How To Be A Great Teacher or Tutor

People often ask me, 'how do you do it?' 'how do you make your lessons so enjoyable?' or 'how do you make teaching look so effortless?'

It's funny because in my mind teaching is fun, simple and not that complex. However, here are four tips to help you become a more confident teacher or tutor.

1. Use your voice. When speaking to children of any age, it's important to not speak in a monotonous tone. Doing so will make you seem boring and it'll put your students to sleep!

To instantaneously make your lessons more appealing, vary your tone of voice from high to low. Use a higher tone when making key points or emphasising a point that is important.

2. Smile. A smile can totally transform a student's perception of you. Smiling makes you more approachable making students feel more comfortable around you. This makes for effective teaching because a comfortable student is more likely to ask for help and pay more attention in lessons.

3. Think outside the box. Do you use boring worksheets or teaching resources every single lesson? If so, ditch them at least once in a while. Worksheets and teacher resources are great but they shouldn't be used in isolation. To make lessons fun try thinking outside the box. How? Take inspiration from books, films and theatre and incorporate them into your lessons. Embed your lessons with elements of things that you find interesting. For instance, I love music so I incorporate music into my lessons. I also love movies and so I use them to help me think of ideas for writing prompts and creative writing for my students. 

Your homework: 

• Think of 5 unique ideas for your next lesson.
• Smile more often and vary your tone of voice.

Leave a comment below telling me what ideas you've come up with.

11+ Exams: Where to find 11+ practice papers

The 11+ exams are just a few short months away and as usual, many parents, students and teachers are frantically searching for 11 plus practice papers.

The importance of using practice papers cannot be overlooked; practice quite simply makes perfect and to stand the best chance of acing the exams, your child will need to practice as much as possible. 

You can find a list of 11+ exam papers for schools such as Haberdasher's Aske's, Kent College, Notting Hill & Ealing, Westminster and St Paul's here.

If your child is preparing for the 11+ exams we recommend enrolling them in our 11+ summer revision course which begins on the 18th of August 2014. Click here to find out more about the course. 

How Should I Market My Tutoring Service?

One of the most common questions I get from tutors is 'where can I advertise without spending lots of money?'

When I first started my tutoring business I was broke and struggling to make more than a few pounds a week. It was an incredibly tough period.

However, the fact that I built my business with such little money shows that having a mountain of money isn't necessary to build a profitable and enjoyable tutoring business.

Because I know that tutors like yourself want to market themselves in a way that's cost-effective, I spent several hours this weekend creating something that I hope you'll cherish and appreciate.

You can download it here.

It's a list of tutoring websites in the USA, Canada and UK.

If you're not sure of what a tutoring website is, it's simply a website that lists profiles of hundreds (sometimes thousands) of tutors within specific regions. Many of these sites rank highly on Google and as a result, parents who are looking for tutors search through these sites to find a tutor for themselves or their child.

Because I'm based in the UK, I can't personally vouch for every single site listed. However, the best way to discover whether they're any good is to try them yourself.

Download the marketing swipe file here.

PS. If you're a tutor (or aspiring tutor) who'd like to learn exactly how to market your tutoring business,  join the notification list for my upcoming tutoring membership club.

Have a fab week!

Victoria :) 
The Tutoress 
Author, Become a Private Tutor

Eight Summer Activity Ideas For Your Kids

Summer holiday activity ideas for kids

The summer holidays can initially seem like a blessing- there's no longer a need to wake up early to take the kids to school, pack their lunches or rush to help them complete the homework that's due tomorrow. However, after a few days of the holiday period, most children are bored, fed up and begging to go back to school. For parents, the annual summer holiday can be a major inconvenience. However, it doesn't need to be. There are several ways to keep your kids entertained without having to sit them in front of a TV, iPad or fancy technological device.

Here are eight summer activity ideas that kids of all ages will love:

Hobby Classes and Arts & Craft: Summers are the best time for children to indulge in piquing their interests and the most popular activity during summers is pursuing a hobby. Whether it is music, like playing the guitar or keyboard to singing, or whether it is something to do with theatre and performing arts like acting or recitals or dancing, it is always best to pursue a hobby as these things go a long way. Kids can learn a new language or join a book club, these days there is an option for anything your child would like to do.

Camping Getaways: Many primary schools offer summer activity camps for their students or even organize outdoor activity camps in other venues. Going to a school camp is a safe option since the parents have already met the teachers and their wards' classmates and are familiar with the school. Outdoor camping activities include a lot of fun, adventurous facilities such as swimming, archery, motorsports, rock climbing, trekking, zorbing, setting up tents, etc.,

Sports: The basketball court is an ideal ground for many games like Horse, 21, Bump or simply a game of one on one. What's best about basketball is that you need not go to a specific court or ground to play. Families living in open spaces with their own compound or backyard can install a basketball hoop and enjoy with kids.

Beach volleyball is another sport kids can find interesting as it combines a fun sport with a great outdoor location- The beach! You can cool off with some summer breeze at the beach and enjoy a fun game of volleyball.

Football: The beauty about football is that you can play it anywhere! Whether a ground, or a street or within the building compound. Often kids who are really interested in the sport take up training and go to football fields and train professionally.

Indoor Badminton: In sports gymnasiums and sports complexes, there are indoor badminton arenas with courts for people to play while avoiding the scorching sun.
Swimming: Lastly, swimming is probably the best sport for the summer time given that it is a fun alternative for kids to splash around in the water and have a blast. Moms can also relax with their kids in the cool waves of the water.

Cooking: Cooking with your child helps you spend some good quality time and gives you the onus of supervising your child at work. Including your children while cooking lets them know that they are doing something important and take it very seriously. There are tons of fun summer recipes that you could try with your kid such as ñNutella Popsicles, easy chocolate cakes, strawberry sorbets, red velvet cupcakes, basic pancakes, mini burgers, etc.
 
Outdoor Adventures: These days there are fun adventure activities planned for kids as well as their parents. Parents and kids with their own instructors can have fun outside and enjoy together. These outdoor adventures include rappelling, sailing, rock climbing, tree house building, etc.

Bored of teaching? Here's how to get inspired

Teaching.

Despite the ups and downs of the job we still find ourselves sticking with it because…we love it!

We love taking our knowledge and using it to inspire and educate others.

But sometimes being an educator is hard.

Sometimes we get bored and sometimes we feel so fed up that we start to tell ourselves that we need a break or some time away from our jobs.

As a teacher/tutor or educator it's totally normal to go through periods where you feel uninspired or overworked. 

If you've been feeling this way. Take a deep breath and forgive yourself- you're not alone.

Here are 3 amazing things you can do to reignite your passion for teaching whilst also improving the quality of your lessons.

1. Watch movies.

No, I'm not crazy. Watching films is fantastic for teachers because films are full of great ideas and messages that translate really well in the classroom.

Take for instance, the film Divergent. It's been a huge hit recently. 

An English Tutor or Teacher could take inspiration from the film by using many of the film's scenes as inspiration for story writing prompts. 

Here's an example: Imagine you're stuck in a large water tank. It's filling to the brim. You can't swim and if you don't find a way to either escape or stop the water from flowing, you'll drown. Describe your escape.

Similarly, a Maths Tutor could adapt this sort of scenario and task students what the probability of escaping the water tank would be. Likewise, a Modern Languages Tutor could translate the scenario into another language and ask students to write about how they'd escape.

It's a great idea, right?

The next time you're feeling a little uninspired, dedicate as little as 30 minutes to watching a film or even a few scenes from a film and think of creative ways to turn whatever you see into amazing lesson plan ideas.

2. Travel. When I speak to Tutors, Educators and Teachers, many state that they never travel. I get it, we're all pressed for time and travelling can seem like one of the last things on your mind. However, travelling can benefit tutors in so many ways.

Firstly, it opens up your mind making you more knowledgeable about new cultures, new environments and new ways of life. Secondly, it can give you the inspiration you need to feel reenergised enough to feel passionate about teaching. Finally, travelling makes for great stories! Stories that can be told in the classroom or in the tuition lessons that you teach.

3. Don't think of your lessons as 'lessons.'

If you think of your tuition lessons as 'lessons' or 'work' you immediately feel tired. Rather than saying 'I'm going to work today,' instead say, 'I'm off to inspire someone,' or 'I'll be making a difference today'. Just by changing the perception of teaching/tutoring from being a job to being a gesture that is giving, you automatically alter how you think and feel about your work.

Finally, have fun! 

You're a Tutor/Educator/Teacher because deep down you enjoy helping others to learn. Don't forget that and try to incorporate fun into your lessons as much as possible.

PS. If you'd like to learn more about building your tutoring business, take a look at my book Become A Private Tutor which is available in paperback and Kindle formats.

Victoria.

Founder, TheTutoress.com