Below are some tips that our existing tutors have provided to get you started.  

Tip:
Stickers are a must for keeping young children happy and working!  You can use them as a reward for good work or as a motivation to get work done.  The children love collecting stickers and it’s a great way to praise your student. You can get booklets of 400 stickers from Lincraft for around $5, or $2 packets from Dollars and Sense and Crazy Clarks.

Tip:
Learn who 50 cent is before you visit a family with children.  Chances are they will be obsessed with his music and knowing who he is will gain you some street cred.  Note – we don’t recommend you actually listen to his music, the lyrics are quite explicit!

Tip:
Make sure that if you teach something one week, you revise it the next week to make sure it is remembered!

Tip:
If there are younger children of below school-age in the family who don't need tutoring and can be disruptive, consider asking the parents if the young children can be kept in another room when you are there or at least some of the time. This can help the older children who need tutoring concentrate and make the most of the session. 

Tip:
Try not to overlook the mother's needs - she will often have little or no opportunity to speak English with people due to her friends often being only or mainly other refugees from the same country or with the same language, and parenting her kids. She in fact will have less verbal interaction in English than her school age kids. If the mother has had schooling in her own language you may find she is a quick learner who will be able to help her kids when you are not around. This will greatly help the children's learning curve.

Tip:
You may be asked whether you can come more than once a week, or experience another request that you may feel unable to grant. African culture doesn't suffer from our western cultural embarrassment about making requests of people, and similarly there is no embarrassment about declining requests made of you. So don't resent the asker for making a request, you can feel totally at ease explaining why and declining!  And don't commit yourself to any more than you feel comfortable giving.