How to be a Tuition Teacher Part 2 - The First Lesson

Congratulations! You called the agencies, you got an assignment, negotiated a fair pay, and you're going for your first lesson next week!

Now... What are you going to do?

School teachers have an advantage in this case. They would already have a syllabus, or a scheme of work for them to plan their lessons.

However, especially if you are an untrained teacher, you could be left quite blur. And you wouldn't want to give your students' parents the impression that you don't know anything.

Here are a few tips, then, to get you through the first hour at least!

1. Ask for the student's result slips or previous exam papers. See which subject the pupil was weak in, or which sections they were weak in. Spend some time talking to the parent about feedback from the teachers at school. This will help you in helping him later.

2. Prepare some assessment papers or school exam papers. You can ask the student to do them so you know where he is stumped. Another tip is to use an exam paper from a 'branded' school and another from an ordinary school. You can then roughly tell where he lies.

3. Reading and writing (lower primary). Some lower primary pupils may face word recognition problems, which is why their parents are engaging tutors! Choose some books ranging from easy to difficult from the children's section and ask the child to read them to you. If he stumbles, tell him the word and guide him. With better pupils, you can ask them to write a few sentences about themselves, or the book.

These are just 3 simple methods any Untrained teacher can use! Do you stop there? Of course not! You will later use whatever you observed in the first lesson to plan for your student later, but that's another blog post! Hope you found this useful!