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1-2-1 Tuition, Strategies and Plans
Start With 1-2-1
Are you about to start your journey as a tutor? Then it could be a good idea to teach students individually 1-2-1, at least to start with. It can be easier to communicate and build a rapport with individuals, rather than trying to control, communicate and meet the needs of an entire group. You may also find it is simpler to maintain guidance and to hold your student’s concentration. One significant advantage that your students may find is that they will benefit from your undivided attention and be given the tailored made lessons, planed individually to suit their needs.
Make a Plan
Many student teachers returning after their first visit to a local school or college often have the same frustrating, but insightful experience. When asking an experienced tutor how she or he plans for the lessons, they are often met with the same response “there really isn’t time to plan, its all in the head dear”
You might think this is bad advice, but its not so much bad advice as it is part of the leaning process. It’s not just the student that’s part of this process, but the tutor too. Being prepared for the lessons ahead is an essential part of the equation when you first start tutoring.
For a new tutor about to start tutoring, creating a lesson plan will aid you in many ways. Not only will it help the student develop in the right direction and cover the full range of grey areas they need to prepare before their exams, but it will also give you as a tutor a full insight to what the student needs to cover and the time scale in which they need to do it! The very nature of a Tutor creating a plan is a self helping constructive process. Each time you do this you will become better and quicker at it, and know what areas must be highlighted and how much time must be spent on each area. It also gives the tutor a chance to reflect on how the plan was designed, and how this process could be improved next time around. A plan not only helps the tutor to cover the full range of topic in the required time, but also helps presenting topics in a more organised and orderly fashion, such can easily be followed by the student. It’s also useful after the lesson as a point of reflection. You can look at the areas for which the student requires further tutoring, and how well the studebt responded to one teaching method compared to another.
A Plan for Every Lesson
You might ask yourself “is there any benefit of writing a plan for every lesson?” The answer to this often varies for each individual, but more often than not the answer will be “yes: the long term gains far outweigh the short term time it takes to create one”. Despite what some more experienced and often cynical professional tutors may tell you, they too had to start somewhere, and without this plan you have no strategy to teach your student. The plan will allow you to think things through and aid you in covering each individual sub-subject. It will also help you prepare before the lesson, and make sure the subject is fresh in your head before you need to pass on the knowledge to your student. With the lesson plan in hand, you can systematically go through the needs of any student and meet them one at a time, whilst focussing on the key issues and concerns with each individual. Each time you write a plan for a lesson, you as a tutor will mentally develop your teaching skills. The plan can also act as a prompt, and help you keep a close eye on the time spent covering each area.
Keep Track of the Time
Try to stick to your allocated teaching time, and don’t run over or under. Its unlikely you will get paid extra for that time, but it might also make you late for you next appointment and this may consequently have a knock on effect. Try to maintain careful timing in order to be as professional as possible, and always allow a 5-10 minute ‘give or take’ time before you need to leave for your next lesson. If parents need to speak to you about their children’s progress, they can either do this within the time allocated for the lesson, or if you’re really feeling generous provide them your phone number so you can discuss this further. Don’t allow the discussions with the parents to make you late for your next lesson.
Contingency Strategy
Play it safe! It is always good practice to have a contingency plan for the unexpected. For example, a student may fly though one particular area faster than you had expected, so always keep a card up your sleeve. You need not have an entire second plan for each lesson, but further exercises that they can carry out during your tuition lessons can be helpful. Don’t over-cover areas they don’t need help with: intsead have some prepared typical exam questions, either on areas they have difficulty with, or areas you have already covered but which they may have forgotten from previous lessons. It might also be useful to use this time to find out how well they know the subject areas you are about to teach them, prompt them with brain teasers, and test their knowledge before starting on an entire subject area which may not need to be covered in fine detail after all. What if they ask a question about something you’ve covered that they really didn’t understand at all? Make sure you have enough flexibility with your plan to allow for the unexpected, you may need to revisit areas with your student you hadn’t realised!
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