Menu
Tips in Staying Motivated as a Home Tutor
Being a home tutor isn’t always easy. There will be stressful moments, doubts about your skills will creep on you, and it can even cause burn-outs for some home tutors. Sometimes, home tutors feel like they are on the path alone. Aside from working alone, the dread on an unstable income will also hang over your head. When you feel so down, how do you motivate yourself to go on and continue?
There are many factors that can drag down a home tutor’s motivation to continue teaching. It can be caused by stress because of rowdy students, dealing with different kinds of students, and even dealing with different kinds of parents. On top of that, you have to also make sure to deliver the best teaching to the students and help the reach their goals.
It can be easy to think of just giving up. But while it’s the easy way out, the fruits and satisfaction in the end will still outweigh the hardships home tutors may face along the way. If you’re a home tutor who is starting to feel a little demotivated, read on some of our tips to stay motivated as a home tutor.
1. Set goals
One of the reasons why home tutors lose motivation to continue on with their work is because they lack setting a final goal. Sometimes, they set goals for themselves in the long-run, such as building a solid home tutoring career. Of course, that’s a standard goal for every person with a career. But what about short-term goals?
While long-term goals can provide good motivation to work harder, short-term goals can do just the same. Say for example, as home tutor, you want to set a goal of buying a house in ten years. But what about for short-term goals that’s set in a more foreseeable future, such as securing ten clients in the next three months? Or even saving up for a vacation in six months?
Smaller goals can be just as exciting and can motivate home tutors just the same as long-term goals. Goals help people to see exactly what they want and work their way to reach those. With a goal in mind, you will know exactly what you are working for and why you want to work in the first place.
However, make sure to set realistic gals as well. As it’s the same with setting goals for your students, make sure to set something that you know you can reach as well. If you are setting a goal that’s too far-fetched, you will feel distraught if you can’t reach that goal.
2. Bring something in lessons that you enjoy
While it can be seen as being indulgent, when done correctly, it can be beneficial for both the home tutor and the student. Home tutors generally teach lessons according to the student’s needs and wants. Because of this, their interest or likes are not priorities.
However, you can do something for the lessons that you enjoy and still be used effectively in lessons. For example, if you have a favorite book, you can use it to talk about literature or teach reading to your student. That way, you are sharing something you are interested in and teach at the same time.
It also makes for getting to know and being known by your student. The student doesn’t have to be the only one to show and tell his/her interests. You can also talk about yours and maybe find a mutual interest and use that in your lessons to make learning more exciting and stimulating.
3. Teach students something important
Another reason why home tutors lose motivation is that they can’t teach other things to their students. Because home tutors are hired for a certain specialization, they have to stay in their jurisdiction and teach only according to what was in the contract.
Sometimes, teaching students everything you know can become robotic, especially if it’s done over and over. For example, if you are an English tutor and you’re teaching five students the same topic but at different times, you will feel drained teaching it again and again.
Although that’s part of your job, you shouldn’t limit yourself to only that. You can always talk to the parents and discuss with them about teaching students deeper that what was expected. An advantage of home tuition is that home tutors can modify the lesson plans and syllabus while still staying true to it. You can incorporate other skills ad values to your lessons while making sure your student will still learn the target concept.
By not only teaching trivial matters, you can also teach students the importance of values, time-management skills, proper manners, and many more to help make them a well-rounded individual.
4. Know your students
A home tutor wouldn’t just be teaching one student. Although lessons are done 1-to-1, you will still have other students to each rather than just one. Because of this, it might sometimes be difficult to build a relationship with your student and connect with them.
As a home tutor, you’re not only a teacher but also an adviser and a mentor to your students. And if you can’t properly get to know your students, you can’t fulfill that role. Take time to learn and get to know your student., may it be at the start of every session or at the end. You can ask them what they did for the day or how was school for the day. In turn, you can also share with them about your day.
Doing this will not only help you get to know your student better, but also help you in shaping the lessons for them. Remember that home tuition is personalized. There might be cases wherein you’re proceeding to the lesson according to your plan only to find out later from your talk with your student that the teaching method used isn’t actually effective for them.
5. Go to workshops
As stated in #3, home tutors may feel demotivated when they are teaching the same thing again and again. As much as you like to teach them further or proceed to the next lesson, you can’t do that on your own accord without making sure that your student is ready to.
A good way to get over this slump is to attend workshops. There are still a number of workshops you can go to even through online classes. There are also many areas these workshops tackles and some even help to restore you drive in teaching. By learning more, you can also get over the repetitive cycle and make sure you don’t remain stagnant.
6. Take a break
What better way to deal with burn-outs than to just take a step back and breathe? Take a break if you need to. Change your routine. Do something for yourself. There is a big chance that home tutors feel demotivated because they are bored.
If you’re suffering from boredom because of your job, then it’s a good idea to change something in your routine or do something enjoyable once in a while that has nothing to do with your work. If you feel drained, you can take some time off or do some exercises. Pick up a hobby or take a good walk.
Like everything else, sometimes a bit of break time is what you need to get the best of yourself. If you are also feeling bored and demotivated, chances are this will reflet on your work and the students will ultimately pick this up.
If you can’t afford to take a break, as it may set you back from your goals and career, you can still refresh yourself while still teaching by incorporating some games between lessons or even changing the learning environment. The possibilities are endless.
7. Try new teaching methods
Since doing routines for a long period of time might be exhausting and boring, why not change up your teaching methods and experiment in trying something new? It’s also possible that you might be losing motivation due to your teaching method not working out well for you anymore.
By researching on new teaching methods and adding them to your current method or even modifying it, you can also look at your student’s learning style and adapting your teaching method to better fit his/her needs. There are always some new ways to teach a student. You just need to research on them and figure out which ones you can use and will make teaching and learning more interesting.
Conclusion
There’s no shame in admitting that you are feeling down as a home tutor. It’s understandable that the work can get demanding and it might be overwhelming at times. However, you shouldn’t give up easily. Nothing comes easy and there will be instances where it will become too much. But with the tips above, we hope we have given you some insights on how to deal with demotivation as home tutors and get back your groove.
Interested in becoming a home tutor? Check out FamilyTutor, the best home tuition agency in Singapore. We have home tutors in 28 districts of Singapore, offering lessons in over 200 subjects to students from pre-school and even beyond university level students.
Want to hire a home tutor for your child? Click here to request a home tutor!
Carelle
Carelle is a teacher who has been through the ups and downs of the teacher and learner life. She wishes for every learner to gain educational satisfaction that will help embody the people they want to be in the future.
Tell Carelle Below What You Think About Her Post!
About FamilyTutor!
FamilyTutor is an established home tuition agency in Singapore! We match suitable home tutors for our clients not just to improve the students' academic grades, but also to build a strong rapport and meaningful relationship with the students and even the their whole family. FamilyTutor put every student in good hands!
If you need an excellent home tutor, feel free to call/WhatsApp us at +65 8777-2168! Our matching service is free!
Related Posts!
Follow Us On Facebook!
Education Levels
National Exams
Math & Science Subjects
Language Subjects
Japanese Tuition
Korean Tuition
German Tuition
Humanities Subjects
Social Studies
Chinese Literature Tuition
About Us
FamilyTutor is an established and the people’s favourite home tuition agency in Singapore! We match a suitable tutor for you not just to improve the student’s grade, but also to build a good rapport and meaningful relationship with the student and even with the student’s whole family! With FamilyTutor, every Singaporean son & daughter is in good hands.
Contact Us
- 8777 2168
- 8777 2168
- Mon-Sun 9am-10pm (Including PH)
- [email protected]
- 17 Petir Road Singapore 678278
