Experience working as a private tutor in a Spanish language school
I have been working as a language teacher in a language school for six years and generally speaking, the experience is being positive and beneficial for my career.
I studied Modern Languages, so I can teach how English, Italian, French or even Spanish work to any sort of student: from little children, aged 3-11 years old, until secondary and university students, and older people who need to learn a second language for specific purposes.
I have many types of students. In other words, there are Chinese, Immigrants, American or English students. On the other hand, I have Spanish students who need to learn English to be able to obtain more points when taking some specific public tests or to be able to find a suitable job.
The experience is teaching me that children learn more easily than adults. Why is that? The answer is simple. Children learn everything more quickly and they consider languages as a game by which they can learn and play at the same time. Nevertheless, not all the children learn a second language as quick as one expects. There are many kinds of children and each one is different from each. Some of them learn fast, others need more time to assimilate the concepts and the grammar, and the rest may even forget what they have learned the previous year. And, this latter case is a big problem for both the teacher and the pupil. What is the solution? After years of experience, I have learned that the only option to sort this problem out is to be patient and try to make the pupil more relaxed while leaning the second language. The child is aware of this problem, so I do not want them to be stressed with this situation because the more stressed they are, the worse. If this situation gets worse, the pupil will not learn anything at the end and they will not want to study any language. My advice is to try to make the student enjoy while learning and not to teach the second language in a way the student may get bored and not learn anything at all.
I hope my experience and my advice can help future teachers when teaching second languages.
My best regards,
Blanca