#language tutor

1) Think about your learning style

Before even going on to a language tutoring platform, take some time to think about your learning style and what things you want to rule out. Having a checklist of criteria will make the process a lot less overwhelming, and it’ll give you things to look out for. There’s no point going for a tutor who teaches in a style that you already know doesn’t work. If you haven’t had any language classroom experience at all and/or really don’t know your style, that’s okay! But think about the materials you like to work with. Do you hate working through books? Some teachers just want to guide you through workbooks. Others are open to teaching through news articles, video clips, and so on.

For me, I know that a tutor not speaking any English to me would be too overwhelming. I wouldn’t be able to pick up new vocabulary through context and I’d find the process too stressful. Whilst this definitely works for other people, I knew that I could rule it out for myself. I also knew I could rule out tutors who don’t want to teach grammar - I knew that I wasn’t picking up grammar through patterns, so I looked for tutors that would do that. But also consider this: some teachers want to give you a lot of homework and then just have you discuss the answers and ask further questions in class whilst others will give you very minimal (if any) homework and have it be all about class time. Think about which style works for you.

2) What do you want out of tutoring?

For some people, tutoring is just a way to get quality speaking practice. They may find it hard to find people that are willing to give them the feedback they like, or a consistent / long enough speaking partner. Others are looking for a tutor to teach them the absolute basics, and others just want someone who can explain tricky concepts to them. Some tutors are only looking to teach people of a particular level, or just want to offer a particular kind of teaching (e.g. vocabulary or academic writing).

For me, I wanted tutors to be able to help me understand grammatical concepts as well as being a safe place to develop conversational practice. With a tutor it feels safer to make mistakes, and I feel like I’m less of a burden than trying to make an unpaid language partner correct everything I have to say. I also struggle with understanding grammar explanations, and I need the motivation that another person can bring to the lesson.

3) Think about your budget

This might seem really obvious, but it’s definitely something to bear in mind. £10 an hour might seem cheap now, but you’re likely going to be buying much more than one lesson. How many lessons can you afford to take each month? It might be better to turn down a good person that’s at the very max of your budget to go with someone (who’s still good) that’s lower priced and who you can have more consistent lessons with. Consistency with a tutor is a really good way to build upon work and progress through the programs and materials they have. 

Some tutors will offer free or massively discounted trial lessons, but then have a very high hourly rate. It might seem great to take advantage of someone who’s usually £30 an hour for free, but you want to develop a connection with a tutor that you can actually afford. There’s no point trying someone out of your budget because your trial lesson won’t be enough to work from. You’d need consistent lessons with them and you can’t get that if they’re out of your budget.

4) How many tutors do you want?

This isn’t talking about how many tutors you want to try out, but how many you want to have in the long run. You could stick with just one tutor, but you might find you get too comfortable with them and lessons become less effective. It also means if they can’t explain a particular issue to you, then you may not be able to get an easy explanation than if you had more than one. 

For me, I knew that I wanted two as it’d give me the variety I need to really stretch my language skills. This doesn’t mean going way outside of my comfort zone, it was about finding two people I could feel a comfortable connection with that I knew would push me. They have a slightly different approach with regards to explanations, material worked with, and their personalities. As someone with an attention disorder, I need variety to stop myself getting burnt out. If I was constantly having to use the same material and dealing with the same style I would get quickly burnt out.

Consider how you might want to approach having multiple tutors. It’s about striking a balance between seeing each tutor individually at a frequent enough rate to properly build upon material, as well as ensuring you’re not doing too many lessons each week. You might decide on alternating weeks with each tutor, or spreading each tutor out through the week.

5) What platform do you want to use?

There’s many different platforms for meeting a tutor, such as Tandem, iTalki, Verbling, Preply, etc. It might be worth checking each of these out and seeing what each of the platforms have to offer. A lot of tutors, no matter the platform, would rather conduct the lessons through Skype or something similar. So if you haven’t got one already, it’s a good idea to make a Skype account. 

iTalki is probably the most well known tutoring platform, but it’s worth considering that another platform might be popular with people of your target language. Some platforms also require you to go through a proper vetting process or to have certain qualifications. Whilst this makes the quality of tutors better than those that have zero vetting process, you also have to consider how that might affect cost. 

6) Properly watch their introductory video and read their profile description

Now that you’ve sorted out a lot of the crucial prep, it’s time to actually consider a tutor. Whilst it can be hard to judge personality through video and/or text, it’s worth seeing what they have to say. If they’ve barely put any effort into talking about themselves, then it’s probably best to give them a miss. If they can’t be bothered to even advertise themselves for money, how can you guarantee they’d put the effort in to teach you once they have your cash?

As someone who’s not very good at continuing a conversation, I looked for tutors who seemed like they could fill the awkward pauses. I also considered how clear their audio quality is (not to say it has to be super high quality, but if I can barely hear them then it’s going to be a struggle). If they offer demonstrations of how they teach vocabulary / grammar etc, I consider if their explanations are in a style that I like. As I’m very much a beginner to the language, I need someone that can demonstrate that they can explain concepts in English so I can understand them. Some tutors are aimed at more advanced learners that can comfortably discuss concepts in the target language, or might just be there for some professional speaking practice. 

Check back to your criteria and see if they touch upon the styles that you’re looking for or the styles you want to avoid. They’ll also often list the material that they use, it’s worth considering if this is the kind of material that you like to work with. Some tutors are very workbook or quiz orientated, others like to bring out flashcards. It’s about what works best for you.

7) Look to the reviews, not just the star rating

On sites like iTalki it’s very difficult for a tutor to get below 5 stars. This is because we want to be polite, and we might just rate a lesson 5 stars and move on rather than voice our complaints. While a lot of reviews are just going to be very basic, some of them will touch upon teaching style and materials used. Also look to mentions of personality - e.g. stern, patient, outgoing, well prepared etc. Whilst these are all subjective, it can give you a better idea. Also look to see if students are booking multiple lessons. If most of a tutor’s students are only booking 1 or 2 lessons then it’s likely that they’re not going to be great. You want to see students returning again and again to a tutor as it demonstrates their ability to build upon content and remain a good tutor.

8) Send them a message before booking a lesson

Before booking any trial lesson I sent the tutors I was considering a short message briefly explaining my current level of the language and what I want to get out of it. I mentioned the concerns I had and included that I had never had language lessons outside of school.

I found this a really good way of assessing a tutor, as well as just a polite way to allow them to prepare for the lesson. It was nice when a tutor picked up on specific issues I mentioned, and it was a way of allowing them to talk about the material they’d use to address my specific points of concern. If a tutor just ignored all of that and was just like ‘yes yes whatever book a lesson’, then I didn’t. Tutoring is a job, and people are in it for money, but they also have to be in it out of a genuine interest in helping others. If I didn’t feel like they wanted to help me and just saw me as a future purse to dip into, then I didn’t book a lesson.

This doesn’t always work though. Some tutors seemed to forget by the time the lesson came around what things I had mentioned, and the lesson came across as unprepared. Whilst others referred back to the notes I had sent, and built upon that. It meant that I wasn’t just doing alphabet lessons again and again with tutors, and it gave me a much better assessment of their lessons as a result.

9) Prepare for the lesson 

This can be tricky when it’s just a trial lesson and we’re likely not going to receive any material beforehand from the tutor but there’s ways we can prepare. Look over their tutor profile and through their intro video again, is there anything about them that you want to ask? Is there anything specific that they could help you with that day? Do they expect you to pay for additional material? Do they have a specific course of content, and how many tutoring sessions does it take to complete it?

Some tutors will already know what they want to cover, but some will be open to suggestions. Having questions is also a good way of finding out more about their tutoring without having to commit to further lessons. For example, you could ask them what kind of workbooks they use. Once the trial lesson is over you could have a look at previews of the workbook/s and see if that’s the kind of content you’d enjoy working with. 

10) Sometimes a tutor will look amazing in theory but not in practice

It’s unfortunate, but even with all the research we’ve previously done we can get it wrong. A tutor might seem really outgoing and friendly in their introductory video, and then be lifeless and bored during the lesson. They might be a really nice person and we just don’t click with them or their teaching style. 

This isn’t a reflection on you, and it certainly doesn’t make you a bad student. It also doesn’t mean that they’re an awful tutor, it just means they’re not a right fit for you. This is why it’s so important to experiment with tutors and see which one/s are the right fit for us. Likewise we can have a tutor that we get on great with, but we don’t actually learn much from them. Sometimes this can take a few lessons to really shine through, but when we do notice it then it’s time to move on. 

Don’t beat yourself up, and try and not fret over the lesson. It’s completed now. This person isn’t going to remember you, and you don’t have to do a lesson with them again. Just politely thank them for the lesson and move on. The next person you have a lesson with might be an amazing fit. It’s not all wasted time though, it can give us a better understanding of what styles work for us and what don’t. And just because we don’t click with a tutor, doesn’t mean we don’t learn anything about the language. 

The opposite can be true also! One of the tutors I booked I started having second thoughts about before the lesson. But when the actual lesson happened I thoroughly enjoyed it, and it was definitely one of the best lessons out of the wide range of tutors I tried. What this means is that it can be hard to tell how well we connect with someone until we have a trial lesson with them. It’s not your fault for picking a tutor that you don’t connect with, and it doesn’t mean that all the other tutors are going to be the wrong fit for you also.

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Hopefully this will help make finding a language tutor less stressful. I know for me that doing a lot of research on language tutoring, and on the tutors I enquired with helped me feel a lot less anxious. I personally found it useful to group my different tutoring trials close together, so I didn’t have to worry about weeks and weeks of trials. But for some people that might be overwhelming, and they might find it easier to spread it out over a longer period. 

If you’re like me and struggle with the concept of ‘letting people down’, and feel like you might be pressured into sticking with the first tutor or two that you try then I would recommend setting a specific date which you then invest in a tutor. For me, even though I really liked the first tutor (and he was one of the ones I stuck with) I had upcoming tutors to meet. By having to wait until I tried out the other tutors, I could be confident in that I was picking someone as a result of being a good fit.