How to Become a Language Tutor | Languages in a Tutoring Business

1. Introduction: Hello everybody. Welcome to this new course. I'm delighted that you've decided to join me today. We will have a look at how to become a language tutor and tips on how to start growing. But tutoring business. I have been tutoring for many years. I have started to tutor after high school. Also went to broad as ANOVA and actually to the older children in the families. I run a tutoring business for five years to teach French and even sometimes English. And we get more into details in the next video. So let's have a look at the different topics of today's class. We will have a look on how you can start when you don't have any experience. Will look at the different types of students. How to plan a lesson. We will look at the pros and cons of face-to-face or online tutoring. Where to find new students or customers. And how do you prepare with marketing and business plan? We will look into how much you should charge and also at some free tools that you can use in utero during business. We will look at the tutoring business cost. And finally, I will give you some final tips on being a tutor. You will have a class project at the end of this class. This course is aimed at all level as some topics could help you, even if you are already in the language tutoring business or if you just want to start as a language tutor. The aim of this course is to look at tutoring as it is, as important as teaching in a classroom, as it is more related to one individual and his or her needs, you are the extra help for them to reach a certain goal. And we tend to go the extra mile for your own students. Tutoring language. We also give you the opportunity to meet many different people from different backgrounds and with different learning skills, which is very good for your teaching development and teaching skills. So let's get started. 2. How to Start with No Experience?: Now, how can you start with no experience with people hire you to do to them if you have never used it before. While some will and some won't. It's like most jobs. You also need to learn how to tutor. Why tutoring? And tutoring is not like teaching in a school. You don't need qualification to start. So if you want to start having some experience, here is what you could do and how to start tutoring. Tutor friends and family. But first student was a 13 year old girl who needed help in math and in English. I had just finished high school. She was the daughter of my mother's friend. And that was my first experience tutoring and I added it to my CV. It was a six month experience. So you surely have cousin, nephews, niece in schools, or friends of brothers and sisters in school. So try to help them. If you are learning the language you want to teach, become an OPA. So I did this twice in the United Kingdom and in the USA. And at the same time as cleaning a house, babysitting the children. We teach the older children French. And it's great for your CV because you getting tutoring and work experience abroad, which is always an advantage on a CV volunteering. You can also volunteer to tutor. There are many opportunities when it comes to work for free. And it's great for people who can't afford language chooses. And it's great for your CV and for your experience as a tutor. And before starting mixture of what language you want to tutor and you own level, you need to have a certain knowledge of the grammar and the conjugation of that language. In particular, if you start tutoring adults or more advanced student. So to summarize, to get started, to, to friends and family, becoming a pair and tutorial language to the children. Volunteer as a tutor and make sure your language level is sufficient to tutor. So that's it on how to get a start in the tutoring industry. Let's move on to the next video. Thank you. 3. Types of Students: Now we will have a look at the different customers or students you could work with. A divided them into three big groups, which will be divided into subgroups. To looking at it this way will help you understand the learning needs and how to plan your lessons. The three groups would be young children, children and teenagers, young adults, and finally adults. So let's start with young children, which will correspond to primary school with an H bracket from three to 11 years old. You can divide them into small groups such as the three to five years old, which is what we call the early years. The five to seven years old, Key Stage 1, seven to 11 years old. Key Stage 2. If you tutoring a language to the early years, your approach would be more related towards learning. I will show some more example in the video by planning a lesson for each group. But remember that at that age, early years, children, I still learning their first language, which is why the learning process will be limited to words, but related to playful and fun learning process. With Key Stage 1, you can continue working on words. We have more work done on paper with colorings. For example, kids stage 2. You can continue with words by adding articles of the words and adding more basic sentences. Overall for the main group as young children, singing and learning songs is a great approach for their listening and speaking skills. Now looking at all the children, teenagers and young adults, we talking about kids stage three and key stage four, which are towards tags I'm called GCC and Key Stage 5 for a levels. So Key Stage 3 is 11 to 14, Key Stage 4, 14, 16, and Key Stage 5, 16 to 18. With that group, you are likely going to work accordingly to what they study at school in order to pass the exam, either GCSE exam or a level exams. For your a level student, there might be a chance that we'll be continuing learning at university after finally, the last type of student would be adult. And they can be divided in the following groups. New learners or complete beginners, university learners, intermediate learners, and advance loans. For the new learners. There will be people who really want to learn a new language, or people who learned some of it at school a long time ago. University learners are more related to their degree. And molecular students who were learning the language during the a labels. Intermediate learners are usually people who go on holiday to the country where they would like to speak a bit more of the language. I had a couple of students who would houses in France. And we're going a couple of times a year, we're planning to move. That also went with a French teacher who was not a French native or an English native. And she just wanted to work on her pronunciation and anticipate what could be asked by Hub tube. So as you can see, you can really work with so many different people. And finally, as most learners are really fluent speakers, Many want to speak and practice. With native. You might work with people who also want to rework more advanced grammar and conjugation aspects of the language. So to summarize, you could work with a huge range of different types of student. It's important to understand the learning needs will be different, which brings us to the next video about how to plan a lesson, where I'll explain different lessons structures and also working accordingly to these types of student we've just looked at. So let's move on to the next video. Thank you. 4. How to Plan A Lesson?: Let's now have a look at how to plan your lesson. Before planning lessons for your students, make sure you know your students level that you can even define with a test. I used to give these 10-meter test with 20 questions to have a better understanding of the vocabulary, grammar and conjugation knowledge in French. This will help you recognize their strengths and weaknesses. Now about planning your lesson, there is a main rule that I think is great. If you're less than duration is an hour. It is what are called the 202020 rolls. You divide your lesson in three parts to keep the lesson dynamic and varied. If you are looking at the young kid grew, you can use five words each time through three games of 20 minutes. For example, five colors or five animals, counting to one to five or five-foot, et cetera, for games. When I worked in a primary school for Key Stage 1 and early year, we used flashcards, teddy bears to find animals. And other game we were using is with banks. So we would have a pupil hanging the flashcard with a bag. If the world was mentioned, you can do coloring of five things, et cetera. The idea is to be creative. So if we look at the 2020 20 rules, you could plan a lesson like that. 20 minute with flashcards. So learning words, 20 minute, pointing out teddy bear who might be holding the flashcards or if the teddy bear is the same animal. If we're looking at animals of teddy bears or different colors, if you working on colors. And then you can play the game where they have to Hangzhou picture. But then you can be very creative and prepare young games. For Key Stage 2, you can learn five words or sentences, a bit like small sentences. And you can work with some colors, animals, food, etc. But then you can do more collage, oh, songs and more fun activities. So for example, if you were to learn music shop, you give them five different music genre in French or in any language that you are tutoring and work on simple sentences on what they like and why they like that type of music with some adjective, something make it fun and nice. You can put some songs or they can listen to the song and decides which types of music they like. So if we look at the 20, 20, 20 rules, we could do the first 20 minutes, you could learn the words. So you decide a 50 of music, rock music, classical, jazz. People have R&B, choose those five words in the language and learn them for 20 minutes or repeating the words. Think and do an activity which could be creating a poster. So you choose the genre of music that you like. And you have to create a poster with pictures of bands of that type of music. It's something that I've done in primary school, for example. And then we will practice for 20 minutes. So the student has to explain his foster why flaxseed with some adjective and pointing at the bands and explain. The idea between kids stage 1 and 2 is to make it just a bit more creative and a bit more with sentences or just one level up. Now we're looking at the next group, which is more related to secondary school and a levels. So you will be more likely helping students with the exam. So you might follow this cool programs with their books. Or Y is expected at the exam at the end of the year. So because it's GCSE or a level related, follow the books and prepare for the exam. How to use the rule. What the first part of the 20 minutes is usually looking at what you've done the best week. So you just work again on what you've learned in the previous lesson. Then it's the next 20 minutes where you would learn a new topic, new learning. And the last one, the minute you would practice that new learning, we've exercises, etc. And you can give the homework for the next time. Now looking at adult, you can divide your lesson with different types. So we've got three types of learning, which is the vocabulary, the grandma, or the conjugation of language. You have then three types of practices. You can do. Written work, speaking, or listening. So the sampling you're going to do is using that 2020 20 rules. So for example, the first one, the minute you would look at what you've learned on the previous lesson and some homework that you've given to the student. The next 20 minutes, you would look at grammar conjugation of vocabulary. You can change every week, but she's one of the three, maybe something that the student wants to work more depending on the level where you can do one each week and just go grammar conjugation vocabulary and then start again gram of conjugation vocabulary. And finally, the last 20 minutes you could work on that grammar conjugation or that vocabulary, but you can decide to practice it either in writing. So give them an exercise where they have to write a paragraph about something. Or you can talk. So you put a video and have to discuss and you ask question or listening something, they can listen to an audio or you speaking. And they have two answers, questions, depending on your students level, you can just decide what is best for them, but you can just mix it up that way. What's best is to keep that 2020 20-year-old. Because the lesson is more dynamic and he split the lesson into different things to do rather than just one lesson focused on something. In conclusion, depending on the results of the tests you could give to your students, you can plan your lesson accordingly. We've also working on the expectation and groups. Obviously, every student is different and you might have to rework your lessons once in a while. My advice is to keep it achievable, relevant, dynamic, and personalized to the student if you can. So that's it for this video, let me know if you have any question and we can create a discussion below and discuss more about planning a lesson if you want to talk about it a bit more. Let's move on to the next video. 5. Face to Face vs Online Tutoring: Now we will have a look at the pros and cons of face-to-face and online tutoring. The pros for face to face tutoring, the social aspect. When working face-to-face with your student, you will get that social aspect. They will not get online. As you are sitting next to the person in comparison to a screen. You meet people and start a working relationship with them in real life, rather than online. Working locally, working face-to-face with the student, it will give you a community feeling as you would be more likely to be working where you live. A more dynamic lesson. You're not just looking at a screen, can move. You can put the person more out of their comfort zone and participate more. But language, it would be easier for you to understand your student body language, especially if they didn't understand something and I'm not asking about it. The pros of online tutoring, accessibility to more student. You'll be able to find most students as you are not restricted to your town or your city. Anywhere. As you have access to the Internet, you can work from home or anywhere in the world. If you take your laptop video. Stuck at home, looking at the COVID pandemic, having the option to welcome nine is great and we allow you to still work when it's not possible to coincide. Better tools, there are so many free tools to use for video calls. Now we've option like sharing your screen, giving us as to the other person's screen, online whiteboards, helping prepare creative lessons. The cons of face-to-face tutoring, traveling time. You will be going to people's home, which can take a 10 minute to 60 minute drive depending on how far you are willing to go. Traveling cost, going to the students means you will have transportation costs such as petrol, train, or bus tickets. Less than cost. You will also have to have any exercises or less than printed in advance for your student rather than sending them by email if you were working on line. The cons of online tutoring, technical, and internet issues. Sadly, technology is not always on our side and you might encounter technical issues during your lesson, which can be annoying him in rescheduling a lesson. Not ideal for young learners. If you are tutoring young children, they might find online tutoring boring combat. You're having a tutor at home. Distracted people. I have noticed that some students, even adults, get easily distracted as you are not physically. They're checking their phone, putting the dog outside, answering the door. You might find, you would get interrupted more often and the students distracted by other things around him or her. As you are not there. Personally, I have cheated both ways and our preferred tutoring face-to-face, as I like the community feelings and social aspect, as well as driving there as you would do for a job. But working online worked really well with some of my students and help me learn how to plan lesson online and use the align tools that I could find. You might realize one way is better than the other, but I would recommend to try both in order to develop tutoring skills with people and with technology. So that's it for this video. Let's move on to the next one. Thank you. 6. Where to Find Students?: Now we will have a look at where you could find new students. First of all, you will get students contacting you for lesson thanks to word of mouth and marketing tools you would have put into place. In this video, I want to show you some website where you can register and find students. Some of them I've used before. Please note that all my advice and experience is based on working mainly in the United Kingdom. So this website are related to the UK. For any help, for other countries, feel free to start a discussion below to exchange any tips or website. With this website, you will find that some website will be handling how much you charge directly compared to other, where there will only be the link between you and the student. Might tutor is one of the most known website for tutoring. You can earn up to 20 been an hour or more, and each register to the website. You will also have a 15 minute video interview with my tutor before registering. I think this website is ideal as he helps you with the payment, the bookings and video call. Super Prof is a similar website as they managed to payment where you will have to use your own video call system. Now the next two websites, our website that I've used during my tutoring business, to the hundreds, you will need to create your profile. And then the student can contact you. And after talking to each other, they can buy your phone and email contact details if they want to. So you can organize a lesson. So literally this website is just a link between you and the student. What I liked about it is the fact that the website checks your degrees and criminal records as well, which will give reassurance to the student. Finally, I use first tutor, which is similar to tutor hand if it's just the link between you and the student. While activate this website is that there is a main street about which is the academic part, where you can find some of the languages, for instance French. But you can also register to the language tutoring part where you can also put your language. So it gives you the possibility to actually have two profiles to attract more students. In conclusion, to first to website super prof and my tutor. Great. If you want a platform that provides you with the payment and video called Tools, compelled to first tutor and shooter hand, where you would get in contact with students and then organize the rest on your own. I think those two websites are more ideal for face-to-face tutoring. All the links of those websites are below. If you need to go and check them out, let me know if you have used those website before or which one you would use if you know any different one. Let's move on to the next video. Thank you. 7. Business Plan & Marketing Tips: Now we will have a look at what you could do in terms of marketing for tutoring business and what a business plan will do to help you. This video is more related to people who want to tutor as a part of full time job and being self-employed rather than just earning pocket money with one or two lesson once in a while. The first thing to do if you are starting a tutoring business, is to do a business plan as it will give you a better understanding of the business and its strength and weaknesses. If you don't know how to write a business plan, I will put a link for a free template I used with the charity called the Prince's Trust when I started my own business. Creating a business plan will help you identify the following aspect of your tutoring business, such as your business goals and where you want to see your business going. In terms of financial goals or career goals, it will help you decide your business name. You will need to do a customer research or market research to identify what kind of customers and in this case, student you would look for. You can also do a competitor analysis by looking at what other competitors you have in your area, what kind of other tutor you are competing against. You will also look at your business cost and also pricing strategy and financial forecast. All of these aspects will help you create or reshape your tutoring business. Another aspect would be the marketing side, which is what we are going to look at now. Working online or face to face with your students, you will need a marketing strategy to attract more students. The first thing we're gonna look at is how you can market your touring business with social media. You can create a page on different social media to keep in touch with students and attract new ones. You can run ads, tips, business information, and even deals or discounts. It is the best place for communication. However, I want to use all of the platform and definitely not published the same content and marketing message on all the platforms. So let's have a look at the different social media and why use them or not. The first one we have is Facebook. I think it's possibly one of the best platform to use. You can create a business page. Do not create a profile. Really use the business page because you can have more option on it, like adding all your contact detail, you opening hours and people can also message on. Instagram is not a platform that I would recommend as it's mainly used for pictures. And as a tutoring business offering services and products. You will run out of things to post or publish on that platform. Now we have YouTube. I did not use YouTube at the time when I started my business. But if I was to start again today are definitely would. Because if on top of individual lessons, you are interested in teaching classes or courses online, youtube could be a great platform to attract students to watch your videos, but also then for them to contact you for individual lessons. So it's kind of a win-win for lessons and also courses online. Now we have Linkedin. I did use this platform for a bit and I would recommend it as it can open those two tutoring professionals and being hired to work as an external contractor in companies to tutor employees. We also have Twitter. It's one of the platform that are used a little bit and deleted after a while because I have realized that I would actually publish the same things that are used to publish on Facebook. I do not recommend it for this type of business. It's more work for less results. And finally, we have Google Plus, which is very similar to Facebook, used it for the same content as Facebook, but he's really liking the number of people that can follow you compared to Facebook, unless you have really a specific audience on that platform, I would use it, but if it's to duplicate what you post on Facebook, I wouldn't use it in that case. Now back to our marketing strategy. You can also look at different or the point such as creating a website or a blog or both. I do think a website is recommended, but not necessarily a blog on this, you are familiar with how to write on the block, but it's also another option. And you will notice that some people we use Facebook as their main business link. But having a website will make you look more professional and increase your online activities to attract more students. You can also use physical marketing products such as flyers or business card to keep on you. People will always ask you for details. If you are a tutor and a is the best way to share it. You could also post some flyers for letterbox for marketing purposes as well. You could also use magnetic signs that would go on your car doors, which will advertise your tutoring business wherever you go. One last marketing advice would be to publish advert, either in local newspapers or printed ads to be shown on community or adverts boards in shops. So in conclusion, most of these marketing tips are free and easily accessible. Spending some time to prepare marketing strategy is an important step in building a business. Let me know if you have any question about business plan or marketing strategy in the discussion section below. So let's move on to the next video. Thank you. 8. How Much Should You Charge?: Now how much would you charge for lesson of one hour? Obviously, if you self employed, you can charge any rates to your lesson. But here are some tips. In terms of language, tuition prices can vary depending on the language. On common language mean less tutor, meaning the price per hour would be higher. The following advice is related to languages like French, Spanish, English down more common to learn per se. Usually, prices vary between ten to 50 pounds, depending on the treaty. Below ten pound, I would say it is too low as it's almost the same rate as minimum weight. And remember, you might have costs and taxes to deduct from where you charge. I would say that between 10 and 20 pound is a good range as if you are new to tutoring or if you are a student trying to earn some money on the side, 2250 pound is the amount I would personally charge, like around 25 to 30, I would say if it was for me to charge for a lesson, um, I have a higher rate if the lesson is taking place outside a 10 mice wages from value, that would be the only reason why I would increase arrayed for 25 to 30 pounds would be the ideal amount I will charge for a lesson. Then between 30 and 50 pound for me, I guess it is a bit too much. Unless the tutor as a lot of experience and was even a teacher, which increases is all her experience. But remember that charging the right amount depends on your experience, your location, and the language you tutor. And in particular by the location as if you are working in an expensive city, you will increase your costs like thinking about London, you wouldn't charge the same as if you were in the countryside. You also need to stay competitive as charging 50 pound for an hour of tutoring would reduce your chance against other tutor. And finally, you can also offer back and G's such as lesson 4, a 100 pounds or 10 lesson booked and you give free lesson. It's some kind of packages that are used to do when I was tutoring. So in conclusion, and as I mentioned before, writing a business plan will help you identify the best rates for your tutoring business. If you have any question, let me know in the discussion below, Let's move on to the next video. Thank you. 9. Free Tools to Use: Now let's have a look at a couple of online tools that you could use for free. In particular, if you are starting and prefer saving some money. Here are some free tools that could help you. First of all, is your own website or blog. You can decide to pay for your own domain or decide for a free option for your website, such as Weebly or WordPress. The same applies to blog platform such as blogger who knew which offered. Secondly, if you before a domain for your website, you might get some emails with it. I definitely recommend having a separate e-mail for tutoring to you personally met. You can create a new email on Outlook, Gmail, or male. Another tool that we have mentioned previously in this class, as part of your online marketing strategy was social media. Social media are free and will help you develop your online presence and attract most students. Social platforms such as Facebook, Google Plus, and Linkedin are ideal for building the image of you tutoring business. Another free tool is Google, My Business, which will help you appear in Google Search and allow you to share contact details, opening arrows, reviews, and other updates. You will also need some communication apps. If you are working on line and providing lesson while working from home, you can use Skype, Zoom or Microsoft team. Make sure to create an account dedicated to your lessons. And finally, you can use an appointment planner like simply book, where student gets your availability and book lesson directly on your page. It's a plus and it will make you stand out from other tutors. In conclusion, there are many free tools on the Internet that could help you increase your online presence and help students find you and book Lessons. That's it for this topic. Let's move on to the next video. 10. Main Costs of a Tutoring Business: Looking at the cost of tutoring business, It obviously depends on you, but as a main guideline, I will show you the main cost and made optional cost. You will have three main cost to deduct from your earnings, tax and national insurance. If you have declared yourself as self-employed, you will have to pay taxes and national insurance. If you add up to a certain amount a business bank account, if you are declared as a business or self-employed, again, you will have to get a dedicated business account with your bank. Most banks can provide you with a business account. And finally, you will need to get insured as a tutor with a business insurance. Now the rest of the costs are optional and will depend on you deciding on spending money on the following. A website domain with an email, you can invest in a good website to increase your online presence and get your business known. But as we have seen, you can also get free option. In that case, an accountant, you can sort your annual taxes yourself or pay someone else to do it. Paid AdWords. You can take for some adverts online or in newspaper to appear on ads. A photo, you might decide to use a business firm with a number that is different from your personal number to have a dedicated line for your business transportation costs. If you decide to tutor in your area and not just online, you might have to before bus or train fares or petrel if you are using the car. Any office supplies such as pen, paper, ink for a printer, in order to get your lesson printed and ready. You might need an invoicing software to create and organize your invoices and help you keep track of any new payment. And finally, any Microsoft subscription for Word Excel PowerPoint to help you create your lessons. In conclusion, about from taxes, insurance, and the bank account, all the costs are optional and will depend on your business needs. So that's it for this video. Let's move on to the next one. Thank you. 11. Final Tutoring Tips: Finally, in that last video, I will give you some tips about tutoring languages. Create your own lessons, example, and exercises. Of course, you will not reinvent the grammar or conjugation of language, but you can create and personalize your lesson and you'll templates, create your own exercises with your own sentences. Student would notice if less than are copied from the Internet. Reviews and feedback. Asking for feedback is a great way for you to grow and improve you tutoring skills. Also, a student to the reviews online for people to get their opinion on your work. Be active on social media. For example, if you have a page on Google plus or Facebook, you can pause deals information about the language, proverb of the month, et cetera. Keep the interaction alive online. Learn about basic SEO knowledge. Start reading about SEO and how to appear on Google by optimizing your website to attract more relevant student or customers. Be organize, your lesson needs to be structured and organized. Keep all paperwork organized to look professional during your lessons. Beyond time, punctuality is very important. Being late or always rescheduling lesson will make you look unprofessional. Always be on time or a bit earlier to avoid being late, you students will pay for an hour lesson, not for 50 or 55 minutes. Defining Meno clade with an immaculate. If you have other lesson plan, go the extra mile, for example, or well, send a summary of the lesson. We've all the document after you lesson by e-mail. You can also add the homework, the next lesson date, and any related voice. It's great for students to get all of these information by e-mail. Finally, be passionate. If you are tutoring a certain language, there must be a reason. Show you passion for it. Personally, I love tutoring my mother tongue, which is French, explaining grammar and conjugation and going to explaination of a linguistics and understanding the language more than just speaking it. That's it for this topic. I hope that all of these tips and information will help you become the tutor you wish to be and that you will enjoy teaching language to people as much as I do. Let's move on to our last video. Thank you. 12. Class Project & Conclusion: Well done everybody. We are now at the end of the course. Let's have a look at your class project. Remember that you can download a PDF document below in the project section for more information. So to put into practice what we have seen today, you will have to create two lesson plans. One for a 10 year-old girl who will start French in school. I have put French as an examples. We can always change it to any language that you want. And a lesson plan for an adult who is an intermediate level. Next, let us know your thoughts on becoming a tutor, as well as your strengths and your weaknesses. Now let's summarize everything we looked at today. So we looked at how you can start being a tutor with no experience. The different types of student that you can work with, how to plan a lesson, depending on the student, you're working with. The pros and cons of tutoring face-to-face or online. We have looked where you can find new student. We looked at marketing and business plan and how much you should charge. And also I gave you some free tools to use. And we looked at the touring business cost. And finally, I gave you some final tips on how to become a language tutor. So I hope this class will help you start as a language tutor or give you some additional tips to be a language tutor, being a french tutor has been for me a wonderful experience in helping people learning my mother tongue and seeing the progress over the years. So that's it for today. If you have any question, feel free to create a discussion below and we will be able to discuss any related queries about language tutoring. Thank you for watching this course. Isn't right.