How to Find the Perfect English Tutor in Bangkok

For students who struggle with peaking, reading, or writing in English, a strong tutor can make all the difference. Tutors are invaluable mentors that can guide you to not only boost your English language skills, but also gain confidence in the process. After all, what good are language skills if you’re not confident enough to apply them in real-life situations?

Of course, the benefits of tutorship will only be as abundant as the strength of your tutor. There are many English tutors out there, so it’s important that you know how to pick a qualified, competent, and high-quality tutor out from the masses. If you’re seeking a first-rate tutor, they are most commonly associated with a top-notch language institution.

As it turns out, the finest English language learning institutions offer extensive tutoring services, which naturally requires them to hire the best tutors. So, if you’re seeking an excellent tutor experience, you should first look into English language institutions near you and then select from their roster of tutors.

Now that you know where to look, it’s time to learn how to identify when a tutor offers a high-quality experience and how to select the best tutor for you. Read on to learn more!

education, people, friendship, technology and learning concept – group of happy international high school students or classmates with workbook learning in classroom

Why get a tutor in the first place?

While the conventional classroom route is effective for some students, it can be detrimental to the learning of others. If you’re the kind of learner that thrives on one-on-one support, self-paced progression, and tailored learning activities, odds are you’ll perform best under the guidance of a tutor. Here’s why:

One on one support

Class sizes at some English language schools can reach up to 30 students, meaning there’s a 1:30 teacher to student ratio. When class sizes are large, teachers are busy answering each student’s questions and they may not have enough time to spend with you to meet your learning needs. If you want extra support, choose a tutor.

When you work with a tutor, every lesson is provided in a one-on-one environment. You have the tutor’s full attention for the entire duration of the session, so you can have all your questions answered instantly. Ask as many questions as you like, whenever you like. You have total control over your learning!

Self-paced progression

If you’ve ever felt panicked in the classroom environment because the content was moving faster than you could keep up with, tutoring is a great option for you. Teachers have strict lesson plans without a ton of wiggle room. If most students are keeping up just fine, they might move on without you fully grasping the material.

In contrast, with a tutor, you never have to worry about moving on to the next topic before you fully understand the current one- all pacing is tailored to your needs. You’re free to spend more or less time on the content items as they come up without any complications or stress. A key benefit of tutoring is that if you excel in this type of learning (and have a great tutor), you may even be able to learn English faster than you would in the conventional classroom setting.

Tailored learning activities

We all have different learning styles, so in the classroom, most teachers try to appeal to multiple styles in hopes of reaching all students. Unfortunately, this means that you’re not learning English in the most efficient way for you.

When you work with a tutor, you can discover your ideal learning style and then apply that throughout your sessions for maximum impact. Whether you prefer to learn using visuals, audio, reading, writing, or even kinesthetic styles, an excellent tutor will accommodate you to make the most of your sessions.

Do I have to choose a tutor or a class, or can I do both?

Of course you can do both! Pursuing both forms of education can be more expensive but you will get all the benefits of learning with peers and one on one learning. Ultimately, this is the most well-rounded approach to learning English. That said, it’s certainly not necessary to enroll in classes and tutoring to learn English. One or the other can be sufficient! It just depends on your personal preferences and budgetary constraints.

education, high school, university, learning and people concept – group of international students with notebooks and coffee writing test in lecture hall

How do I identify a strong English language school?

There are a few key qualities that are shared amongst the top English language schools in Bangkok and beyond. In your search for the perfect English institution and tutor, be sure to keep these tips in mind to guide your decision.

Free demonstration

As a general rule of thumb, don’t buy something before you can try it. Schools that are confident in their teaching methodology and curriculum will offer you a free demonstrative session before official enrollment. This is intended to expose you to the teaching style, tools, courses, and tutors to help you decide if it’s right for you.

Be wary of schools that charge upfront before you learn about their tutors/teachers, experience, lesson formats, learning materials, and overall style. You might get locked into a less than ideal learning situation that isn’t valuable for you- predatory language schools do exist!

Free assessment and needs analysis

A free assessment and needs analysis of your English competencies may be included as part of the free demonstration, but it may also occur external to it. Either way, it is essential to get a sense of how your potential institution assesses your current level of English and identifies where you could use improvement. Most importantly, however, they will elaborate on lessons offered that specifically address those needs. If you come across an institution that doesn’t make a point of assessing your current skills and how they will tailor your learning experience, they may not be a quality school.

Alignment of lessons with goals

In your free assessment, you will likely be asked about your English language goals. This is the time to share why you’re learning English. Do you need to achieve a certain test score to qualify for a job? Are you hoping to learn conversational English to travel abroad? Whatever your motivation is, be sure to share it!

After describing your goals, you should be presented with how the lessons offered map onto your goals. Often, there is specific programming tailored to specific goals. For example, Insight English offers the following suite of specialized English courses:

  • IELTS
  • TOEFL
  • TOEIC
  • APTIS
  • General English
  • Business English
  • English for Airline Business
  • English for Call Centers/Telephone English
  • English for Nursing
  • English for Human Resources
  • Test of English as a Foreign Language
  • And many more!

You can view additional programs offered by Insight English here. If the institution you’re looking at doesn’t offer specialized lessons, it’s a good idea to shop around for one that does. This ensures that you get your money’s worth!

No guarantees

This is the single best way to identify whether you’re considering a predatory school. No high-quality institution will guarantee that you will achieve a certain test score threshold after taking their courses or working with their tutors. This is impossible to guarantee and designed to attract students desperate for a certain test score. Don’t fall for it!

Reputable English institutions will prepare you for the English test of your choice, but they will never guarantee your score on it. Ultimately, your level of English depends on the work you put in in your learning journey. A teacher/tutor will do their best to guide you, but you do need to put in the work to get the grades. As such, no score is guaranteed.

education, children, technology and people concept – group of happy kids with tablet pc computers learning at school

How do I identify a high-quality English language tutor?

We evaluate tutors based on several criteria and recommend that you do too. Our top considerations for quality include:

  1. Prioritization of student speaking time: This criteria is important if you value engagement and collaboration in your learning. In our opinion, you should, as these qualities are proven to result in more effective learning
  2. Provision of timely, constructive feedback on homework/activities: Every tutor will provide you with practice activities. It is vital that you receive feedback in a timely fashion so as to correct your mistakes as soon as possible. Waiting too long to do so lessens the learning impact. It is equally important that the feedback be constructive in nature, identifying what you’re doing well, what can be improved, and how to improve it in the future.
  3. Introduction of new material and vocabulary at an appropriate pace: An excellent tutor will strike a balance of difficulty in your learning. You should always feel as though you are progressing your knowledge and understanding, so activities should be an appropriate difficulty level: not too hard to the point where you can’t make any progress, but not so easy such that you don’t learn anything new.
  4. Experience with high-quality institutions and tutoring: Tutors with years of experience at credible institutions are highly likely to be effective teachers. There’s a reason that the school has kept them on-staff- because they’re talented!

We’re proud to say that Insight English meets or exceeds all of the expectations stated above for a high-quality institution. If you’d like to book a free demo and assessment, please visit us here.