de-For Teachers: 6 steps to a great trial lesson

Follow in the footsteps of our best teachers and find out how to become the best teacher you can be.

We are sure you will like this, because it works.

Do you have about 20 minutes? That's all it takes. Let's go:

• Students check teacher's profiles and if they choose you, they will book a trial or regular class (every student can have only one free trial class). OR, students check our courses and if they don't select a specific teacher, we assign the teacher to the student according to the course type, time availability of the teacher, other student's requests, and teacher ranking (best teachers first). You get an email, message, or a call about the student request.
• Accept the request as soon as possible in your e-mail invitation, or in any other way, if you were not contacted by email. For your priority hours, requests are accepted automatically and can be booked up to 1 hour in advance. You can set your priority hours in your calendar. You can accept or reject the request within 24 hours. If you don't, it can disappear and can be offered to another teacher.

2. Goals for the trial class

• Your main goal is that the student will book lessons with you.
• Get to know the students and let them get to know you (ask a lot and let them know how important they are to you)
• Show that you can help them - Showcase the teaching materials and way of teaching
• Assess the language level of the student

3. Prepare for the class

4. Placement test

• We ask all students to fill in the questionnaire before the trial class, which also includes the language level and placement test. But not all students fill it in.
• Choosing the right language level for the student is important to give the student a chance to enjoy and learn as much as possible. If you choose a too low level, the classes will be boring (student already knows everything). If you choose a too high level, classes will be overwhelming and discouraging (student feels worthless by not knowing anything).
• You can find out the language level of the student in these ways:

1. The student's sheet can state their language level (if they filled out our questionnaire)
2. Students can tell you during the first class what his/her language level is
3. You find out during the first class by using the placement test or sample of the teaching materials

For children, you can find out by asking what language book they are using at school (the level is usually stated on the book), or by asking how many school years they have been learning that language.

5. During the class

• 00:00 - 00:02 - Greet the student with their name, get to know each other

Ask how they are, where are they from and what they do.

• 00:02 - 00:05 - Ask students about their goals, motivation or interests in learning your subject

Make the students see their future selves when they achieve their goals.

• 00:05 - 00:15 - Show teaching materials AND use them for assessing the level or teaching something to show your way of teaching

Share your screen, turn on drawing tools, share your mouse or ask the student to try write something on the screen with ZOOM tools.

Make the student learn something new, meaningful and towards their goals or interests.

Praise the student on the progress or correct answers.

• 00:15 - 00:20 - Spend some time of the class by conversation or games/videos.

Show that part of the class we learn from teaching materials, and part of the class we use what we learned. The aim is to make the student talk about something that connects the lesson with the student's real life. Shorten the activity when you see the student is bored and ask more questions if the student is losing focus.

• 00:20 - 00:24 - Give feedback and agree on the best timings of regular classes that will suit the student and you as well

If you can, set homework and write it on the student's sheet. Having there a link to a short youtube video with the vocabulary you used during the class or will use during the next class is a good start. Say the student should watch the video before the next class and that you will get back to it.

Give feedback to the student and ask for feedback (What did you think of the lesson? How did you like the activity? What did you learn today?)

Encourage your student to take a minimum of 2 or more classes a week to see progress.

Remember, lessons can only be booked once your student has made a payment through our e-shop. Tell them to do so. They can buy as much credit as they like.

• 00:24 - 00:25 - Thank them and end the lesson in a positive way

6. After the class

Thank you for getting down here! We wish you a great teaching experience!

Your ESITY team