Start & Run an ESL Teaching Business. T. Nicole Pankratz - Bodner

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СКАЧАТЬ schools. Once you get to know a bit about a student, you can plan a project that reflects their goals and interests. For example, I once tutored a student who was fascinated by Western kitchen gadgets and was hoping to find a job in an English-speaking restaurant. For her program we decided to devote a month to a research project that required her to learn and use cooking-related words and expressions. We created surveys that she used to interview a range of local people including staff at kitchenware stores and adults who loved cooking. She also researched kitchenware products online. In the end, she collated her data and used it to produce a ten-page report of her findings. By the time she finished her project, she said she was comfortable both using a new set of vocabulary words and starting conversations with strangers.

      Another student wanted to improve her English so that she could better serve English-speaking patrons at her sushi restaurant back in Japan. For her project, we created English menus, signs, and an operations manual for a fictional English version of her restaurant.

      Another student dreamed of becoming an English-speaking tour guide in her country. She wanted to learn tourism-related vocabulary and develop her pronunciation skills. For her project we pretended we ran a tourism outfit and created a brochure based on Internet and in-person research of local hotels, restaurants, museums, shopping malls, and other tourist attractions. For pronunciation practice, we taped her as she read the brochure aloud and asked native English speakers to listen to the tape to see if they could understand what she was saying. We practiced the phrases she had trouble with until she was able to produce a tape that was understood clearly by English speakers.

      For adult students who want to practice speaking to native English speakers, here are some other project ideas:

      • Adventure diary: Prepare the student to visit a range of local venues — a museum, a video store, an art gallery — by practicing words and even potential conversations he or she might have with staff or customers. Suggest he or she take a camera along to take pictures of what he or she sees and, if possible, the people he or she meets. Then, work with the student to create one-page summaries of the mini-adventures. Finally, collect and package the summaries into a book.

      • Job hunt: Teach the student employment-related terms and issues by perusing job advertisements and helping him or her to create a résumé. Prepare him or her to talk about qualifications through mock job interviews. Encourage him or her to use these new skills in a real-life setting by applying for a real job in person or online, or by simply talking to people about skills and work history.

      Extracurricular program options for all ages and types of students

      In addition to academic or language-based programs, you could offer a range of alternative programs aimed at enhancing students’ social skills and/or promoting their physical well-being. Depending on the size and scope of your operation and your target market’s interests and desires, each week or month, students could be offered a choice of activities and given the option of signing up for them. Activities could include the following:

      • Field trips to interesting landmarks or areas of the city

      • Art or dance classes

      • Guided adventure tours — biking, hiking, rock climbing, canoeing

      • Shopping tours in a neighboring town

      • Camping trips

      • Sports day and picnic

      • Book or poetry readings

      • Movie night — watch and discuss a movie

      • Fact-finding mission or treasure hunt

      Organizing and Scheduling

      Regardless of the size and complexity of your operation, you (and your team of tutors and staff, if applicable) are going to need an organizational system to ensure that you have all your ducks in a row at all times. Both large and small operations are wise to have a central booking person who is responsible for matching students with tutors and distributing new-student orientation packages that contain some of the following information about your organization:

      • Programs and services

      • Expectations of students and tutors

      • Maps

      • Local transportation system

      • Landmarks of interest

      • Any other “welcome” documents you choose to include

      Your booking person may also keep track of start and end times of lessons, schedule changes, and fee arrangements.

      In order to match a student with a tutor, your booking person needs the following information about the student:

      • English level

      • Study interests

      • Hours of availability

      • Desired number of tutorial hours per week

      • Preferred study style and method

      The easiest way to collect this information is to create a contract that acts as both an interview and an assessment form. Through the process of providing information about program and fee options, and getting to know the student’s background and study interests, the booking person will get a general sense of the student’s speaking and listening skills. However, a more precise level assessment should be done in order to measure the student’s reading comprehension and writing skills (see the section on assessment earlier in this chapter).

      Once the booking person locates a tutor who fulfills the requirements of the student, all three parties — the booking person, the tutor, and the student — sign an agreement, or contract, outlining the following:

      • Student’s contact information

      • Tutor’s contact information

      • Lesson start and end dates

      • Lesson location and times

      • Student’s level, study interests, and goals

      • Payment schedule

      • Late penalties and cancellation policy if applicable

      Many tutors also find it useful to give a lesson summary to the parents of children in public school. This detailed form serves two purposes: it acts as a log of the activities done with the student, as well as an invoice for the parents.

      Since most tutors work with more than one student in a given month, they, too, need to stay organized. An easy way to keep track of students and work hours is for the tutor to map out his or her schedule on a calendar in pencil. After each session is completed, the tutor retraces the student’s name and hours worked with a felt pen, making it easy to calculate how many hours he or she worked in a given week or month.

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