By: Tutor Molly
Hi CamFam! đź‘‹
I’m Molly, and I’ve been an online tutor for over three years now, and I am a super tutor with a 5.0 Cambly rating.Â
Today, I’d like to talk about how to increase your Cambly rating, but more importantly, how we can each learn and grow more as individual tutors.
And most importantly, how we can all as tutors ensure the best possible Cambly experience for our students.
Before diving into the “how”, let’s talk about the tutor rating and how it functions.
After every lesson we have with a student, Cambly prompts the student to leave a review.
The average of the most recent 200 reviews you receive from your students make up your rating. This is great because we, as tutors, usually improve our teaching skills over time, and those efforts will reflect in our rating!
Our rating is not only displayed on our profile as a way to help us gauge how well we are serving our students. But also to signal to new students how likely we are to add value to their English learning.
Because our rating rating is a reflection of how our students experience us and the lesson we deliver,
The real question to ask is not “how do I increase my rating?” but rather “how do I make sure my students have the best experience on Cambly so that they’re satisfied and want to book another lesson with me?”
If they are satisfied with my lesson, then they are more likely to leave me a good review and book another class with me in the future!
During the first year of tutoring on Cambly, my rating was 4.88. Even though I knew I was doing my best to give my students the best lessons, I also knew that I could always learn, evolve and become a better tutor than yesterday!
I wanted to increase my rating even more, and I was especially inspired by my students, who embraced the challenge of learning every day.
With this growth mindset and a desire to better serve my students, my rating went up over time to what it is now!
But this didn’t happen overnight, and it took patience and determination.
There are 3 things I learned and did over time to best serve my students, which helped me increase my tutor rating and I want to share them with you!
Here are 3 Tips to Increase Your Cambly Rating:
Let’s get into it!
Tip #1. Understand and cater to the students needs
You will encounter a wide variety of students who have different levels, interests and goals. It is important to take time to ask the student what their goals are so that you, as the tutor, can help them reach those goals!
You can ask the student, “What goals have you set for yourself?” “What would you like to focus on?” “What kind of class are you looking for?”
For example:
- Conversational
- Grammar-focused
- Business-oriented
- Test preparation
This will help you personalize the lesson with the student to cater to their specific needs.
Some students may not be able to articulate their goals just yet clearly. If that’s the case, after you work with the student for a bit, you can make some observations and suggestions.
You can say: “You have a strong foundation of grammar and know a lot of vocabulary! It looks like what would help you is build confidence in speaking. Would you like to work on more conversational practice?”
Students will really appreciate you helping them define their goals and then meet those goals!
Tip #2. Give and ask for feedback
Many students might be nervous upon entering the classroom! Offering feedback and encouragement can help establish a welcoming environment.
I like to ask my new students at the beginning of class how they prefer their corrections, for example– after every mistake, only after serious mistakes, or at the end of class. This will allow me to provide corrections in a comfortable setting for the student.
Additionally, don’t forget to provide feedback to your students. For example: “good job with xx today, to prepare for the next class, you can work on xxx (specific).” You can do this throughout the lesson and follow up with the student by sending a Cambly message.
Feedback helps students improve and can also help tutors improve as well. Many tutors have discovered that implementing their own feedback system from students (especially regulars!) can help improve their ratings.
You can ask, “How can I improve our sessions?” or “What could I do to be a better tutor for you?” which can yield valuable feedback. Beyond that, it makes students aware that you’re constantly looking to improve and better serve them, which in and of itself factors into the ratings they give at the end of each session.
My colleague, Tutor Mike, wrote an excellent blog about how to properly give feedback and corrections to Cambly students. Check it out!
Tip #3. What to do before and after to get a 5-star Cambly rating
Another tactic I like using is messaging students before/after a lesson.
If you notice an upcoming reservation with a student you haven’t worked with before, you can send a message to them beforehand letting them know you are looking forward to your lesson, or even asking them if they have anything specific they would like to work on in class.
This can help with better preparing for the upcoming lesson. After the lesson, you can send a message to the student to let them know you enjoyed the class and leave any feedback and encouragement you have for them! If you want the student to book again, you can also send them a link to your schedule availability.
This can make the student feel valued and may encourage them to not only leave you a good rating but also book another lesson with you!
Your Rating is Not a Reflection of Your Self-Worth.
Because our rating is entirely based on the reviews we receive from our students, we ought to give our students a good experience while taking a lesson with us.
Understanding students’ needs, giving and asking for feedback, and being proactive around communication before and after a lesson really helped me provide my students with the best experience. Their satisfaction is reflected in my rating!
One last thing before I go, I know that Wednesday’s, the day our rating updates can seem daunting.
When you see a drop in your rating, it may leave you unmotivated or cause you to question your abilities. Trust me; I’ve been there!
However, we need to remember that our rating is not a reflection of our self-worth at ALL. We are all talented and unique in our own ways and bring something special to Cambly!
Sometimes it’s good to measure our success in other ways too, such as:
- Seeing how many students come back to reserve a lesson with me after our first session.
- Seeing my students improve over time.
- Having a fully booked calendar.
- Meeting my weekly earnings goals.
There are many different ways to celebrate your success on Cambly, so don’t focus solely on one single number!
If you made it this far, I know you’re already a fantastic tutor who is eager to help your students! Now get out there and show that to your students! Thank you for reading and watching, and happy tutoring everyone.
About the Writer
Molly was born and raised in Tennessee, USA, where she graduated with her Bachelor of Arts in Foreign Language. She was a high school Spanish teacher before joining the Peace Corps and moving to Ecuador, where she lived and worked as a TEFL teacher for 4 years. When she’s not gardening or caring for her chickens, she works full-time for a global start-up company and enjoys cross-cultural environments and interacting with people who hold different interests, values and perspectives.
Thank you so much for taking time to make this video. I am already implementing some of these pointers but you gave me new pointers that I have written down and will be implementing.
Best of luck, Melissa!! 🥰
I am definitely going to implement these tips. I thoroughly enjoy working for Cambly and would love for my rating to go up! Thanks again for all the tips and suggestions. Great work!