Where language tutors go wrong
I’ve been thinking about 2 mistakes language tutors make recently that hold their students back. They are:
Low accountability
Classes don’t mirror homework
I’m basing this off of almost 9 years of running a tutoring business and 15+ years of taking language lessons. These two mistakes are specifically in the context of private lessons for adults, not for children.
Let’s dive into each one!
Mistake 1: Low accountability
Quick story about my personal trainer. He shared something interesting with me the other day. Apparently all his clients work out 3-4x per week consistently, and have done so for many years.
His clients’ consistency surprised me.
I would have expected high turnover. Working out is hard and I thought that many struggle to maintain consistency. Even more surprisingly, he told me that the other personal trainers he knows also only have highly motivated and consistent clients. In his circle, that’s the norm.
What’s his secret?
It turns out, he has two secrets.
First of all, in his initial consultation he will tell the potential client that getting in shape requires sacrifice. He ensures that anyone he accepts as a client is fully ready to commit to their fitness. If he doubts their seriousness, he will politely decline to be their personal trainer.
Second of all, he has minimum expectations for his clients. If someone regularly misses the minimum expectations, he talks to them about it to get to the root of the issue. If a client continues to miss minimum expectations, he is willing to let them go as a client (i.e., “fire” them).
Tutors generally don’t set expectations.
They’ll rarely tell a student on day 1 that learning a language requires real effort. They also do not tell them that they are expected to practice x amount per week outside of their lessons.
Tutors also don’t hold expectations.
If a student is often late or doesn’t do their homework, tutors just let it go. Unlike my personal trainer, they will not have conversations to gently hold them accountable. And they definitely don’t “fire” students.
I’m fixing this mistake.
At the Calgary Language Nerds, I don’t set and hold clear enough expectations with students. My tutors also, in general, do not. With new students moving forward, I will fix this! 😊
Mistake 2: Classes do not mirror homework
In other industries, classes mirror homework.
Personal training: I do the same workouts with my trainer as I do when I go to the gym by myself
Swimming lessons: The in-class drills I did were exactly the same as I was told to practice by myself
Jiu-Jitsu: I could easily do the exact same in-class drills outside of the lessons with a training partner
This is not the norm with language tutors.
Classes and homework differ wildly. For instance, here are some typical class formats tutors use.
PowerPoint-based grammar lessons
Reading an article + discussion
Watching a video + discussion
Free-flowing conversation
Game-based lessons
None of these are possible to alone, leaving students with the problem of not knowing how to practice at home.
Even when homework is assigned, students don’t do it.
Most tutors assign homework…and most students don’t complete it. To a large degree it’s not the students’ fault. First of all, as I previously mentioned tutors rarely have clear expectations around homework.
But even if we put that aside, there’s another reason students may not complete the homework…
Students frequently don’t feel clear on how to even complete the homework assigned.
I’ll give you a personal training example. I go to two gyms: one where my trainer works and another that’s a bit closer. The machines in both gyms, although similar, don’t work exactly the same way.
There are some exercises I never do alone because I literally don’t know how to do them on the equipment in the gym near my home. It also takes me time to build up the courage to ask for help.
How do we solve this problem?
While I’m not 100% sure yet, I think the easiest way is to make language classes as similar to homework as possible.
This is easy enough to do.
Here’s my rough draft on how to teach classes that mirror homework. Interestingly, I think these exercises have a triple benefit:
More effective lessons overall
Less prep time for the tutor
Clear homework
I have a meeting with Calgary Language Nerds tutors tomorrow to get their input. We have meetings to discuss such things 😊
Exercises that work both in-class and at home
Pronunciation
In-class:
The tutor plays a video in short 3-second segments
The student mimics each segment out loud
The tutor gives some feedback
Homework: The tutor sends the student a video. The student practices mimicking the video, 3 seconds at a time, then sends a WhatsApp voice to the tutor mimicking the the video for 15+ seconds of speech
Grammar
In-class:
The tutor shows a grammar video
The tutor has the student do practice exercises
I.e., worksheets
Homework: The tutor sends the student a grammar video along with practice exercises, likely in the form of a worksheet. The student watches the video, completes the worksheet(s), and sends them to the tutor.
Reading
In-class:
The tutor picks a text to read
The student reads it and looks up unfamiliar words
If the student cannot figure out what a word means using an online translator, they may ask the tutor for help
The student writes a 1-paragraph summary of the text
Homework: The tutor assigns a text to read. The student reads it and looks up unfamiliar words. The student then writes a 1-paragraph summary of the text they were assigned to read
Listening
In-class:
The tutor picks a video to watch
The tutor plays the video, with subtitles, for the student
The tutor pauses the video at every line
The student translates what is being said in the video and looks up any unfamiliar words in an online translator
If the student cannot figure out what a word means using an online translator, they may ask the tutor for help
The student writes a 1-paragraph summary of the video
Homework: The tutor assigns a video to watch. The student watches it and looks up unfamiliar words. The student then writes a 1-paragraph summary of the video they were assigned to watch
Speaking
In-class*:
The tutor picks a series of conversation questions
The student talks about each topic out loud and looks up any words as needed using an online translator
The student’s goal is to formulate a fluent, 30-90 second reply for each conversation question
Homework: The tutor assigns some conversation questions to the student. The student is to respond aloud. After practicing, they will send the tutor a voice note totalling 30-90 seconds of speech per conversation question.
*Another in-class teaching format that should be mixed in from time to time is free-flowing conversation.
It should mimic an actual, real-world conversation.
Writing
In-class:
The tutor picks a writing topic
The student has 15-20 minutes to write about it
The student re-reads their writing to edit it
The tutor edits the writing with the student
The student rewrites the fully edited text from memory
Homework: The tutor assigns a writing topic to the student. The student writes a response and sends it to the tutor. The use of on online translators is allowed. The tutor will review this assignment with the student in the next lesson, after which the student will rewrite the same assignment from memory.
I hope you enjoyed this article!
It was longer and more detailed than usual. Any comments or feedback are always welcome 😊 Just shoot me an email!