Whether you are looking at primary or secondary school Chinese tuition, deciding which teacher to hire is both exciting and scary.
Even though you’re about to spend money, and even though you can’t wait to start learning Chinese, you want to make sure you get the most for your money. However, you don’t want to invest your money in something terrible.
So, before you schedule your first lesson, ensure your new Chinese tutor meets these four requirements.
A Chinese-born Speaker
Most likely, you already want a tutor who speaks English as their first language. But sometimes it can be tempting to book a lesson with someone who doesn’t speak the language as their first language because of price, availability, similar time zones, or other reasons.
No matter how well they speak Chinese, you can’t ignore that they probably didn’t grow up in a country where Chinese is the main language and probably have a slight accent.
On the other hand, native Chinese tutors have been around Chinese culture their whole lives. They can help you with your accent and teach you things like slang, idioms, and colloquial words.
Availability that Works for You
Online, it’s not hard to find a Chinese tutor whose schedule works with yours. There are hundreds of tutors on many websites, each with their own schedule.
This means that no matter when you have the most accessible time during the day, there’s bound to be a tutor who can teach you during that time.
If you feel like you must make sacrifices or rush to make your lessons, you might get tired of it and stop booking them.
Answers Your Questions Well
Good tutors won’t just teach you what they want to teach you; they’ll also teach you what you want to learn.
When you feel comfortable asking questions before, during, or after a Chinese lesson, you know you’ve found a good tutor. Some of many students’ favourite Chinese tutors answered their questions and showed me how to use new grammar structures or words I learned during the week.
Makes You Want to Learn Chinese
You might be surprised to learn that some tutors born and raised in China will use English most of the time in their lessons. Whether or not you want that will depend on your level.
If you are just starting out, you still need to use English a little bit. But if you are at an intermediate level or higher, you should spend more time learning Chinese than English. You’d be surprised how much Chinese you can understand just by knowing what’s going on, whether you do this by talking or by explaining new words.
Lastly, a good tutor won’t let you avoid talking at all during the lesson. Instead, they should tell you to feel confident when you speak Chinese.
