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Insights for language tutors

Tips, strategies and stories to help you grow your online teaching business.

Parent Communication for Tutors Who Teach Young Learners

Parent Communication for Tutors Who Teach Young Learners

Teaching Kids: The Student Is in the Room, but the Parent Is the Client Teaching young learners — roughly ages 5-14 — is a different professional relationship than teaching adults. The student sits in front of you on screen, but the parent is the one who found you, pays you, reads your

· 5 min read
How to Teach Exam Prep Online (IELTS, TOEFL, Cambridge)

How to Teach Exam Prep Online (IELTS, TOEFL, Cambridge)

Why Exam Prep Is the Highest-Paying Tutoring Niche Students pay more for exam prep than almost anything else in tutoring. The reason is simple: the stakes are high and the deadline is fixed. IELTS for a UK visa. TOEFL for a US university. Cambridge B2 for a European job. The

· 6 min read
How to Teach Writing Skills Online (Without Rewriting It For Them)

How to Teach Writing Skills Online (Without Rewriting It For Them)

The Problem With Teaching Writing Live Writing is the hardest skill to teach in a 1:1 lesson — and most tutors handle it badly. The typical flow: student sends a paragraph, tutor corrects every error, student says "thank you," and learns almost nothing. That's proofreading, not

· 6 min read
How to Teach Reading Skills Online (The Forgotten Skill)

How to Teach Reading Skills Online (The Forgotten Skill)

Why Reading Instruction Gets Ignored Here's how most tutors handle reading: they assign a text, the student reads it at home, then next lesson starts with "so, what did you read?" That's not reading instruction. That's reading homework with a debrief. Reading

· 7 min read
Teaching English Pronunciation Online: What Actually Works

Teaching English Pronunciation Online: What Actually Works

Let's be honest: pronunciation is the part of English teaching that most tutors quietly sidestep. Grammar? There's a rule for that. Vocabulary? There's a flashcard for that. Pronunciation? "We'll come back to that later." And "later" somehow never

· 7 min read
How to Teach Vocabulary Effectively Online: Beyond the Flashcard

How to Teach Vocabulary Effectively Online: Beyond the Flashcard

Let's talk about flashcards. Specifically, let's talk about why they're both the best thing that ever happened to language learners and the reason half your students plateau at a frustrating level of almost-fluency. Flashcards are great. Spaced repetition is real, it works, and if

· 8 min read