Important Things to Know Before Tutoring Advanced Students 👀

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Advanced students are great because you can have truly stimulating conversations with them. But when they start talking about global warming or flying cars with near-flawless English, you start to wonder what you can actually offer.

Many tutors — and that includes native-speakers as well — share this concern. What do advanced students want to learn? And how can we challenge them?

Ask The Student

First, don’t be afraid to ask. Let them tell you what they want to get out of the lesson.

Some advanced students don’t have many English-speaking friends so all they want is to speak the language so they don’t forget it. Classes with these students are easy-peasy!

On the other hand, some are very serious about getting even better at the language. In this case, we can ask them what specific areas they want to focus on:

Do they want to sound more professional or precise?
Do they want to improve their English for specific work-related purposes?
Do they live in an English-speaking country and want to speak more like a local?
Do they want to perfect their pronunciation?

For more ideas on what advanced students might want, check out Dear Advanced Student: What Do You Want From Me?

Expect Difficult Questions

Tutors often wonder, “What if an advanced student asks a question I don’t have the answer to?”

First, don’t try to bluff your way out. As one tutor (🇵🇭) shared, “don’t pretend you know if you don't. With the internet these days, students can—and will—look things up.”

It’s OK to not know the answer to everything. You aren’t a human dictionary and your students shouldn’t expect you to be one. “Confidently say you don't know,” advises Tutor Jules (🇬🇧). “And then work with them to get the information.”

Further, advanced students need to accept that not all of their questions can be answered on the spot. As another tutor (🇵🇭) shares, “I had a lot of advanced students from science and engineering backgrounds. When they asked about concepts or words that I was unfamiliar with, I’d usually reply, ‘This concept is new to me. Would you care to share more about it so I can check it out online?’ and usually they’d be very excited to delve into it together!”

For more information on what to do when you don’t know the answer to a question, check out Don’t Know The Answer To A Student’s Question? Try These Strategies.

Speak Advanced English

This may sound obvious, but those of us who’ve been teaching for a while usually speak a version of English that is slower and simpler than average. As a friend of mine once said to me, “You sound like an English teacher!”

So, just as we simplify our English for beginners and intermediate students, we need to “spruce up” for the advanced. For starters, speak in paragraphs and at your normal conversational speed, if not faster.

And make sure you use more advanced vocabulary and expressions. We don’t need to use obscure words like “innocuous” or “abstruse,” but we do want to use words and phrases that would appear in formal business situations, TED talks, or news reports. Examples of these types of language can be seen in these two blog posts:

Let’s be a model for advanced language use and speak English that makes students think, “I want to sound like that!”

Give Rigorous Feedback

“You did a good job. That was perfect” will not impress an advanced student. As another tutor (🇬🇧) said, “With my advanced students, I listen carefully for mistakes. The more strict I am, the more they appreciate it.”

And it’s not just mistakes that advanced students want pointed out. They often want to know a better way to express an idea, so we’ll want to provide lots of suggestions like the following tutor:

👋 That’s it for now!

Hopefully, these tips will help you feel more confident the next time you work with an advanced student. Stay tuned for future pieces on what kinds of feedback to give these sorts of students. And in the meantime, happy tutoring!