Victoria: A Super Tutor on Preply Creates Highly Tailored Lessons Using Bespoke Materials

Victoria Taylor Johnston was first introduced to teaching during her Bachelor of Psychology at the University of Ottawa. For a minor in Italian Language and Culture she became a teaching assistant. Later, during her Master of Developmental and Educational Psychology at the University of Padua, Italy, she started teaching English as a tutor on Preply.

Challenges

Victoria has many learners and typically teaches seven days a week. She tailors lessons for individual learners and creates bespoke role plays as well as exercises specific to learners' personal needs. Victoria likes to plan and outline lessons a couple of months ahead, then adapt and adjust as needed. Victoria spent significant preparation time after first lessons with new learners and it had become so time-consuming that she needed to temporarily turn off her availability to new learners.

Solution

Victoria first started using Edumo for her own convenience, but more so to offer her learners something engaging. She realized that she could use the "Generate text" assistant to create dialogs for role plays and exercises around said dialogs. She also discovered that she could easily convert external concepts and materials into activities using Edumo through the "Recognize material" assistant. 

Results

Time saving: Victoria went from needing to dedicate around four hours of preparation to only 90 minutes, when creating course outlines for new learners. For existing learners Edumo allows her to save time when adjusting and adapting. Victoria estimates that on average, she saves one hour per existing learner each week - with almost 50 active learners and working seven days a week to keep up, Edumo is a huge help.

Managing variety: Victoria's learners come from many different professions and have diverse learning objectives, making it challenging to create work related role plays and come up with relevant vocabulary for every one's personal goals. Victoria has used different AI technologies in the past but was often not satisfied with the results and had to spent lots of time producing her own materials. With Edumo she finds the produced dialogs and vocabulary are better and more suited for ESL-based role plays.

Homework: As many of Victoria's learners are working professionals, it can be difficult for them to find time for homework. Victoria has thus decided to only give homework to learners who are willing and who have the time. However, after becoming aware of Edumo's ability to provide bite-sized homework content, she began encouraging her learners to utilize these learning-tools for five minutes each day.