A great tutor can transform your Chinese learning, but how do you know if a tutor is good? Let’s explore the key qualities that make a tutor truly effective!
As established in last week’s article, you need to become an independent learner to successfully learn Chinese as an adult. This does not mean learning in isolation, but it means that you are in charge and responsible for your own learning.
Enlisting the help of others on your journey is essential. You obviously need to listen and read what other people have written, but you also need people to interact with.
Tune in to the Hacking Chinese Podcast to listen to the related episode (#255).
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Paying someone to help you learn Chinese
Sometimes, the best option is to pay for such help in the form of a private teacher or tutor. In this article, I use the word “tutor” in the wider sense of someone willing to help you learn Chinese, either individually or in a small group. I do not include formal courses, as they come with a structured curriculum and additional constraints that tutors usually do not have to follow.
The goal today is to explore what signifies good tutors and how to find them. Naturally, what “good” means is circumstantial and subjective to a certain extent, but I do believe that there are some general characteristics that are objectively desirable in a tutor.
7 characteristics of a great Chinese tutor or private teacher
I have been both the student and the teacher in many private tutoring situations over the years, and have also talked with many students about what sets the best private teachers apart from the mediocre.
Here are some characteristics that are fairly universal. A great tutor:
- Understands why you are learning Chinese and what you want
- Focuses on what you want to learn, not what they want to teach
- Is patient, both when they speak and when you speak
- Creates a motivating and encouraging learning environment
- Is able to challenge you when you are ready for it and need it
- Is able to give clear and accurate feedback when appropriate
- Has the knowledge needed to teach what you want
A great tutor understands why you are learning Chinese and what you want
To help someone effectively, it is crucial to understand their situation. If you have never learnt a foreign language as an adult, it is difficult to empathise with someone who struggles.
Tutors are not mind readers, however, so as we saw in last week’s article, you must communicate your goals and perceived challenges with your tutor.
Good tutors ask about your goals and focus areas. If they do not, it is a bad sign but not necessarily disastrous. You just need to be more active yourself and start the discussion. It is only a problem if they do not listen.
A great tutor focuses on what you want to learn, not what they want to teach
You hired a tutor for a reason, so the tutoring sessions should reflect that. If you say that you want to improve your fluency by using mostly words you already know but the teacher keeps throwing new words and grammar at you in every sentence because they are “useful”, you should find a new tutor.
The most common example of this is students who want to focus on the spoken language first, but the tutor keeps insisting on teaching characters because that is their idea of what it means to learn Chinese.
Should you learn to speak Chinese before you learn Chinese characters?
I am not saying that your tutor should not have opinions about how you approach learning Chinese, but if they ignore your goals and focus on something they find important instead, this is a red flag.
As mentioned in the article on the student’s role in tutoring, it is beneficial to discuss your learning with your tutor regularly. They may know more about learning Chinese than you do, though that is not a given. If they suggest an alternative way to reach your goal, it is worth at least considering.
For example, if you want to improve your fluency by reading your textbook aloud, your tutor is right if they point out that this probably will not increase your ability to navigate unrehearsed conversations.
If they instead suggest various meaning-focused conversation activities based on the content in chapters you have already studied, you should listen to them.
Real communication: What it is, why you want it and how to get it
Naturally, it’s hard as a student to know what method works best given a certain learning situation; this might indeed be part of the reason you’ve hired a tutor.
This can’t be easily answered here, but we will look at effective teaching methods for different skills in upcoming articles in this series.
You are also welcome to browse the article catalogue here on Hacking Chinese, where most articles are about how to learn. This can, without much effort, be converted to how to teach as well; it’s often just a shift in perspective.
A great tutor is patient, both when they speak and when you speak
One of the most important traits for teachers in general is patience. Adapting one’s language to the student’s level takes effort, and conveying an idea successfully may require multiple attempts. This can include rephrasing, speaking more slowly, using body language, or even drawing.
Sometimes, all the tutor needs to do is wait and give the student some time to process what is going on. Impatient tutors may rush to fill the silence, limiting your chance to speak.
Being a good teacher requires patience. Some people are patient by nature, some have learnt to be patient through practice. Others pretend to be patient, but this is rarely enough, as students can usually feel when a tutor gets frustrated.
Patience is also a key ingredient when creating a positive atmosphere during a lesson, which is what we will explore next.
A great tutor creates a motivating and encouraging learning environment
While it takes two to tango, the tutor has the biggest responsibility for making sure the environment is conducive to learning, whether the tutoring is online or offline.
Patience, as mentioned, is one part of it, but there are many other, less tangible things that good tutors do to make their students relax.
It is hard to pinpoint what makes a session feel good, and this is also more subjective than most other points in this article, but here are some signs that it is working well:
- You look forward to the session (some nervousness is normal)
- You feel encouraged to participate in the learning activities
- You and your tutor both seem to enjoy the sessions
- You feel it is okay to make mistakes; you are not being judged
- You feel motivated to learn more after the session is over
Some students require a lot of encouragement, and others do not. A teacher can greatly influence a student’s motivation, but this specific aspect is less crucial if the student already has a strong drive to learn. Either way, motivation is the key to long-term success.
How to learn Chinese in the long term with intrinsic motivation
A great tutor is able to challenge you when you are ready for it and need it
Being comfortable in class is a great first step, but there is such a thing as being too comfortable. Most students do not hire a tutor to make them feel good, or at least that is not the main goal.
Still, if you feel anxious about using Chinese in conversations, spoken or written, you need that supportive environment first. Once you realise that only you feel bad about your mistakes and that saying something wrong is not a disaster, it is time to step out of your comfort zone.
This becomes increasingly true as your Chinese improves. For example, if I hired a tutor now, it would not be to encourage me to use the Chinese I know (I already know how to do that fluently), but rather to challenge me.
Here are some ways a tutor might challenge you to encourage learning:
- Are there better ways of saying what you just said?
- How could you vary your language to sound less monotonous?
- Are there inaccuracies in your language that could hinder communication?
- Can you expand and explain what you say clearly?
- Can you summarise and repeat the main points succinctly?
- Can you adjust word choice and manner of speaking to the target audience?
- Can you use specialised vocabulary relevant to the topic at hand?
A good tutor challenges you when you are ready. It is a delicate balance, as pushing too hard may make you uncomfortable, while not pushing at all is unhelpful. Discuss with your tutor to get the balance right!
A great tutor is able to give clear and accurate feedback when appropriate
One important reason for hiring a tutor is to get feedback on your Chinese speaking or writing. A good tutor is able to give you clear and accurate feedback when appropriate.
“Clear” feedback means that you know what you did wrong and what you should have done instead:
- If you use the wrong tone, you want to know what you said and what you should have said instead. Ask for clarification if needed.
- If you use the wrong word, you need to know if it was just a little bit off or outright wrong, then you want to know what a better choice would have been.
- The same goes for grammar: you want to know if what you said makes sense, except most native speakers wouldn’t say that, or if it’s incomprehensible.
You also need this feedback when “appropriate”. This doesn’t mean that your teacher should correct every single mistake you make, far from it; that would depend entirely on what you are practising.
A beginner who wants to get started with conversations after having spent some time listening might be more hindered than helped by corrections, especially if there’s some shyness or speaking anxiety involved.
An advanced learner might hire a tutor for the sole purpose of providing feedback on their speaking and writing. They already know how to get the meaning across; now they want to do it effectively, persuasively or eloquently.
It’s surprisingly hard to find a tutor who consistently gives you the feedback you want. Most teachers will do so right after you ask for it, but then forget, especially if your level is already quite good. Finding someone who can nitpick your pronunciation when it’s already good is almost impossible.
I’ve written more about the importance of feedback and how to get it here: How to get honest feedback to boost your Chinese speaking and writing.
How to get honest feedback to boost your Chinese speaking and writing
A great tutor has the knowledge needed to teach what you want
I chose to leave the right education and qualifications for last because, while they increase the likelihood of a tutor being good, it’s far from guaranteed.
I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. PhDs who know nothing about teaching Chinese. Beginner classes turned into calligraphy lectures. Conversation lessons reduced to dull textbook drills. All those wasted hours, lost in time, like tears in rain.
On a more serious note, while having a degree or a licence doesn’t guarantee that someone is a great teacher, it makes it more likely that they know what they are doing.
Similarly, having extensive experience doesn’t always mean someone is better than a less experienced tutor, but it increases the likelihood that they are.
This is particularly true if you need help with specific aspects of the Chinese language, such as pronunciation or grammar. Someone with deep knowledge of phonetics and phonology, including related pedagogy, is simply more likely to be able to help you than someone without.
There are tutors with zero formal training who are awesome at what they do, and there are those with PhDs in teaching pedagogy who are terrible, but all other things being equal, a solid theoretical background helps.
As a student, however, it can be difficult to tell. Without the relevant educational background, you might struggle to recognise when a teacher shares valuable insights and when they’re simply making things up.
Conclusion: Finding the perfect tutor is not easy
These were some universal criteria for evaluating your Chinese language tutor. It would be unrealistic to expect any given tutor to be able to check all the boxes, and if you find someone who does, cling on to them for dear life, but my hope is that this will make it easier for you to evaluate either your current tutoring situation, or give you a list of characteristics to consider when looking for a new tutor.
That is indeed what we will look at in the next part in this series: Where and how to find a tutor!
Before we explore that topic, though, what do you think?
- What characterises a great tutor for you?
- Which of these criteria would you put at the top of your priority list?
- Are there traits I did not mention in this article?
