Tips for ESL Tutors
In the beginning, always prepare enough topics to last the hour even though you probably won’t use them. Some useful examples are:
- What did you have for dinner
- How do you get from A to B
- Reading excerpts: the newspaper, TV Guide or even instructions: look for pronunciation, comprehension, listening and do lots of repeating
- Changing a passage from present to past to future: having an entire conversation in one tense
- Practicing actual telephone conversations: doctor, lawyer, receptionist, immigration, welfare
- Describing what you see out the window
- Watching TV, a video or commercial together over the phone
- Playing guessing games: are you standing on a carpet, linoleum, wood floor- hot/cold
- Describe the weather, describe your perfect vacation
- Translations
- Talk about yourself or prepare a story about someone else, stopping frequently over comprehension
When you’ve established a regular meeting schedule, there are a number of activities you can do together:
- Going over junk mail together. You might also want to get in a discussion about SPAM and other unsolicited emails, so-called “business opportunities”, scams, etc.
- Trading recipes
- Helping to choose and understand his or her children’s books
- Going over a section of the Saturday or Sunday paper together
- Helping to understand telephone/cable/heat/hydro/internet service bills and announcements
- Letters from lawyers, welfare and government officials
- Grocery shopping trips
- Preparing meals together
- Cleaning the house together
- Identifying dangerous household items
Instead of meeting face-to-face each week, you could try doing some of the tutoring over the telephone. Working on the telephone is actually very useful, since it can really improve students’ listening comprehension as well as lessening their anxieties about the telephone. It also has a side effect of getting the client comfortable with calling you to cancel appointments or change times. This is not really possible with very low levels, however, so every effort should be made to actually meet once a week.
Some relationships may start on the phone, but then can develop into actual meetings once trust has been established. Aside from tutoring over the telephone, it is very possible to carry on a correspondence with your student, either via email, letter-writing or, more simply, sending each other postcards. Also, rather than meeting with the sole purpose of tutoring, you can be very creative in integrating English activities into the daily life of your student; for example, offering to practise English while grocery shopping, doing household chores, or even while preparing dinner. Food is a wonderful way to start connecting with each other.
With memory and concentration difficulties, just remember to do a lot of repetition and to go at the pace of your student. He or she may become quite frustrated at the slowness of their progress, so it’s important that you are very encouraging and positive about whatever progress you have seen, even if it’s only a little. And be flexible about your criteria – a person’s English may not have improved that much, but if they are meeting with you regularly, and not forgetting about their appointments, that’s progress. If they start to smile more often, cry less, that’s progress. If they begin to talk about the future in a more hopeful light, that’s progress. If you see that they’re starting to explore their environment a little more, taking more chances with the unknown, that’s progress. If they start to sleep better, and appear more alert and energetic, that’s progress. You can always find something that has improved, and helping your student become aware of it greatly benefits their self-esteem.
Some students may be quite frustrated, paranoid and suspicious. This can manifest itself as anger and general accusations. Don’t worry, you don’t always have to be active – sometimes it’s good just to let them rant and get it out of their system; you can validate their feelings while at the same time try to help them put the issue in perspective. If your student shows irritability – agree and sympathize. With negativity – acknowledge the underlying feeling, while at the same time point out alternatives. Lack of concentration – tell them it’s normal, talk about stress. Memory problems – short exercises, go for a walk, lots of repetition. Withdrawn – you talk a lot. Extreme lack of confidence – loads of encouragement, easy exercises.
