Teaching language is very Easy? Maybe...

So far teaching in Preply, I have had the opportunity to meet a lot of great people over the years; many turned out to be great and excel well, some were just on very short-term learning, and a few didn't go through....

Each student came from a different nationality, background, story, mother tongue, age, motivation, purpose, and even learning pace, whether with me or with themselves. And with each lesson, I wasn't just teaching; I was learning too, whether it was about teaching, the students, myself, or heck, even the language itself!

This time, this blog isn't about student progress and successes (even though there have been some proud moments). No, this blog is more of a pause, a moment of reflection, a moment to ponder on my own lows as a foreign language tutor.

Let's face it guys, teaching isn't always effortless. Especially when you're teaching something as layered and emotionally demanding as another foreign language.

For more than three years of tutoring German, I’ve noticed a few patterns where I fell short. Some patterns were not apparent immediately, but over time and with enough experience and honest feedback & criticism from the students, they became clearer and clearer.

And here we go on exposing some of my mistakes in the past😅:

❌ Not Fully Understanding the Student’s True Needs

Sometimes, I was so focused on teaching what I thought the student needed, I didn’t take enough time to fully understand what they actually wanted.

• Were they learning for a visa interview?

• Are they preparing for a job interview?

• Or was it just for fun, as in a hobby?

I realized that I was often jumping into teaching mode without having the complete picture.

So, in the beginning when starting a new lesson with a new student, it's always important to get to know them as much as possible first and assess them well. This will give you a much better idea in terms of where they are having the issues via the assessment and "why" that is via their background checking, and I don't mean their whole backstory, but rather how they started learning German plus their learning method & process.

❌ Teaching Without Structure

There were phases when my lessons didn’t follow a clear path. Jumping from topic to topic depending on what I had on my hand, irrelevant to what the student is requesting, even when they asked me to cover a couple of grammars and topics that they know they need to improve on. And while this flexibility can be useful, it also led to inconsistency and confusion.

Especially for beginners or those preparing for exams, this lack of structure was not helpful.

So, make sure that by each lesson, you are teaching the students to grasp what they understood while allowing them to know where their German levels are at from time to time. That will give the students the confidence to keep learning with a trustworthy tutor with the right plan.

❌ Letting My Emotions Leak into Lessons

What you teach can be the same for all the students, but what separates an average tutor to a great one is "how" they teach the same thing to each one; it's not always the same... And speaking of "how" you say it, there were days when my personal life or stress bled into my tone or energy during lessons, which can cause the students unnecessary tension.

It's one thing when a student gets tense or feels unrest with the new things they are learning , which is an indicator that you're really learning something that the brain never thought of or even heard about. But on the flip side you do not want to give the negative tensions, which is kinda similar to a bad boss scolding someone for unrelated reasons (fyi speaking from my own experiences😅)

And yeah... sometimes I rushed, other times I was less patient than I should’ve been. And worst of all, I didn't always notice it right away.

I mean, we are all humans end of the day with day-to-day challenges, and so the best thing you can do is either do a quick recharge of "positive feeling." And no, don't take no drugs. I meant like listening to musics, watching favourite short clips or texting your friends & family before starting the lesson. 😀

❌ Not Providing Enough Resources

As tutors, we’re not just "human Google Translators." We're also resource curators. And looking back, I sometimes relied too much on what we covered in class rather than offering extra support — like vocabulary lists, worksheets, audio, or reading materials.

Students needed more tools outside the lesson — and I hadn’t built enough of that into the experience.

Being a tutor was not just about what you know that you are sharing with others, but rather the additional effort that you need to put in to prepare the materials and lessons that fit each student's style and mentality. And with the various AI softwares and tools out there, material preparations have never ever been easier! 😀😀

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Looking back, all of these moments taught me something valuable. They’ve shaped me into how I teach today, how I listen to my students, and how I design my lessons. No tutor is perfect, but we do grow, especially when we’re willing to be honest with ourselves.