5 TIPS TO ENSURE YOUR FIRST TUTORING SESSION BUILDS TRUST
As a tutor, you understand that the first lesson you have with your student is the most important one. This sets the tone for all the future lessons and gives you a chance to create an excellent first impression that motivates your students to learn and enjoy their studies! In other words, your first tutoring session's primary goal is to gain your student's trust.
So, how do you ensure your first session builds trust? Here are some tips you can follow:
1. Dress Appropriately
When you meet your student for the first time, make sure you are wearing decent clothes. Your outfit should be appropriate for a professional meeting. For example, you should wear clothes that you wouldn't mind your student's parents seeing you in. After all, you want your student to feel comfortable spending time with you, so if they see you dressed unprofessionally, they might think you are unprofessional.
2. Stay Calm
As you have probably already discovered from experience, students are high-energy people. In your first session, your student will walk into the room with a huge smile, ready to teach you about their field of study. If you are not prepared for this, it is easy to become overwhelmed by your student's energy.
To prevent this from happening, make a point of practising deep breathing exercises before the meeting. Take some time to focus on your breathing and calm yourself down. You don't want to be the one that is the most excited about your first tutoring session!
3. Send a Confirmation Email
As soon as you have confirmed a tutoring session with your student, send them a confirming email. This email should include your time, location, and other pertinent details. Make sure to double-check the details before sending the email to your student. Also, check your email at least a couple of hours before your session starts. This way, if your student does have any questions or needs to reschedule, you will have time to respond accordingly.
4. Talk about Your Session Ahead of Time
Once you have made sure you will meet with your student, try to discuss the nature of your session with them. For example, if you are tutoring a student of mathematics, then you should ask them what they are most confused about in the topic at hand. This will let you know what you will be focusing on during the session. If there are any other things they want to know, you should write them down and talk about them during the first session. Then, if your student does have any questions, you will have time to respond.
5. Don't Show Power
As mentioned, a first tutoring session is not about teaching your student a lesson. Instead, it's about getting to know them and figuring out how you can best help them to earn their trust. As a result, you don't want to seem threatening or too powerful in front of your student. Instead, you want to appear open and friendly, allowing your student to feel more comfortable around you and trust you better.
Conclusion
If you want to form the perfect bond with your student right away, simply follow the tips in this post! Remember, you will have plenty of opportunities to teach your students things, but in your first session, your primary goals should be to make an excellent first impression, build trust, and get to know your student. This will set the tone for all the future lessons and, if a positive one, will allow the student to come and learn what they need to know, all the while enjoying all of it!
Tutor2You offers tutoring jobs in various areas in Australia to allow tutors to get to work doing what they do best. If you are looking for tutor jobs in Brisbane or anywhere else, apply with us today!
