you. What would your reaction be?

1. No panic :)
2. Assess the situation: your student’s needs are first priority for you
3. Come up with several solutions to accommodate her needs and at the same time incorporate your focal point into the new situation
4. Explain to the student what your plan is and what the focus of the lesson will be
5. Let her verbally summarize the article she read
6. Ask her to show you the difficult parts of the article she could not understand
7. Work together to make her get a clearer understanding of the article by pointing out examples of Present Simple tense and ask her to speak more about the article using this tense
This is just an example of what you can do in a situation of change. Planning is definitely crucial because it will show your student that you have determination to make their learning better. It will also reveal your attention to the student’s “weak” language points. The student will have more respect towards you because they will see that you put effort into planing their learning and make it accessible for them.

Mistakes during conversation

2007-05-29T16:51:00.000-07:00

When you are teaching, think about what your priority is in the lesson. Is it letting your student speak more? Is it correction of mistakes? Is it simply sentence structure in the form of a light conversation?

Generally, students who decide to have a tutor, are students who already attend other regular ESL schools. They study following a strict curriculum where there is little or no time for conversation. As a result, these students start seeking more opportunity to have a conversation in English with someone who can correct them. The only possibility they have is to find an ESL tutor. You would probably ask why they do not meet native speakers and converse with them instead. Well, culturally, foreign students have lots of difficulties meeting native speakers due to many reasons: they are too shy, or they think their English is not good enough to have a conversation, they are afraid they may be laughed at, etc. That is where the the tutors play an important role of professionals who know how to cope with situations like that.

When you feel that your student is starting to gradually improve his confidence to speak to you, try not to correct him/her too much. Sometimes you will just need to let them speak. If you start correcting them all the time, even for the smallest mistake they make, you will interrupt their line of thought and even discourage them to speak further. So, try to be patient, if you notice an important mistake that you need to correct, take notes and address it after the conversation is over, or when you get a chance during the conversation. Perhaps, correcting mistakes is not priority # 1 at the moment...

Break the ice without breaking the flow of conversation

2007-05-29T12:38:00.000-07:00

Your first meeting with a student is going to be your “ice-breaker”. You will have a light conversation; you will ask general questions, you will answer general questions from your students too. Make sure that with every piece of information, you get close to who exactly your student is and what he/she needs from you, and therefore how you can help them better. Everything is interrelated. You need to keep the flow throughout the whole conversation. When engaging in initial conversation with your student, try to make it interesting and involving. Make them feel as if you are really creating this comfortable atmosphere for them. Usually most first conversations start with questions about the student’s country and heritage. However, you can always break the ice by asking different questions. In general, students are used to questions about their country and heritage. So they have ready-to-use answers to all these questions. You will surprise them by not focusing on these questions first, but rather ask them about their hobbies, or their day, their school, etc. Later in the lesson, you can ask about their family and country, traditional food, etc. Look at the following example:

Tutor: So what do you do for fun?
Student: Fun…
Tutor: What is your hobby? Do you play any sports?
(when you notice that the student does not understand a more general question, you can sort of suggest things for them, specify something very concrete: e.g. sports)
Student: Ah, sports, yes. I like basketball and baseball.
Tutor: That’s great. So do you play with your friends?
Student: I only watch TV.
Tutor: Oh, so you don’t play basketball or baseball. You only watch them on TV?
Student: Yes.
Tutor: Do you like watching TV? (make a smooth transition to a different topic)
Student: Yes, I like movies.
Tutor: Really? What’s your favorite movie?
Student: I like CSI.
Tutor: Oh, CSI is a TV show. It has many episodes.
Student: Yes, I like.
Tutor: That’s wonderful. So do you watch it by yourself or with friends?
Student: Usually by myself. Sometimes with friends.
Tutor: This is good. Do you have a lot of friends here. (another transition)
Student: Yes, but many are leaving to go home. So it’s sad.
Tutor: That’s true. It must be hard. But you can make new friends, right?
Student: It’s difficult.
Tutor: Where do you usually meet new friends? At school? At a club?
Student: Maybe school.
Tutor: Do you go to clubs too?
Student: Sometimes. But I stay late and I need to be in school next day.
Tutor: Yes, I know what you mean. You need to sleep in order to study better.
Student: Yes. But sometimes I go. I drink with friends. (laughing)
Tutor: Really? What’s your favorite drink? (another transition)

Variety

2007-05-28T20:40:00.000-07:00

It is very important that you provide variety to your students in terms of content and methodology. Try to change your approach every once in a while and surprise them with new assignments, tasks, and even games. When changing your approaches during the lesson, the students are always on "alert" mode but it in the good sense of the word. They are anticipating and waiting for something new to happen. Their attention is on a high level and lets them understand and learn faster. Another positive outcome of frequently changing your methodology is that your student will not get used to the same cycle of learning following a routine which you've created for them. If they are channeling their learning into a routine, you become predictable in your teaching methods. They will know what follows next and will easily guess the answer, or the question, and will always be prepared to provide it when asked for it. This may skew your perception of their progress and you will not be able to have a proper indication of their needs.

Teaching grammar: Inductively vs. Deductively

2007-05-28T11:42:00.000-07:00

Most methods for teaching grammar are based on a deductive approach where the grammar rule is given to the students and then they apply it in their English. Modern methodology, however, encourages teachers to introduce a new grammar rule by an inductive method, meaning students are able to discover the rule on their own by make a mistake first. For example, if you have a sentence where your students made a grammatical mistake, you can correct it without explaining the grammatical rule he/she broke, bur rather let him/her reach it by analyzing his/her mistake. Let them guess and make sense of what is wrong and how to make it right on their own. Discovery will also play the role of a confidence catalyst. Your students will be braver to make mistakes especially knowing that they can correct them themselves. Therefore, by letting them explore and discover on their own, you will also be applying a great deal of the student-centered approach in your teaching. It is not about what you tell them to learn, it is about what they ask to learn.

Don't say Don't

2007-05-27T16:36:00.000-07:00

Don't say "Don't"!

Stay positive with your student. They don't know what is right. Show them, teach them instead of criticize them.
Avoid using "don't" because you will confuse them. Try to tell them what to say and how to say it instead of pointing out their mistakes which they don't know how to correct.

Have a look:

Example One:
Student: I go museum yesterday.
Tutor: Don't say "go" if you use "yesterday". It's past tense.
Student (confused): Sorry?
Tutor: Don't use a verb in present tense when you say "yesterday".
Student (still confused): How can I say?
Tutors: It's "I WENT to the museum yesterday"
Student: Oh I see, I went museum yesterday.
Tutor: Be careful! Don't skip words. You should add "to" and "the". Say it again.
Student: I don't know...
Tutor: I went to the museum yesterday...
Student: Oh, I went to the museum yesterday.
Tutor: See what I mean? Do this next time.

Now compare it to Example Two:
Student: I go museum yesterday.
Tutor: Oh I see... You mean you went to the museum yesterday.
Student: Yes, you went museum yesterday.
Tutor: "I went TO the museum yesterday" (slowly)
Student: Yes, I went to...
Tutor: ... the...
Student:... the museum yesterday.
Tutor: Very good! What did you see there? and so on...

I think the difference is pretty obvious. Unfortunately I have heard the second example quite often.

Try to be more sensitive to your students' needs and learning style.

Simplify

2007-05-27T16:17:00.000-07:00

When teaching conversation, try to simplify your sentences. Your students may get confused by too long, complicated sentences which use a lot of advanced grammar and vocabulary.

When you say a sentence look at your student's face. Do they look like they understand you? If you see they are confused, try to say the same sentence in a simplified manner. Make them feel comfortable with your language. Check their face expression again.. do they know what you are saying? Short affirmative sentences are easier to understand by ESL students. Increase the difficulty and complexity of sentences gradually. After every statement you make or question you ask, make sure they fully understand. Repeat as many times as needed. Sometimes your students will understand you after repetition or if you slowly repeat what you said. Make drawings if needed. They will see your point in a visual format as well. Another way is to write down what you are saying so they can actually see the words. Then repeat again pointing at each word while pronouncing it. Get them to try pronouncing the whole sentense and follow your way of saying it. Practive makes perfect. Let them practice with you and copy your pronunciation and speed.

Quicknote

2007-05-27T13:59:00.000-07:00

Remember to smile and be friendly with your students!

Timing

2007-05-27T13:26:00.000-07:00

When involving students in conversation, especially for the first time, make sure you provide enough time for them to respond to your questions or comments.

Some topics are more involving than others. You can know what interests your student by asking questions about their hobbies, activities, and free time. When starting with a new student, it is very important to engage him/her in a conversation about something positive: what do they do for fun? what is their favourite food, movie, city? what are their hobbies? what are they dreaming of doing in the future?

When you start with light questions like that you are bringing the student in a confort zone despite all the difficulties the new language creates. They still feel frustrated about not being able to express their point of view in English. However, they are speaking about something that they feel completely confortable with and this makes them more confident to try to express it, even if their sentences are wrong. Speaking about their "fun" things in life makes them braver. In the meantime, you are also demonstrating interest in their lives and in them as personalities. They start to feel important and have the feeling of security that you are there for them and they are important to you.

Once you have established this comfort level, you can start bringing up topics that may be more complicated to express and actually start correcting and revealing their mistakes in English more often. Essential thing to remember is to try not to interrupt them all the time and give them the space and time to say what they need to say first before you start correcting them. Take notes while their speaking so you can revisit a mistake. This will also show them that you are listening carefully to what they are saying and you want to pay attention to their mistakes without missing any. Therefore, leave as much time as they need for them to respond. They will try to translate your question and their answer into their own language and then formulate it in English again before they say it out loud. If you keep pressing them by asking more questions, they will be confused and will not be able to respond properly. Give them time to respond to you. In case they take too long, maybe consider paraphrasing the question to simpler language and clarify what you mean. You may want to draw or represent your question visually. This will help them understand faster and will give them more confidence when responding.

Quote

2007-05-26T15:54:00.000-07:00

The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.
--Alvin Toffler