These days, I mainly use tutors in one-to-ones via Skype or Zoom. I book them through the site italki.com. But I’ve also had one-to-ones in person and I’m no stranger to group classes. The tips below apply equally to these contexts as well.

So, let’s set those foreign language tutor expectations!

Explaining and illustrating the language

First of all, you can, of course, expect your foreign language tutor to explain and illustrate the language.

By explain, I mean setting out grammar rules and unlocking vocabulary in general and deciphering particular examples of usage that you might be stuck with. Illustration would be providing more examples to go with the explanations.

It’s a mistake to study too much grammar or items of out-of-context vocab. We don’t want to mix up knowing about the language in theory with acquiring the language in the context of actually practising the four skills of speaking, reading, listening and writing.

But that doesn’t mean that clear explanations don’t help.

It pays to get a quick explanation of a rule with exceptions or examples of common patterns.

This saves us having to work things out from context (or guess incorrectly).

It helps us notice things in context when we’re using the language, in a virtuous circle of reinforcement.

I get nearly all the explanations that I need from self-study courses (books, online) or works of reference.

But if you prefer your instruction direct and you can use a tutor to great effect to help you through a course. If the course was designed for self-study, all the better. You can do what you can on your own and preview or review the material with the tutor.

Or just go to a tutor with the sticking points of grammar or vocabulary that arise from your course work or your less structured, “natural” practice.

Practising the four skills

Instruction in the language may be useful but you’ll never get fluent without hundreds and hundreds of hours of practice.

You’ll never be able to get ENOUGH practice even with a team of round-the-clock personal tutors. After all, even full-time taught courses require a lot of extra out-of-hours engagement from students.

No, you’ll need to read your language, listen to your language and live your language loads.

But hey, what a tutor can do, even in infrequent sessions is SOME focussed, quality practice.

Here one-to-one sessions really are more effective than a group class simply because, in one-to-one the spotlight is on you all the time.

As to what to practise, well, I don’t want to pay for a teacher’s time while I am reading or listening. To my mind, these activities I can do best on my own.

But you may want to do these activities along with a teacher. This may make sense, for example if you’re stuck on a particular piece of content or can’t find content that’s easy enough for you to use independently. Maybe you lack the discipline to engage on your own.

I also practise writing in my own time but bring in the teacher for correction.

Where a teacher really comes in is for speaking practice or, rather, two-way conversation practice. After all, you won’t just be practising speaking. You’ll also have the chance to improve your listening ability as you try to understand the teacher’s side of the exchange.

If you get nervous speaking in real-life situations, practising with a sympathetic tutor can help you to build your confidence where the stakes feel lower.

A cheaper way to do this is with an exchange partner. The drawback of exchanges is that you will then have to spend equivalent time offering your language to the other person.

Giving feedback

Next, the teacher can provide you with corrective feedback on your speaking and writing skills.

You can get personalised help with pronunciation, intonation and other aspects of the physical sound of the language.

A good tutor will give you appropriate feedback on points of grammar, style and register in your speaking and writing.

Tutor feedback is not just for beginners.

If you’re already at an intermediate or an advanced level you may have mistakes in pronunciation, grammar and vocab, that you don’t even know about because people still understand you. These are “fossilised” mistakes that you make again and again.

As for writing: I do written work before the class, rather than putting pen to paper in class when the meter is ticking. It’s not reasonable to expect a teacher to correct your work outside lesson time for free. Of course, you could pay them extra to do this outside the lessons. My preference, though, is to have them correct the work live during the lesson. We do this through screen share or us both hopping on Google Docs in another window.

Advising on materials and methods

A course or less comprehensive materials (such as worksheets or individual exercises) can really help to cover the key bases and provide some structure and progression.

I always find teachers who are willing to work with the materials that I bring to the party. For you, though, a big advantage of working with a tutor may be that they offer to structure sessions around their own materials or one preferred course (or a choice of them).

In addition to core courses and other materials for use in the sessions, a good language teacher will be able to suggest supplementary reference works. These could be dictionaries, workbooks, grammar, collections of vocabulary) that can help you as you engage with the language in your own time.

Your tutor should also be a ready source of advice on things listen to, watch and read in the language, as part of your engagement outside the lesson.

Boosting your motivation and engagement

Not all teachers have the perspective and knowledge to help you set goals, build a routine and a language learning habit and keep you accountable.

For these things, a language coach can provide more bang for your buck.

Yet the sheer fact of an upcoming lesson can help with routine and force you to show up and perform.

If you try to cancel or reschedule lessons booked through italki within the final twenty-four hours, you still have to pay. When you’re boxed in that way, motivation suddenly takes care of itself.

If you ask your tutor to set you homework, this can also help keep you on the straight and narrow.

When I was working intensively with tutors to prepare for my advanced German and Russian exams, I needed to come up with a piece of written work for correction in each session.

If you find the teacher inspiring, enjoyable to spend time with, that can be a great motivator too. The longer you work together, the deeper and more rewarding the relationship will probably become.

Wrap-up

So, what to expect from a foreign language tutor?

Well, no, a language tutor can’t beam the language into your head. Yet he or she can explain and illustrate and provide you with some skills practice. Your tutor can provide good corrective feedback, help with materials and methods and help keep you motivated and engaged. No wonder so many successful language learners work a lot with tutors.

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Next post in the series will be: specific ideas of what to do at the different levels.

Do share your expectations of a good teacher. What are you looking for? What do you think it’s realistic to expect from an online teacher? Share your stories or any further questions in the comments below.

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The post What to expect from a foreign language tutor (and what not to expect) appeared first on How to get fluent, with Dr Popkins.

Lesson price

On italki teachers of the same language can set their own prices and there’s quite a bit of variation. On that platform, teachers with a qualification are called “professional”, while those without are “community tutors”. The latter tend to be cheaper, but it doesn’t always follow. 

Check whether the teachers offer a free, shorter taster session.  These days not so many do, but you may have the option to get to know the person a little before committing your cash. 

Some teachers may offer different prices for different types of lessons (such as informal conversation, work with a textbook, exam preparation).

Sometimes an online language tutor will offer a package of five or ten lessons, which brings the overall price down slightly.  Don’t commit to a package until you’ve had a few “one off” lessons. 

Availability 

On most platforms, you’ll be able to see a teacher’s calendar for upcoming weeks.  Are there slots throughout the day and across the week or does the teacher just work, say, in the mornings or three days a week?

We’re talking online language teachers, remember! Don’t assume your French teacher is going to be sitting in France. He or she could be in Vietnam. Make sure you’ve set your local timezone correctly in your student profile otherwise that apparent mid-afternoon lesson could turn out to be in the middle of the night. 

Check the range of lesson lengths that a teacher offers. When I’m a beginner or lower-intermediate, I find thirty minutes enough.  Many teachers, though, only offer 45 minute or one hour slots.  For hardcore learners, some do offer 90 minutes.  

Booking flexibility

What is your platform’s general cancellation policy? 

On italki, if you cancel within the last 24 hours with any teacher, you’ll lose your money. If you do have to cancel at short notice, it’s good manners to let your teacher know and some may override the system to let you reschedule (more likely if you’re a long standing student who’s usually reliable).  

Before the twenty-four hour cut-off, italki lets you cancel without penalty, again, regardless of teacher. You can also find another open slot on the teacher’s calendar and ask the teacher to approve it. 

What if you’re late for the lesson? Here, italki tutors can set their own policies. Some teachers will only wait ten minutes. If you are held up, it’s only good manners to message the teacher and let him or her know. 

Reliability 

I have a 100% attendance rate on italki but I have had flakey online language teachers who fail to show.  If that happens, you are given the option to reschedule or get a refund.  

And what about reliability over the upcoming weeks and months?  Everybody needs a holiday and, during the summer in particular, some teachers disappear for several weeks. That’s a good reason to work with more than one teacher. After all, even if you find a teacher who never takes holidays, they could fall ill or simply give up teaching on the platform.  

Technical setup and know-how

You don’t want to spending half of a thirty minute lesson redialling due to a frozen screen or dropped connection. Most teachers don’t include information on their wifi and microphone in their profile but some do.  Book a trial lesson and you’ll soon be able to judge for yourself.  

You’ll soon get a feel for how tech savvy your online language tutor is. Can they use screen share, take notes for you or read your written work on Google Docs and so on?  Message the teacher before you book if you have questions. 

Teaching qualifications and experience 

Teachers will be keen to mention their qualifications. The best platforms, such as italki, will verify their certificates. 

Yes, a qualification is a good sign of basic competence and of commitment to teaching as a craft. But don’t fixate on this.  There are qualified teachers who just aren’t very good and people without stamped pieces of paper who are just great.  

Enthusiasm and experience can take a teacher a long way, especially if you’re just looking for some conversational practice rather than, say, help with a particular exam. 

On italki you can see how many lessons a teacher has taught over the last three months and their “all time” total of lessons.  

Specialism and interests  

Some teachers specialise in a particular area, for example pronunciation, informal conversation, exam preparation or business language.  Are they a good fit for you? On italki, the teacher search filter setting helps you narrow down the field here. 

You may also be able to find somebody with wider shared interests. 

One of my German teachers was a former nurse, for example. She was a great teacher, but if you’re learning German for nursing, she would have had even more to offer.  

Preferred method and materials?

Most teachers use a pretty eclectic mix of methods but some prefer to use just one. I had a French teacher who used the so-called “silent method”. This involves the teacher taking a passive back seat to allow the student to speak as much as possible. 

Some may have a preferred course book that they will encourage you to work from. Will this suit you and will the teacher be flexible enough to work creatively with the materials that you want to use? 

Of course, with lesser-learned languages you may have struggled to find materials. In that case, has the teacher developed their own that aren’t available elsewhere?

If you’re impressed with a teacher’s profile but are worried they will be too wedded to one approach or one set of materials, or you need materials and are unsure whether they’ll be able to provide them, check their reviews and then, if you’re still unsure, message them and ask!  

Native speaker or fellow learner? 

This is another filter category you can set in your italki teacher search. 

In the earlier stages, when you’re a beginner and lower intermediate, some learners find it useful to have a teacher who’s actually had to learn the language just like you and understands the challenges first hand. 

When you’re at the upper intermediate level and the advanced level, you may prefer the absolute “native” accuracy you’ll get from a native speaker, though some non-natives have reached incredible “near native” heights and do a brilliant job for you even when you’re an advanced learner.

Variety of the language? 

It makes sense to choose a teacher who speaks the variety of the language that you want to speak yourself.  

This is particularly important with languages such as Portuguese, Spanish or Vietnamese with several major varieties. Don’t worry, a German teacher won’t try and speak the Bavarian or Swabish dialects at you but there are some differences in accent and vocabulary between the standard German of the Federal Republic and Austria, for example.  

In some languages, like Japanese, there are differences in usage according to age or gender, so it might make sense to choose a teacher who resembles you in those ways. 

Personality 

Italki teachers have to post a short presentation video which is your best chance to get the measure of their personality in advance. Cut them some slack, though as the vids don’t always show them off at their best. You may need to a couple of lessons to find out whether or not you’re going to click.  

There’s nothing worse than an online language tutor who appears to be bored, gazing out of the window or checking their phone as you speak.  I want a teacher who is easy to take to but also lets me do most of the talking. First impressions can be misleading, though. It’s sometimes worth sticking with a teacher for a few lessons as first impressions can be misleading. You may warm to each other, for example if you discover that you have shared common interests in a certain type of film, sport or music.  

Student reviews

Just as you wouldn’t take every review you read on Amazon or on TripAdvisor at face value, be careful to look at student reviews in the round. There are always going to be times when a teacher just had a bad day or there’s a personality clash. On italki, reviews tend to be very positive but they are worth skimming for useful intel (and check for any red flags around poor internet connections, for example).  

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So, those are my tips for how pick the right language tutor online. You can check out italki.com (that’s my recommendation link and if you book through that we’ll both get bonus credit when you book your first USD20. Good luck in your search, enjoy your lessons and don’t forget to let us all know how it went in the comments below!  

Related posts

What to expect from a foreign language tutor (and what not to expect)

The post How to choose an online language tutor appeared first on How to get fluent, with Dr Popkins.