Fun and Effective Activities for English Tutoring Sessions

Tutoring English is usually not an easy task, especially during private lessons. Most students tend to be nervous, intimidated, frustrated, or aloof when attending tutoring lessons. Others lose concentration when the tutor uses a monotonous method of teaching.

Whether it’s online or one-on-one learning, tutors need to infuse some creativity to ensure students enjoy the learning sessions. Making the sessions fun is the best way to improve the learning experience and productivity.

Therefore, it’s essential to know different activities you can integrate into your English tutoring lessons. So, what are some fun and exciting activities to consider?

7 Interesting Activities for English Tutoring

Learning activities have a significant impact on students. They improve the tutoring quality and help students memorize more information and be more mentally and physically involved during the learning process.

Below are seven practical activities you can implement during your English tutoring sessions:

Watching videos

Watching videos, films, TV shows, specific TV channels, cartoons, and other relevant YouTube content is an excellent way to improve the English learning experience.

Videos enhance students’ engagement and retention. They also offer high flexibility since students can easily pause, skip, or rewind them to review different areas.

However, you should choose suitable videos depending on the students’ level. Also, these videos need to have the right features to make learning easier. For instance, subtitled videos help students grasp words quicker and follow the content more easily.

Reading together with students to improve on pronunciations

Many students can read their books alone and understand most words. However, reading English literature with students can significantly boost their pronunciation and intonation skills.

You don’t necessarily need to read out loud page by page; students can read several chapters or paragraphs during the sessions. During this exercise, it’s best to point out various vocabulary terms, comprehension queries, specific sentences, and grammar while discussing the book’s general highlights.

Usually, students can feel discouraged when you correct their pronunciation mistakes after every word. Therefore, it’s good to wait until they read a paragraph or a few sentences before telling them about the mispronunciations you noted.

This technique is suitable for advanced students. However, it’s best to use books that match their age.

Board games

Board games offer tons of benefits in learning, particularly during English lessons. They’re highly engaging, attract students’ attention more, improve speaking skills, and enable them to communicate more effectively.

These games teach problem-solving, make students sharper, and develop reasoning, logic, confidence, high retention, and critical thinking.

Picture description

A fun way to test English fluency is by allowing students to give full descriptions of different picture-based scenes or circumstances. You can print out pictures, rip out magazine ads, or utilize textbook images and ask the students to explain what’s happening.

Presentations

Presentations can help your students improve their English skills, such as writing, reading, speaking, listening, and other language areas like grammar, phonology, and vocabulary. However, the primary benefit of this technique is boosting students’ confidence.

First, you can ask them to describe what they see verbally, then sort and review the words with them. Next, instruct the students to create written sentences or paragraphs with the generated vocabulary.

It’s also wise to remember that students can prefer different types of presentations. Some of the common options you can use are:

• Basic Speech
• Poster Presentation
• Acting or Creating a Movie
• Impromptu Presentation
• Presentation Followed by a Discussion
• PowerPoint Presentation
• Teacher Showing Others How to Do Things

Retelling stories

Having your students retell stories within given time constraints is an excellent way to test their fluency. The best technique is to have the students tell a story for the first time, then ask them to retell it two more times as you keep reducing the story-telling period on both occasions.

The fundamental goal of this method is ensuring the students include all the same information every time they retell the story but in less time.

Asking if sentences are correct

Present students with different questions and ask them to tell you whether they’re correct or not. This activity will help review different vocabulary and grammar concepts they learned in previous grades or classes.

It can also help gauge whether students can discern sentences with proper and poor sentence structures.

Learning activities enhance the overall teaching experience and quality. They help improve academic performance, learner self-confidence, skills, engagement, retention, creative thinking, and focus. Generally, there are many activities and games you can consider for this purpose.

However, it’s best to select the most appropriate one to use based on the learner’s age, social awareness, language skills, problem-solving abilities, and learning level. Keeping in mind the learner’s main tutoring objective can also give you clear insight on which ideas and techniques to implement.

At Erudite Tuition, we understand the importance of making learning both effective and enjoyable. Our tutors are experienced in incorporating these fun and engaging activities into their lessons, tailored to meet each student's unique needs. Whether it's through one-on-one sessions or online tutoring, we are dedicated to helping students achieve their full potential in English and beyond. Contact Erudite Tuition today to find the perfect tutor for your child and watch them thrive in their learning journey.