What is your teaching philosophy?

To guide and help the student to reach his/her goal. I adapt my teaching to the level, needs and goal of the student.

What might you do in a typical first session with a student?

Introduce myself, tell a little bit about myself. Then, I ask the student to tell me about him/her and the reason for needing tutoring. Assessing their needs, goals and getting a first idea of their level. Summarize and ask the student to eventually make corrections.

How can you help a student become an independent learner?

Giving tools for learning like color-coded index cards for different type of verbs, giving a training and tool I conceived for learning and remembering French pronunciation.

How would you help a student stay motivated?

By setting immediate goals (not too hard) to reach in the short term and more ambitious goals for the longer term.

If a student has difficulty learning a skill or concept, what would you do?

Try to associate visual handouts, sound or images to remember something. Explain the concept several times with different approaches, including games or helping the student creating his/her own tool to learn the best.

How do you help students who are struggling with reading comprehension?

By cutting in small sections, checking the meaning by asking questions about the small section; then once comprehension of the small section is good, go to the next until the end of the text.

What strategies have you found to be most successful when you start to work with a student?

Analyze where the problem is and get the resources used (books, online tools) by the student, and review the bases to find out where the student missed understanding something and move on to the next one. If the student is in school, establish a contact with the student's teacher, and talk also to the parents to have their input. Then set reachable short-term goals.

How would you help a student get excited/engaged with a subject that they are struggling in?

By giving them different material like online videos or songs. But also sharing about the culture by sharing about where I grew up and giving him/her the insight of wanting to visit, so as to progress to be able to have a great experience. I also have games and puppets to be more creative. We can make a skit for example.

What techniques would you use to be sure that a student understands the material?

Using the first 5 to 10 minutes for coming back to the former point taught, ask question and repeat if needed before going to the subject of the day.

How do you build a student's confidence in a subject?

By achieving the goals set one by one and setting new goals. Starting easy and getting more difficult with time according to the progress of the student.

How do you evaluate a student's needs?

By to talking to him/her, the parents, the current teacher and looking at tests and quizzes. Comparing the student performance with what is taught through a book or handouts.

How do you adapt your tutoring to the student's needs?

By reaching out at the level of the student and making sure it's not overwhelming. Find extra resources to give another approach.

What types of materials do you typically use during a tutoring session?

A white/black board, handouts, color pens, flash cards, games and more.