As tutors, we’ll want to know as much as possible about our students early on: their needs, their level, their interests, and so on. 

However, it can be difficult to get the information we need from young learners. In this case, we might need help from their parents.

So here are five things to ask your younger students and/or their parents to make your lessons with them a success. (We promise they’ll also make your life easier!)

1. “What’s Your Child Interested in?”

When teaching children, we definitely want to know their interests so that we can better connect with them. For example, if we know a child likes trains, we can send them pictures of trains when they do a good job in class.

Sometimes we can just directly ask the student about their interests. However, young students are often shy about answering questions, so you might have to take a more indirect approach. 

Tutor Clarice (🇵🇭) suggests sending a cute “sticker” through the chat box. This could be a picture of a star or an animal giving a thumbs up. “After doing this, I’ll ask them, ‘If you can have any sticker from me, what would it be?’ or more simply, ‘Show me your favorite sticker.’”

However, certain things are difficult to ask about. As Tutor Addie (🇷🇴) shares, “Unless the kid’s favorite movie is Harry Potter, it’s hard for me to figure out what they’re talking about. They’ll struggle to explain the story, and I won’t be able to help them.”

So if the parents are joining some of the lessons, make the most of their presence and ask them about their kids! Here are some things you can ask about: 

• Hobbies (e.g. sports, singing, dancing, drawing, reading)
• Favorite food, candy, and snacks
• Favorite movies and actors/actresses
• Favorite songs and music groups
• Favorite books
• Favorite video games
• Favorite Youtube channels

We might not know the specific K-pop group, cartoon, or Youtuber they mention. But not to fear! Google is here! 

As Tutor Addie (🇷🇴) recalls, “I remember learning about an anime called ‘Yo-kai Watch’ from one kid. I googled it, and then I was prepared for the next few kids I taught who were equally obsessed with it!”

2. “How Does Your Child Learn?”

Even though we eventually figure out how the child learns, we can save ourselves a lot of time by directly asking parents about this. The following questions should be enough to get you started:

• How did you teach your child to ride a bike or use a toilet?
• Who is your child’s favorite teacher in school? How do they teach?
• Does your child like being complimented (“Great job!” “You’re awesome!”) or rewarded (e.g. with stickers)?
• Does your child like competition and games? 
• Does your child like to be challenged? 

If the child is school-aged, we can also ask them about their experiences learning English so far. For example:

• How many years have you been learning English? What grade did you start learning it?
• What is the most memorable thing you’ve done in class? (This can give you ideas for what to do with them.)
• What are you currently learning about in your English classes? 
• Do you like English classes? Do you like your English teachers? (If the answer is “no,” ask what would make the class more enjoyable, e.g. “Would you like English if you got to sing during class?”)

Even if a child hasn’t started learning English at school, it’s possible that they’ve been exposed to it at home through their parents, TV, or other means. Make sure to ask about this as well.

3. “What Are Your Goals?”

Next, you’ll want to figure out learning goals. In other words, what does the child want to take away from the lessons? Or, more often than not, what do the parents want for their child?

Maybe the kid is studying English because their mom promised them some trips abroad if they take a certain number of lessons. Maybe the parents want to raise the kid bilingually or give them a better future. 

In any case, knowing about their goals will enable you to tailor your instruction to the student’s needs. For example, here are some common goals and their teaching implications:

• If the parents want you to help their child prepare for a standardized test or do better in school, you’ll probably have to focus more on grammar and vocabulary and correct them more often.
• If you have to prepare the child for the family’s relocation abroad, you’ll want to focus more on speaking and listening skills.
• If parents just want you to show the child that English can be fun, you can probably play more games and not correct them as much.
• Lastly, if parents simply want to expose their child to people from other countries, you can focus on teaching conversation skills and culture.

4. “How Strict Should I Be?”

After figuring out the learning goals, you'll want to know additional information such as:

• How strict you should be with corrections.
• Whether or not the parents expect you to use only English during the lesson. This goes against research which shows that teaching using a student’s native language is more effective than teaching exclusively in English. So it’s good to let parents know that you’ll always try to explain things in English, but that a little translation may be necessary.
• Whether or not the parent expects us to stick to the material of their choice. Sometimes we’ll want to deviate from the material if the child seems bored or tired or if the material is too challenging or too simple. It’s helpful to let parents know in the beginning that these things might happen and ask them how they’d feel if we occasionally did something different than planned.

5. “How Often Do You Want to Check In?”

Finally, let the parent know that you’re open to communicating with them. Help them feel comfortable bringing up any concerns and expectations. 

These can be things like “Could you teach my daughter more vocabulary?” to “Our dog died recently, so my son might be a little sad.”

Then ask how often the parents would like to check in. For example:

• Do they want to just read the notes we write after each lesson? 
• Would they like to reserve five minutes at the end of a lesson every week to go over the student’s progress?

Open communication from the start will not only make for fewer misunderstandings down the road, but will also signal to the parent that you are on their team and working together for the benefit of their child. 

Happy tutoring!