Alrighty, so we have debunked all the myth now the deal, how to get started to be an online tutor for any subject without an education degree or any prior experience. Just like starting a YouTube channel, the initial step can be the hardest and nerve wrecking it.
Is it really is okay, I’ve got some tips for you to get started as an online tutor.
At the beginning of this video, I told you that I have a three level framework level 1 getting started.
How do you actually get started where how, when now, I’m, answering that question for you when to get started now period how to get started? The first thing that you have to do is actually identify your interest and passion.
What are you really passionate about, or you are somehow good at it – could be chess painting, music languages? Solving equations choose something that you are good at or you have passion in, because if you are looking at this long term, passion is something that really motivates you and the money too, of course, now narrow your focus into one subject, not two, not three, just one.
If you are really good at coding – and you are really good at physics start with one okay, you can start with coding and then expand your services to physics or math or something else at the very beginning, just one just one.
We are gon na dive into it.
We are gon na narrow down.
We are gon na pick, our niche be specialised.
Okay, remember just now. I said that we don’t have to be a guru.
Nobody starts as a guru.
Yes, I stand with that and yes, you, don’t have to be an expert.
You’re not trying to be Einstein right now.
You just have to be good at it and at least one level better than your student that you can guide them.
You can help them and you can do it most importantly, you have to have something valuable to offer.
You can’t be teaching people how to code, but you can’t code, you know what I mean, but if you can code it’s time to brush up the teaching skills, because you might be able to code really well, but when it comes To teaching when it comes to explanation that might be a problem, don’t worry.
We will practice when you practice more when you teach more, that will be okay, focus on getting started, identify your passion, your interest choose a subject dive into it.
Teach at least three lessons: okay, you have to conduct at least three lessons just to get yourself comfortable in teaching like okay.
This is how it works. Hmmm yeah, I feel okay about it, and then we can move forward to step to level 2 level.
3.
Now level, 1, so the next question is where to start considering you are starting from scratch.
You have no portfolio, you have never teach before start with a platform with existing student base, so you don’t have to do all the marketing leverage.
The online existing platform as your springboard to practice and to build your portfolio.
This is very essential.
Your portfolio is very important, say for me.
I’m teaching languages.
The best place for me to start was on Italki Verbling Amazingtalker, you name it.
There are a lot of it. There are also freelancer platform like Upwork Fiverr, where you can sell your services research.
The platform pick a platform that, without you needing a laundry list of qualifications sign up start just start.
I’ll list some of the tutoring platforms down there.
Sometimes the platform they are quite friendly to the newcomer.
So if you are a new teacher, you will get some sort of exposure at the beginning only at the beginning.
Okay and after that, everybody will enjoy the same benefit.
If you are good, you are ranked higher if you are not good yeah.
Now that you have signed up, you have registered, everything is done.
It’s, time to build your digital storefront.
Your profile is your first place to shine so make sure you include your bio, your highlight what you can do, what you can offer, what are you good at so when people look at your video or when people look at your bio, they kind of expect what They can get and make sure you actually deliver what you promise because yeah when we sign up for something I’m expecting I could get the services that I am promised. Make sure that you add your teaching styles.
You actually kind of explain your teaching styles.
Make sure your rate is transparent if you are charging 30, make sure it’s, 30, okay, and if you are offering a package discount, if they buy 5 or 10, lessons more make sure it’s clear too, and your availability try to make it consistent Because we love consistency, it is also very important to be responsive to inquiries, not just when you get started and also along the way when students reach out don’t keep them waiting.
Like two days three days, I mean like few hours yeah that’s, fine, a quick response, actually shows that you are interested it’s like a handshake in the digital world, like hey, hey, right, hello, and that is where your business is coming.
Now you have your when, where how it’s time to get started.
Your first two or three lessons don’t stress over fancy, equipment, apps or lesson material like fancy material.
Your first three sessions is actually your practice ground to build you some confidence to.
Let you actually test the water, whether you like it or whether what you can do better.
They don’t have to be perfect yet, but eventually you have to get better.
The goal is to get comfortable in teaching to get used to teaching. So don’t over think about it and don’t do the paralysis analysis, no just start and try to learn as you teach after your first few initial sessions, it is decision time whether you are taking it as a part time gig or you are Here, for a long term venture I mean we still have to be a good tutor.
We still have to be responsible, no matter.
You are for part time or full time, long term short term.
You kind of have to be committed to teaching because your students are there, for you determine how many sessions you can comfortably offer each week.
If you can offer only 10 lessons make sure you will only open 10 availabilities.
If you can offer 40, you can do 40, it’s entirely up to you.
This is a good thing about tutoring online isn 39.
T it remember that consistency is your secret ingredient, treat your tutoring journey, whether part time full time as a true profession, and you will open door to a lot of growth and learning.
Maybe if you are just taking it as a part time, you will really enjoy it and you will turn full time right.
We never know. I personally really enjoy teaching building relationship with my students, the young children.
I am really happy whenever I see them learning introduce some new concepts to them when I teach them about boundaries, or some moral values is just different.
Like the culture exchange.
Experience is just different.
For example, if I’m teaching a Chinese kids, comparing when I’m teaching, like kids from Europe or from United States, it’s really different to see how a nation, how a culture educate our children, it’s fun for me to mix and To introduce a different culture for a different student level, 2 commitment and growth.
Now you have conducted the few lessons, so it’s time to fine tune.
Your tutoring skills.
We can’t keep stay in the beginner stage or we can’t keep using our newbie card.
Like I,’m, a new teacher, I’m a new tutor.
I mean you have to be creative. You have to be engaging, learn some new teaching techniques go on YouTube or anywhere, and just look how other teacher teach and up skills yourself create some engaging visual, slides or some interactive games.
The possibilities are endless as long as you are willing to dive into it and explore your mission, provides values to your students and help them thrive.
That is our sole mission.
Okay, provide value and help them thrive.
I will also suggest you to keep a close eye on the feedback, because this is where you get a direct constructive feedback from your students or parents and fine tuning your teaching approaches.
So how do you actually learn how to be a tutor right? I’ll break it into three parts.
First, knowledge: hunting dive into articles blogs, YouTube, Coursera, ESL, just immerse yourself in all these forums or whatever channels that you can find and try to learn their strategies.
If you’re not seeking for these strategies at least the more you watch, the more you learn right: it’s somehow in your subconscious, mind in very important self learning, like I mentioned Cousera Udemy ESL British Council.
I’m talking from a language perspective.
If you’re a teaching math, you can find something else, Khan Academy, painting something else, Skillshare chess, something else: Chess com pick your niche and learn from the professionals, because we are new, we have to be really engaged in self learning. This is the only way that you get yourself better in tutoring.
It’s also very important to learn how to use some tools.
Google Classroom, Canva Zoom, you name it last but not least, trial and error.
Teaching and learning is a continuous process, so be prepared for trial and error.
Whatever you learn, you practice, you deliver it to your students and just check for some feedback.
If the feedback is pretty good, we know that we can move on.
We can continue with that strategies or with the lesson plan or with the materials.
If it doesn’t really work that well, that’s, okay, we can just grab it and learn something else.
Each lesson thought each student interaction will hone your skills, so learn apply, learn, deliver, learn and learn.
Congratulations for staying with me, because now we are moving to Level 3. Finally, it’s time to level up and step into the role of a professional tutor.
Now I suppose that you are in your 30th lessons – and you are in this for a serious matter when I say professional tutor it doesn’t mean that you have to get a professional certificate.
Of course it will be beneficial if you can do that, but what I’m saying here is that you have to think your business like a CEO.
You are owning the business.
You are running the business as a CEO, so you have to start developing your strategic mindset.
You are the CEO of your tutoring empire and your students are your most precious clients.
Your mission remember the mission that we mentioned to provide values and help them thrive.
As simple as that, no it’s, actually not that simple.
I’ll take that back, but level 3 mastering online tutoring go beyond teaching and thing like a CEO to truly shine in the online tutoring market.
I’m not shining yet, but speaking from my personal experience, you have to really understand the dynamic of the market and your potential or prospective client or students their needs, their age, the region where are they located? So you just have to test and error like trying different region different age and see what works the best for you. If you are best in teaching adults stick with that, if you feel better teaching students stick with that, if you work really well with young children, do that it’s entirely up to you! You are your own CEO! So let’s say if you are the algebra guru or if you are the history, wizard stick with that subjects right.
The demand is always there, but you have to look for it that’s.
Why? At the beginning, I say that I mentioned that we have to choose our niche hey baby come here, come here, oops right.
The real question is: how do you market yourself, if you’re aligned to a platform or if you’re attached to a platform? Much of your exposure will come from the algorithm it really highly dependent on the algorithm.
I am not too sure how it works.
Yet I have my own assumption, which I share in this video I tested so yeah back to the question.
If you’re attached or aligned to the platform normally usually they are very kind to the newcomers so grab that opportunity.
Try to leverage that when you are a newcomers, try to get more lessons, build your portfolio, get comments things and that, but don’t stop that you can actually share your expertise on social media, Facebook groups, some discord, some communities or reach out to the people Around you or you can even directly reach out to your potential student.
This is a function on italki where you can actually reach out to your potential students, so you are on Facebook groups or on social media.
When I say Facebook groups, normally you are targeting parents. Okay, because the younger nowadays, I don’t think they’re on Facebook anymore.
Oops did.
I just reveal my age, but anyway, yeah start by promoting or marketing that your service based businesses, you help with tutoring what subjects and your price be transparent and hey don’t stress about having a full fledge website, because at this moment you don’t Really need it 1.
You are still on a platform and 2.
You have time if you really want to venture out as independent tutor, which I will talk about it in the next video focus on getting experience, training, practices, learning and growth and think, like a CEO understanding, your market, polish, your skills, your initial focus, should be.
What is most important for you and what is going to make the biggest differences is to get your tutoring business start right now, ASAP not like having a full fledged websites or you need to have a perfect profile picture or you need to shoot perfect videos.
Now I remember when I started I took like okay, I took like one hour to shoot the 2 minutes, video or 3 minutes introduction video, because I was super awkward, but really you don’t need to know everything before you start.
If you are considering to be an online tutor, these are the two rules of thumbs that you should be following.
First offer high quality lessons.
Yes and yes, you have to offer high quality lessons, and after every session, your students will feel like hey. I learned something.
This is a quality lessons and I’m happy about it.
2 be patient and persistent.
There’s, no overnight success in everything I mean they might be, but for normal people like us as long as we commit in doing something eventually, the student will come and when the student come, you offer good services, good tutoring sessions and the money will come, But the first thing is that you actually provide good services and be persistent and commit in doing it.
So don’t get discouraged.
If you don’t see any progress at all, just keep learning keep delivering or you have to do something to change your bio, your or look into your videos or do some changes, and eventually you will achieve your goal.
Thank you for joining me today.
Remember, commitment, improvement and strategic thinking are your keys to success.
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If you have any opinion any advices, any questions feel free to leave them down below. I will reply.
It keep working, keep tutoring until next time.
Bye, bye, .
