hi everyone and welcome to working wednesday this is a series on my channel where i talk about
anything related to working online and or becoming a digital nomad and traveling
full-time in last week's video we looked at five online teacher mistakes or more
specifically five teacher mistakes that i made when i started teaching english online
to predominantly b2 to c2 level adults about four or five years ago and today
we're going to be continuing with the next part which are mistakes number six to ten now if you do
find that value has been added to your life after watching this video please consider subscribing
you can do that down below and also the thing i wanted to say about this video in particular
is that as teachers we're all different right and that's a real positive because i think if we were
all the same and we all had the same approach everything would be very boring and it would be
very difficult to kind of distinguish ourselves from each other so a lot of the points in this
video are ones which you might not agree with they're things that kind of work for me they're
things i consider as mistakes for me but for you they might not be mistakes if that is the case you
know it might just be something to think about you know it would be great to hear your views
and what works for you down below to help other viewers out so i would welcome your contribution
okay let's crack on with mistake number six which could be slightly divisive among some of you that
is inflexibility when i talk about inflexibility i am describing your policies as a teacher around
rescheduled lessons and cancellations as with many of these points in this series of videos
many of them are related to the balance between being a teacher and a business owner and also the
issue of student retention so it's something to keep in mind throughout this video when we start
off as an online teacher we are generally in a position where we are trying to build our student
base build our reputation generate long-term students and let's face it probably not earning
a lot because we're charging quite low therefore when you have a day planned of like eight lessons
and you're thinking like okay this is how much i'm gonna earn at the end of the month
but then you have four people cancelled at the last minute it's perfectly understandable to be
quite emotional about that and think i'm not going to swear but you know you can imagine the kind of
reaction that you would have but you do need to employ an element of rationality to the situation
and also flexibility it can be very tempting when you start off as a teacher reading forums and
watching videos like this to think that you need to be this strict teacher with this overly strict
policy but i'll give you an example i used to do that right and i had someone in brazil who had to
cancel a lesson at the last minute for a perfectly valid reason i can't remember what it was now
but i said to her you know sorry you can't reschedule that's it you have to pay me for it
did i ever see her again after that no i didn't she ran for the hills she was gone
and then i had to start all over again looking for new people if you do employ an element of
flexibility you're much more likely to retain students i'm not saying that you should be a
complete pushover and say yeah that's fine do what you want because absolutely that's
not the case there needs to be an element of respect mutual respect between the two of you
and as i said in the previous video talking about building a relationship and rapport and
that's also about building expectations clarifying expectations and and what you would expect from
a student and what they would expect from you you have to remember as well that especially if
you're a digital nomad or you're traveling time you're gonna have problems where your wi-fi goes
down or you have a power cut or you have bad wi-fi you're not gonna be in one place all the time and
students understand that and they know that things will happen in your life i've had cases yeah power
cuts buses being late you name it and if you have that relationship that is one of mutual respect
and understanding that we're both adults we have other things in our life we have other commitments
we have work we have children we need to commute to work and back home things happen so my advice
with this is don't be this strict person but also don't be a pushover have an element of flexibility
through building relationship and rapport okay moving on to mistake number seven again this could
be another slightly contentious one and actually is one that is kind of a new thing for me and
you'll notice that i'm being a bit contradictory in what i'm saying with this and that is about
using distancing terminology what does this mean okay this might be a bit novel and
revolutionary but i find that using terminology like student lesson assignment homework client
are words that just create distance between you and the individual or learner or whatever
again this might be something that you don't agree with because for you that might work and that
definitely creates this kind of business mindset but it doesn't help with the comfortable factor
it doesn't help with reducing pressure i'll give you an example about something i saw on
instagram a few days ago and it was about the fact that we should be calling a job interview
a meeting because a job interview isn't just about you telling the interviewer what you can offer
them it's also about you asking them what can you offer me as an employer and calling a meeting
rather than an interview can completely take away that pressure that you have like think oh god
i've got to go to an interview it's going to be a nightmare and in a similar manner calling a lesson
a lesson can immediately generate this feeling of pressure and stress for that individual call it a
call instead it's an adult that you're having it with you're an adult they're an adult you're on
the same footing there isn't like this distance between teacher and student if you're teaching
lower levels or beginner levels or children yeah of course there might need to be that distance and
levity if you like but it doesn't necessarily work for higher level advanced adults so my advice here
is just think about the terminology you're using use your empathy skills how would you feel if you
were a individual a student taking a lesson with someone who was very strict was talking about
homework assignments lesson lesson lesson client it's just a bit old-fashioned in my mind i think
we need to be having a bit of a different approach with the terminology we use as teachers or
business owners which is a common theme throughout these as i said mistakes number eight to ten
are kind of all connected they're all related to the wonderful topic of lesson planning one
which i know may be rather prominent in your minds so point number eight is thinking that
every student needs a plan now again this might be creating fireworks in your head
we're teachers we need to have a plan there needs to be a structured approach for each student
individual but it's not always the case honestly i think the mistake i made with lesson planning was
thinking that every student needed this elaborate plan with assignments and exercises and
you name it when in reality they didn't want that or need that the key with lesson planning is about
your trial lesson i cannot emphasize this enough just how invaluable those 30 minutes are that you
have with them because you can really go into detail around how that person learns what they
want to do how they prefer to learn the kind of content that they want included in a lesson
it's absolutely imperative that you take advantage of those 30 minutes because you can actually ask
the question do you want a planned approach or do you want an unplanned and this kind of blew
my mind a little bit because i would i thought that you know everyone would want a plan and
structure but i was quite surprised and i remain to be surprised around just how many people just
want to talk they just want conversation practice as i said in point number one from the last video
practice and confidence and confidence are key and some people they just want to talk about something
yet they might want you to send them a couple of ideas for conversation topics or maybe an article
that you can send them they can read it look at some of the vocabulary use that in conversation
that's okay the the thing about lesson planning is that sometimes it's a very
rapid process if i'm honest and if you have kind of a catalogue of lesson material built
up over time you don't have to go searching for things to talk about or searching for topics for
all eternity because you've already got it and you can just simply work through that like a
bit of a program if you like so my advice here is talk to the individual about what they want
quite simply don't automatically assume that you need to have this ridiculously complicated plan
for everyone that applies to everyone because of course everyone's different have that conversation
with them about what they want if they want no plan that's okay don't force it on them
okay because it's about what the student wants at the end of the day mistake number nine is thinking
that i needed to create courses again this is a big one because as a teacher we think we need
to have a course we need to have this big long plan of a 10 lesson course that someone can buy
but there are two issues i have with this number one is relevance so let's say for example you
set up a business english course and someone from warsaw who works in digital marketing for example
purchases this course great you do all these ten lessons fantastic they're all relevant to that
individual but that doesn't necessarily mean that each of those lessons in that course are
going to be relevant to a software developer in moscow my advice here is to create bespoke plans
for people don't just assume that a course is going to be relevant to everyone you know lesson
two seven eight nine might be perfectly relevant to that software developer but the other ones
if they don't add any value it's gonna be a waste of time that's one issue that i have with courses
the other issue is around student retention if someone purchases a ten lesson course what
happens after lesson number ten but if you decide not to use courses in your teaching
you can maintain and generate long-term students now i've got an example of a lovely lady in moscow
who works in investment banking she's been a student for about a year and a half now we have
two lessons every week so we've gone through everything in my business english ebook which
by the way you can get down in the description below once we've exhausted that what do we do next
and we have the conversation again around what should we do together we look every week at maybe
a article relating to business or we look at a another topic might be general english or whatever
but it's suitable for her level by being flexible and changing your approach when needed you
can maintain those students for a long time you don't have to have this 10 lesson course that i
think is great for short-term needs so you know if someone has a job interview coming up and you
might want to do particular topics in a course that would benefit them in an interview great
fantastic if that student has no intention of staying with you for two years that's fine i
have that not all of them are long-term people then yeah courses are great but
my advice here again is don't assume that everyone will be the same and that the course will work for
everyone we're going to go on to mistake number 10 now which was thinking that planning a lesson
needs to be a one-way process when actually it needs to be a two-way process again going back
to the trial lesson talk about what you want to do with the student what they want to do it's so
important when it comes to lessons you know you may think that okay i need to plan my lessons for
the week i need to do this do this this is what we're doing because i'm the teacher and i'm the
one that has the control i'm the one that says we need to do this it's incredibly unattractive
when you are trying to maintain long-term students and build relationships with them
it's important that it needs to be a two-way process another example a lovely lady called
svetlana in saint petersburg she's an older lady she's lived an interesting life she's got a lot to
talk about she's got a lot of life experience with her she prefers to alternate things so one week i
might suggest a topic to talk about and then she might suggest one the week after or i might do it
for a couple of weeks and then she might say to me oh david is it okay if i suggest a topic for next
week go for it svetlana it's fantastic because you know it takes a bit of the onus off you
for planning and also it encourages the student because they're thinking of a topic themselves
they're having some control over what's going on it's more of a partnership it's not just a one-way
controlling dictatorial approach it needs to be collaborative and that's my advice with this
point is about generating creating fostering that partnership between the two of you where you both
feel comfortable to say things and be honest like you know is this working shall we try something
else next time do you want to suggest a topic this time have you read anything or seen anything on tv
this week that you want to talk about fantastic you know don't be so rigid in your approach to
lesson planning and teaching because as i said it's unattractive and it doesn't generate those
long-term students okay those are mistakes number six to ten done next time we're going
to be having 11 to 15 and after that we're going to be doing a separate series all about
business related mistakes that i made yes there have been many i hope you've found this video
useful like i said don't forget to subscribe to catch later on over there you can check out
various playlists including all of the teaching videos i've done in the past and that's about it
fantastic thank you for watching and i'll see you next time have a good week catch you later