One to One, private...Help!

[Valina.Rava]

I am about to advertise myself out as a private tutor. How can I get started? How and what do I base each lesson on? Do I need to purchase a curriculum/syllabus book to help with each lesson? tips for activities, resouces needed, etc
And how much to charge? I am based in the UK
Anything info will be of help!
I'm feeling a tad frazzled. Maybe it's easier than I think.

Valina

[Peter Easton]

If you are in the Uk perhaps you should find websites used by foreigners living in Britain. Russian, Polish, Chinese, African expatriate forums would be a good place to put adverts.

You need to find out where foreign communities have centres in your city. That's presuming you live in a city with enough of an immigrant population to make freelancing as a language teacher viable. Is there enough demand for language tuition where you live?

Get some leaflets printed advertising your services, credentials, etc. And have them printed in English on one side and perhaps in Russian, Arabic or Swahili on the other side. Do some letterbox drops in target districts.

Just some suggestions.

Peter

[Kootvela]

I also started private tutoring. I rented a small place (which is bound to eat a part of my income) and have placed advertisements on the door and in the corridor, some people have already paid me a visit. Also, I advertise a lot on the Internet in free advertising pages, this helps a lot. Also, I have a website. I want it to go profesional so I will move to a paid account soon but it does add to the level of profesionalism.

[Peter Easton]

Yeah but you are in Lithuania. It's a rather different market to the UK.

[Kootvela]

Yeah but you are in Lithuania. It's a rather different market to the UK.

I would't agree to that. Though our main classroom contingent in language courses is Lithuanian-speaking people, usually elementary level, it's dificult to find private students. I think it's because we don't have a tradition of private tutoring. Private tutors usually teach school-leavers extra lessons and have no business certificate=work illegally, so people expect it to be something not very good. But I hope the word spreads and soon I will have more people. First,you work for a reputation and then your reputation works for you.

[Valina.Rava]

Hi,

Thanks to all who replied. Peter, I'll keep your suggestions in mind and give them a go. Kootvela, renting out a small place won't be the best option for me. I will make use of my own place or go to the home of the student. Here in London, every other English teacher is advertising themselves for private lessons, so I agree with Peter that the market here is different. I must admit that I need to advertise myself in many ways and not just rely on the one. Thanks again.

[Kootvela]

Continuing to share my experience, I lost some potential students because I didn't have a place for them to come. I didn't want them to come to my place because a)it's quite remote b) my family was against and they could not have lessons at work/home due to similar reasons. So having a place to meet neutrally is good. I save much time on travelling.

Have you tried making leaflets and leaving them in mailboxes at some companies or office buildings? Also, do shops have customer advertising space?

[Valina.Rava]

I have my first private lesson this coming Thursday for an hour. My student is 25 y.o. female from Poland. She will be sitting the Cambridge Certificate of Proficiency exam in December, so she wants help to prepare her for it. I'm a little unsure how to tackle this. Should I still get her to do an assesment test to see where she is at with her English? Any ideas at all?

[Kootvela]

I think you can give a sort of a placement test to find out the areas for improvement. People usually think they are better in English then they really are because, for example, their vocabulary is good. Also, you should find some exam technique based exercises to work on.

[Valina.Rava]

Do you know of any links or actual placement tests that are helpful?

[Kootvela]

Not really. You can google them up by entering various keywords like "placement test for (insert level or title here). " I use Headway series beginner to the rest, so I ask questions according to the contents gramamr focus to know where my student stops.

[MissL]

I'm a private tutor in Thailand. I've recently purchased the New Headway series to use as coursebooks, and am exited to begin using them. However, only the Student's books have been available to me. Although I can adapt my lesson content around these, I haven't got the 'stop and check' tests which come at the end of every four units.

A cry for help!

Can anyone who owns the teacher's books give me a clue as to what I'm missing- it may be nothing but my curiosity is killing me!

Thank you.