How to Evaluate a Chinese Tutor: Best Practices
There’s no down that finding the right tutor can definitely get you the best bang for your buck when learning Chinese. You’ll save money over going through a traditional school, and can have an amazing, personalized accelerated learning experience. But how can you find such a Chinese tutor? That’s the key question.
Teaching Experience: what does it even mean?
Everyone knows that it’s smart to find a teacher with experience. But what does that mean, exactly? Is experience just a number behind “years of teaching experience” on a resume?
Often, years and years of classroom experience or HSK test prep experience doesn’t translate well to 1-on-1, conversation-centric, personalized learning. Be aware that not all teaching experience is equal. In general, more experience is good, but you’ll usually do well to find a teacher with experience teaching different kinds of material, with different types of learners, in both groups and individual lessons. This variety of experience tends to lead to a more well-rounded, experienced teacher that can more quickly zero in on your personal needs.
Another aspect of experience is knowing how to interact effectively with foreign learners. If you’re been studying for two years and are at the intermediate level, it’s going get super annoying if your teacher praises you for every word you use that’s a little harder than “nǐhǎo“. Similarly, a teacher that has experience teaching foreigners is going to spend less time praising your Chinese (and let’s be honest: advanced learners have heard all that a million times anyway), and more time looking for the limits of your abilities. At the advanced level, useful corrections are hard to come by, so hold onto the experienced teacher that gets this!
In addition, a good tutor is going to find ways to push you. Maybe make you repeat stuff that you fumbled through the first time. Maybe ask you to elaborate because you gave a lame, lazy two-word answer. Maybe remind you to use that grammar point which this sentence is perfect for. You get the idea. Tutors that aren’t continuously pushing you to improve your abilities are likely tutors that are getting a bit lazy and are happy with just “casual conversation practice.”
Personality: what’s going to work best for you?
“To know thyself is the beginning of wisdom,” Socrates tells us. Well, this applies to “finding a tutor wisdom” as well, because two super extroverted people in a lesson are going to be constantly vying for talk time. Conversely, two introverts are going to have very long, awkward lessons. The best teachers are adaptable, and while they don’t waste too much lesson time on their own soapboxes, they know that sometimes they need to speak a bit more to keep thing moving.
In addition, you’ll want to find a tutor that has similar interests as you, or is really interested in learning more about you and asks provocative questions. This is the kind of thing that can be hard to figure out quickly, but trust your gut. Not every teacher is a good match, personality-wise, for every learner.
Availability: how flexible are the two of you?
Between the two of you, you want at least one of you to be quite flexible with scheduling, or else you both need to be extremely consistent in a rigid lessons schedule.
Think about it: if you only have that one 1-hour time slot every week, every time your teacher tries to get you to reschedule it, you may very well miss a lesson that week. Or if your teacher has a packed schedule, then there may be no flexibility to accommodate your life.
It can be hard to accept that a good teacher isn’t a good match for you simply because your schedules aren’t flexible enough, but sometimes that’s the reality. Two great 1-hour lessons in a month isn’t going to be enough to get you that progress you’re dying for.
Where to find such tutors?
The leading “foreign language tutor market” is iTalki. It’s been around a while, and it’s a solid choice. Sure, you have to search and find a good teacher that’s a good fit for you, taking all of the above into consideration. With some hard work and a little luck, you can find a great tutor. It also helps if you can hire multiple tutors and only stick with the one (or two?) you like the best.
If you don’t have time for the above, then consider one of AllSet Learning’s courses. We understand the Chinese tutor market intimately. We choose the best teachers so you don’t have to, and we manage everything for you, ensuring that you can keep your learning schedule as flexible as you need to.
Listen to the Podcast
This episode of the You Can Learn Chinese podcast covers this topic: