As a tutor, you have a lot of responsibility on your shoulders.
It’s your job to fill in the blanks of your students’ educations, bringing them up to speed so that they can pass that GCSE exam, or achieve a greater level of academic success.
That’s why there’s no shame in looking for advice as to how you can improve your lessons, and help your students on their academic journeys.
This is especially true for a subject like GCSE English, as it can be a hard one to teach.
If you work with students that don’t have an aptitude for the creative arts or the written word, then it’s natural that they would have a hard time with English.
This is a subject that demands sound reading comprehension, a solid grasp of grammar, and the ability to produce a clear piece of writing that communicates points eloquently and effectively.
So, what can you do to become a better GCSE tutor and ensure your students have the best chance of success in the exam?
Build Rapport
Arguably one of the main reasons a lot of students struggle in the formal classroom setting is due to a lack of connection to the subject material and/or the person teaching it.
This isn’t to say that you need to be best friends with your students in order for them to succeed, but it does mean you need to develop rapport.
Your first lesson with any GCSE English student is crucial for several reasons.
First, you want to make a good impression with an engaging lesson plan so the student decides to stick with you in the long run.
Second, it’s your opportunity to establish a great working relationship from the outset.
If you want the information you teach to sink in, and for your students to offer up their insights without fear, you need to create the right kind of learning environment.
You need to create an atmosphere in which your students will feel comfortable asking questions whenever they are uncertain about something. The last thing you want is for your students to feel like they can’t get a question out because you’re doing all the talking, or worse, because they are afraid of being judged if they do.
You don’t have to have a casual learning environment to build rapport with your student, either.
It’s all about how you engage with the student, and how you respond to their input. If you tell them that what they say is wrong without providing an explanation or offering an alternative, they can shut down out of fear of being deemed unintelligent.
However, if you encourage them regardless of whether they have a good response or not, then they’re more likely to open up.
Plus, GCSE English is a subject that doesn’t necessarily always have rights and wrongs. As such, it would be wrong of you to label a students’ responses to a text for example as simply being right or wrong. Instead, try to elicit more information from them, so that they can develop the skill of critical thinking.
Find out how to teach English online here.
Compile Resources
In some ways, a tutor is only good as the resources they have at their disposal. This applies to the GCSE maths tutor, the science tutor, and the English tutor alike.
Whereas in the past resources would typically mean dense books and textbooks, these days the definition has expanded considerably.
In this digital age we live in, resources for any subject (including everything you can study at GCSE level) are available online.
What’s more, these resources aren’t just restricted to the written word.
There are endless interactive games, multimedia, and more that students can engage with and learn from.
While not everything needs to be gamified, having access to a variety of resources can help boost engagement with a subject especially when it starts to become tedious for the student.
English for example can involve a lot of reading and writing, so why not take a break from time to time with a video of a Shakespeare play or something of that ilk?
It’s true that you won’t teach students to improve their writing skills by watching videos, but what you can do is help them get to grips with various grammatical concepts and literary techniques.
If they hear alliteration out loud, then it might be easier for them to understand how to create emphasis in a text for example.
Then there are all the texts you have access to.
If you want to teach certain grammar rules or critical thinking skills, then you can find the perfect text to use online. You don’t have to have qualifications and break down Shakespeare’s old English, as there are plenty of contemporary works available for free online.
See how you can become a tutor London here.
Prepare Exercises
Nobody likes drilling exercises, least of all when they’re concerning grammar rules.
Yet as a GCSE English tutor, one of your main roles will be to make sure your students have a solid grasp of the English language and its nuances.
As such, it’s a good idea to prepare grammar exercises ahead of your private classes.
Whether it’s adverbs or adjectives, superlatives or comparatives, you can draw up some basic exercises to test your student’s mastery of the concepts.
It should be relatively easy for you to come up with these questions yourself, too.
For example, if you want to teach comparatives or superlatives you can give the student an adjective, such as ‘tall’ and ask them to fill in a separate column for the comparative and superlative versions of the word.
If you’re testing adverbs, you could write a series of sentences and ask your student to identify the adverb in each sentence.
If you really want to test your students though and see if they know how to implement various grammar concepts into their writing, then you could ask them to write several sentences using adverbs or adjectives for example.
While this may seem tedious, the only way for a student to improve their writing is to practise. So if you can introduce these various concepts gradually, and ask the student to demonstrate proficiency in their writing, then come time for the exam they’ll be ready to go.
You can also use websites such as BBC Bitesize to find grammar exercises and more if you don’t have the time to create exercises yourself.
Find teach English online here on Superprof.
Plan Your Lessons
As a tutor, with nobody telling you what to do or outlining their expectations, you’re free to do whatever you want.
This means that it’d be easy for you to cruise through your private lessons with minimal preparation.
We would strongly advise against this, though.
For one, if you don’t spend the time to plan out your lessons, there’s a good chance that you will end up covering territory you’ve already gone over which makes for repetitive classes. There’s also a good chance that your lessons won’t be very engaging, or enjoyable for the student.
This might lead to a loss in potential earnings for you over time, and likely won’t lead the student to improve their grades either.
So, it’s imperative that you carve out time to plan your lessons in advance.
With Superprof, you can plan out your classes and then give them either in person or online via video call. You won’t have to worry about finding students as they will come to you, so you’ll have more time to focus on the content of your classes.
Check for tutoring jobs here.
Organise by Themes
One great way to organise your GCSE English classes is to do so using themes.
If you want to keep the topics your students write about varied, and interesting, then why not cycle out various themes?
For example, one week you could centre your class around the environment. In this class, you could have the student read a text about sustainability and then quiz them with reading comprehension questions. You could then invite them to write a brief text summarising the key points from the text or to critically analyse the author’s viewpoint and provide a contrasting perspective.
The next week you could use the topic of technology in your class - this one usually goes down well with students. Again, create some reading comprehension questions for a text you found, and then have the student write a brief text. If you’ve built rapport with your student, then it should be easy to tease out their interests and find texts that they might enjoy.
Maybe they’ve mentioned to you how they enjoy playing video games on the weekends. If this is the case, why not pull a text on Fortnight’s popularity and have the student write a compelling argument for why the game is so popular?
For many, writing isn’t an enjoyable task. However, if you can create a connection for them with the material, then you’ll likely find that they get stuck in with no problems.
The more you can get your students writing, the better their chances are of performing well on GCSE English exam day.
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This article was helpful as I am an English tutor; very helpful suggestions. It can often feel that I am on m y own with no clear way of improving what I do.
Hi! I’m so glad you found the article helpful! Being an English tutor can sometimes feel like a solo journey, but remember, you’re not alone—there’s always room to grow, learn, and connect with others in the teaching community. Keep up the great work, and I hope these suggestions continue to support and inspire you in your tutoring journey! 😊📚✨