Being a private English lesson teacher is in fact a good and fun way of making your life… But what matters, is this the way you like to earn money? Is it difficult? Is it easy? What makes you think of it as easy or difficult? What about being a doctor? A lawyer? Well… there are different questions to be asked for each different profession! In this blog, I’ll be touching on the topic of being a private English lesson teacher and related details.
First of all, you should keep in mind that a bachelor’s degree and pedagogical formation are a must for many government schools. But you might find some other types of certificate of authenticity especially if you have a bachelor’s degree and studied other linguistic sciences. Tesol Celta etc provides certificates of authenticity for teacher candidates. For many students your education or teaching level is important.
A second language sometimes is a good plus, in the sight of private lesson students. Also, you don’t have to but you should be proactive naturally and have: 1- very good English speaking skills and 2- an adequate fluency and a native-like accent which is not extremely difficult to imitate. The more native-similar accent you have the better your students will appreciate you. The accent issue is not the rule though! But as a private English teacher, it is an important factor to be chosen by your prospective private students. All your students are both English learners and speakers! Thus they may appreciate your teaching and language skills. You’d better be well equipped in case you meet hard questions. You should also welcome being asked very rare English words 🙂
Being a motivated private English teacher
From the age of 25 till 35 or 45 you’ll need to be proactive. And you also need to be enthusiastic about teaching. Though that requires a good state of mind and motivation. Because teaching in long term is a consuming and repeatedly the same job that you’ve been telling the same thing. İt’s like a loop…. But if your occupation is what makes you a living, (I mean for all types of work) let’s say being a doctor being a lawyer, or whatever it is, it becomes a regular part of your life. And a routine!
So it is up to you to keep your ‘difficult to cheer up mood’ cheered up at all instances at work. And that is hard. I know you can’t be in your mood at all times. Because you are a human being 🙂 But whatever the reason is, when the question is being a private English lesson teacher. You should be the one that motivates the students. This means you need double the motivation required both for yourself and for your student. Patience is the key both for the learner and the teacher. So be very patient!
Private lessons are one-to-one teaching models.
Private lessons are a way of teaching the lessons relatively in the same way as if you are teaching it to a class. On the other hand, In a language class, you’ll have students from different age groups. The content of teaching remains the same or may change depending on the classroom and lesson management experience of the teacher. But in private lessons, your audience is generally 1 person or 2 or 3 people of mini-groups. As regards classroom lessons you don’t have to have a good command of overall the class. Because your class contains 1 or 2 people at the same time.
Unlike a classroom environment in which you make the students listen to you, in private lessons, If your students are adults, most of the time they are quite willing to listen to you. That’s why they pay for private lessons. They heed professional’s advice because they know what they need.
Be prepared for divergent questions or students as well 🙂 Most of them, most of the time, will never study the previous lesson so you have to take care of the gaps. And keep reminding previous knowledge. Except those divergent
Getting private lessons as a result of knowing what one needs, is in fact an accurately made decision. Because in most cases students are the ones to decide what and when they need. And private lessons are mostly demanded by these self-conscious professionals. Because learning a language with a private teacher makes the students gain time compared to classroom lessons. The purchasing power of private student’s profiles is another topic to discuss. Nevertheless in long term, that’s an economic burden for many private students.
Its not as easy for individual private english teachers to get students
Education is an enormous business sector that many businessmen invest a lot to get to success. Although it’s an education sector, for many of them it’s just a business that needs to keep going on. They invest the best they can and gain a lot of students to spin the wheels. And generally, they have plenty of students.
Private teachers are not superheroes. Like many people, they have a life to live and to be sustained. And they have bills to pay as well. On account of that most teachers work as full-time branch teachers at private courses where businessmen invested a lot like mentioned in the first paragraph for the sake of earning less but a regular salary. When working on behalf of a language school you have a regular income without thinking of finding new students. Because the Language course is responsible with finding students and commercial stuff in general.
But there are a lot of teachers who work individually. When you work individually, without being dependent or on behalf of an intermediary language course, you are responsible for the student’s progress. Unlike full-time course teachers, you are also responsible for finding new students. And sporadically you’ll have fewer students than expected that you wont know when exactly. Keep in mind that the advertisement cost is another pain in the neck for many individual teachers. So, blogging about language learning ‘like ı do in this blog’ or posting on social media could use. You always have the option to spare a handsome amount of budget for advertisement though.
Students with understanding problems
Some of the students are so difficult that, in many cases, they have no idea about their own language. And meanwhile, getting private English lessons doesn’t require a university degree. So your students will have different education levels. There are also the students who need to learn English for university education or for other professional or academic purposes. On contrary, freed from education level, many beginner students will find English difficult to learn and difficult to hear for understanding. You are the one that has to come up with a solution with students who have understanding problems. If you are experienced enough you might distinguish whether the student lacks enough education or may have psychological problems
Some of them have psychological problems
Teachers are not psychologists nor any kind of practitioners or doctors… Not at all… But teachers might have a lot of data to cooperate with psychologists about the language learners in general. It ıs normal that people may have psychological problems. Because we all might have non-serious psychological problems right 🙂 If you feel like crying, worried and nervous at all times well that’s a psychological problem pls visit a doctor.
If the students feel timid or don’t feel confident enough to talk, then this may be a small psychological problem. And if that’s the case then the teachers may help them recover their courage. Most of the time these types of students are also uncommunicative in their own mother languages. And this doesn’t mean they can’t speak. They just don’t express themselves verbally as much as the others. But professional teachers try and do their best to give these types of students the motivation and a reason to interact.
Education is such a large sector that for every branch, there are different teachers for any level of student. There are also young and less and more experienced teachers. Experience comes both with age and mind. So for every branch, you may have less expensive or more expensive teachers. How much would you charge the student for a lesson of an hour?
Leave a Reply