Our tutor team
Our tutoring program is dedicated to enhancing spoken English skills for Chinese students, positioning English as a valuable second language. At the advanced level free topic English corner, tutor and students share their dreams and aspirations, brainstormed ideas, and delved into deep discussions about their cultures.
Both tutor recruitment and student enrollment largely rely on word-of-mouth referrals. Gratified students and tutors, acting as our advocates, frequently recommend our program to their peers. This organic method of promotion has yielded impressive results, with a consistent upsurge in our volunteer tutors from various parts of the USA. Concurrently, we've seen an expanding roster of students from diverse regions in China, including Inner Mongolia, Beijing, Shanghai, Hebei, Shanxi, Yunnan, Guangdong, Hainan,
Jiangsu, Tianjin, Zhejiang, Jilin, etc. Furthermore, we've forged partnerships with middle schools in ShaanXi and YunNan Provinces. Initially focusing predominantly on elementary students, we continually refine and expand our program, now catering to a wider student age range, from elementary to college levels.
We put together a cool team of tutor coordinators to keep our weekly classes running smoothly.
David Lai, Felix Yang, Sara Lu, Chloe Wong
Statistics
Tutors participated in PB ESL tutoring since 2021: 65
Students we have taught since 2021: 350+
Tutors teach at weekly class at 2023: 45
students in registered at fall 2023 :129
Students age group: 1st grader - college student
How we teach
In our tutoring lessons, we aim to help them with their pronunciation, increase their vocabulary, and teach them about American culture.
Each year, our program is split into three sessions: spring, summer, and fall. All of our classes are held over Zoom and meet once a week for 40 minutes on Friday or Saturday night. There is no set start time for the classes, as they are scheduled around the tutor and students' availability; however, they usually begin around 6:00 pm PST. To ensure the quality of each class, our class size generally ranges from 2-5 students.
At Project Butterfly, our program offers three types of classes: Grade Level Teaching, English Corner, and 1-on-1 Tutoring. Grade Level Teaching is our most popular type where we offer 4 levels of classes based on English proficiency: no experience with the language (which are generally 2nd- 4th graders), little experience with English (generally 5th-6th graders), some experience (generally 7th and 8th graders), and a fair amount of experience (generally 9th graders and above). In these classes, we use the Speakingtime series for kids in 5th grade and above and customized teaching material for the younger kids. Our English Corner classes are structured to be conversation based, with no set material each week. In these classes, the tutor and students talk about anything from sports to food to school to travel destinations. Our 1-on-1 Tutoring classes are 1-on-1 tutoring sessions that are generally reserved for students with special needs or those that require specific accommodations.
For each class you teach, you will receive 1 hour of volunteer service. If you have to make slides for the grade-level class, you will receive 2 hours of volunteer service. We will send a google form to each tutor to keep track of their service hours.
If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact us. Otherwise, we look forward to having you as a tutor for Project Butterfly!