My Home Tutor Experience
I used to be a home tutor. I taught British England. I began in England.
I was teaching primary school age, basic English.
Now I would ask my pupils to read Wikipedia articles in their own language - and then in English.
You can also get Wikibooks.
But when I first started, things were more basic.
I also taught English conversation to Japanese ladies. Their husband's company, when it sent a Japanese worker overseas, paid for the wife to have English lessons.
My first lesson was explaining the meaning of labels on tins and packets of food.
The big surprise for my pupil, was that pictures of animals were not of the products she expected. A picture of a cow meant not meat nor beef fat but butter. Other pictures of cows illustrated milk.
But a picture of a dog was not dog meat to eat but pet food. Pet food is not for human consumption!
O and A level
Then I helped teach O level to pupils such as a little Japanese girl. Then my O level pupil went on to A level.
Then I taught Koreans.
Teaching Maths & French
My most challenging lessons were teaching Maths and French for the first time to Koreans. I tried to refuse, but the parents could not find other teachers. They turned up asking me to teach English in the first half of the lesson, half an hour, and 15 minutes helping with French and 15 minutes helping with maths.
I protested: "I don't teach maths or French. I teach English."
The mother told me: "It is English. He not understand instructions in English. I show you. What is multiplication? What is subtraction? Answers are back of book. But no understand questions!"
Sure enough, the answers were at the back of the book. But sometimes he got the answer wrong, and wanted to know why.
I looked. I asked him how he reached the answer. I saw why he got the wrong answer. He had added instead of multiplying. To my amazement, I found I could teach simple arithmetic. Providing I had the workbook and the answers at the back.
You can buy workbooks with the answers, in the UK from the stationery shops or online for all levels. You can correct the pupil's work. Or they can correct their own work.
For a teenager or adult, the children's work books, carefully graded, are a good way to start methodically.
Soon you will find that teaching is satisfying. Teaching is fun. So is learning.
The First English Lesson
When I was a home tutor, I gave the parent a list of items the pupil needed.
Stationery
A pen and pencil and ruler and notebook. Lined paper with a margin printed or drawn. The pupil's name, age, and date and page number on ten pages. A small notebook for vocabulary. A4 paper for an essay.
Books
A book of poetry. A novel or work of fiction.
Download from wikibooks.
Wind In the Willows. 1908. Out of Copyright.
A magazine or newspaper or factual book. Underline works they don't know.
Homework. The pupil came to the first lesson with two A4 sides written about their family. And/or why they were attending lessons and what they hoped to achieve.
The lesson was in three parts. We started with the pupil reading aloud their essay. I paid some compliments and corrected pronunciation and grammar. And structure.
We read from the work of fact.
We read from the fiction. We discussed style.
From the essay I found the writer's favourite subject, which could be a foreign country, or football or a sport or pets. We discussed the next essay subject, and what to tell the reader. The lesson was over, usually all too soon.
My best pupils were one of the Korean families. I spoke to the parents on the phone on the Friday evening about eight a clock at night. I told them what the pupils, their two twin boys, should bring the next day.
Next morning at 10 am they all arrived. To my amazement they had brand new folders and pristine paper sets of new pens and clean, new dictionaries.
They had got up early and driven to the shopping mall and parked outside, ready for when the shops opened. They had dashed inside, bought what was needed, then driven to my house.
Another pupil in England who had the right attitude was from a family of Indian origin. This girl gave me four A4 sides of an essay on her family. No grammar mistakes. No spelling mistakes. Everything had been checked with two dictionaries.
I asked her, "Why do you need an English teacher?"
She replied, "Because I came second in my class. I want to be top!"
Useful Websites
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeschooling
duolingo.com
About the Author
Angela Lansbury is a teacher of English and other languages. See my other posts on destinations and languages. Please share links with your friends.
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