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The 3 Key Cornerstones of Britcent's Teaching Philosophy
5 min read
Level: Proficient+
Want to know more about Britcent? It might just be the right school for you...
Whether you are a prospective student or tutor you might be curious to find out more about our company and what we're all about. To put it briefly, the most important thing to our company is our students' progress. Our teaching philosophy centres on 3 key areas in order to make sure we are doing the most for our students: individuality, relationships and professionalism. Keep reading to find out more!
Individuality—no student or tutor is the same!
The first value at the heart of Britcent's teaching ethos is individuality. At Britcent there is no set curriculum. This means that each lesson is personally tailored to our students' needs and interests. In education, differentiation is crucial to student progress. Our personalised service is what we feel makes us stand out from our competitors' cookie-cutter approach. Also, this demonstrates our commitment to teaching 'real life' or 'everyday' English, rather than stuffy boring textbook English! We have found this to be much more successful in 1-to-1 lessons and it leads to much greater student satisfaction. We usually organise our tailored lessons by selecting materials based on real life, from news articles to TV shows, structuring our conversational classes around a customised topic. We provide detailed lesson notes covering all areas of speaking skills— pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary. Of course we also provide tutors with an array of material such as online resources and text books should our students prefer a more traditional, structured approach.
At Britcent we believe that our tutors are as individual as our students. That's why we offer our tutors greater freedom than other companies over the way they run their lessons. There is a lot of creative freedom as a Britcent tutor! For example, I am particularly interested in politics and philosophy so I often have debates on these topics with my students. We take special care to match students with tutors based on their needs, personality and interests. Students get the opportunity to have trials with various tutors to make sure we find the right match. Furthermore, we are a team at Britcent so if we feel another colleague will better suit a student's needs or personality then we will happily pass them on. There's no competition between tutors because we are all in the business of putting our students first.
You might also like:
Teacher's Corner: 20 Questions with Britcent Teacher Flora
Interview With the CEO of an Online Education Platform
Confessions of an Online English Tutor at Britcent
Like this? Check out our podcasts
Relationships—more than just a tutor
The second cornerstone of Britcent's teaching philosophy is long-lasting relationships. This is important not only between tutors and students, but also between tutors and our fantastic administration team. Our 1-to-1 style lessons mean that tutors really get to know their students, building strong personal relationships. This means that tutors are held accountable and are incentivised to put the needs of their students first. In fact I still have many students that I started with at Britcent over a year ago! I have really enjoyed getting to know them and sharing important moments with them such as passing an exam, graduation or job promotions. I think this demonstrates the great rapport tutors are encouraged to foster and speaks to the friendly atmosphere at Britcent. As an online English tutor this is a real plus and stands out from many online teaching experiences which can be very impersonal and unrewarding.
In this way we like to think that we are offering our students more than just teaching. Because of our approach to relationships with students we build rapport naturally and can offer a deeper relationship than other online teaching providers; our tutors and students really get to know each other.
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Teachers' Corner: 20 Questions With Britcent Teacher Sam
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Professionalism—learn English from the professionals
The third and final cornerstone of Britcent's teaching philosophy is professionalism. All Britcent tutors are held up to the same high standards in qualifications and experience. Tutors are required to have a university degree and CELTA/TESOL, but some teachers even have a DELTA or PGCE. This means that tutors are fully qualified and have invested time and energy into their English teaching practice.
A CELTA/TESOL qualification is an English as a foreign language qualification which prepares teachers in several aspects of the profession. Usually these courses last a month to three months and they consist of teaching theory, language proficiency and practical training in a classroom with real students. In my opinion these are the best English teaching qualifications out there and they have really helped prepare me for my career. I still use the teaching techniques taught on the course daily with my students. You can therefore rest assured that Britcent tutors have had the highest quality of professional training.
On top of qualifications Britcent tutors also have years' worth of experience. We are all professional English tutors and this is our full-time career, so each tutor will bring with them their own teaching philosophy cultivated over the years. In this way we stand out from many of our competitors who focus less on the quality of their tutors and more on the quantity of their students.
Like this? Check out our audiobooks
So, I hope this blog post gave you a little insight into what is at the heart of Britcent. To find out more about the day-to-day life of a Britcent tutor check out 'Confessions of an Online English Tutor at Britcent.' And if you want to know more about our individual tutors why not check out our tutor profile videos on our YouTube channel, or scroll down to watch Lily talk about her teaching experience?
Vocabulary takeaway
Watch this video on the Britcent YouTube channel, where you'll find videos, podcasts, audiobooks and more...
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