How can we help you?

As a tutor working for yourself there are a number of legal considerations to think about to protect yourself and your students.

Report your income to SIRS (State inland Revenue Service). It’s important to keep your income and taxes up to date and a legal requirement to declare your income. Is Superprof involved in payment? No, Superprof Is not involved in the payment process between tutors and students: it is for both parties to decide how they want to be paid, whether it's by cash, bank transfer, or through another means.

Insure yourself. It’s not a legal requirement to be insured as a tutor in Nigeria, but it’s a good practice to do so. Consider public liability insurance, business and portable equipment insurance and professional indemnity insurance.

Be aware of health and safety. This means providing a safe environment for students to learn. This is very important if you plan to teach from your home.

Advertise honestly. Every claim you make must be factually correct, and you should be able to provide documentary proof of any qualification you claim to hold.

Working as a tutor has many advantages. From flexible hours to great hourly pay, everyone can benefit from passing on their knowledge as a private tutor.   

Qualifications are only one part of becoming a tutor. Experience and knowledge of your subject are equally as important as is being a good educator and communicator. Discover more about tutor qualifications in our dedicated blog.    

To become a face to face tutor, you must reside in one of the 29 countries Superprof is currently active. You cannot validate your address and mobile number outside of these countries. However, you can use Superprof to advertise online lessons anywhere in the world by placing a very generic address (Lagos, Nigeria, for example) and placing your number in the 'Fixed' space.

The more complete and detailed your ad, the more credibility it will have with students and the higher up the lists it will rise. 

The title of your ad must be more than 12 words

Write down at least 40 words in the "Teaching" and "Experiences" sections of your ad

Do not forget to validate your phone number and your email address by clicking verify

Add your certification to the site

Add a clear, portrait photo to your ad

Ask your friends, family and former students to leave you a recommendation

Add a video to your ad, it's a real plus!

You also need to be as responsive as possible to the lesson requests you receive. The faster you answer, even if it's to decline the request, the higher your profile will be ranked. 👍🏾

Have your Superprof students leave reviews on your profile. You can leave a review for them too,  a week after the lesson has been accepted. If you do,  an automatic email will be sent, inviting them to do the same.

And finally, take a look at our Pro Pass. 🎉

At Superprof, we offer more than 1200 subjects across dozens of categories (sports/ academia/hobbies/music/etc.). You don’t necessarily have to be a qualified tutor to be an effective educator. For example, a professional pianist is obviously qualified to give piano lessons, but teaching involves much more than certification. It requires passion; love for your craft, enthusiasm and the ability to foster these attributes in your students. A piano teacher does not necessarily have to be a concert pianist, but they must have good ideas on how to become one and how to master the instrument and the music.

If you want to start English tutor jobs, you need to have mastered the language yourself, be fluent or bilingual and able to explain concepts in writing, grammar and accent reduction. You may also be required to teach your students the basics of culture and history of the countries where the language is spoken.

If you do not have a review from a Superprof student already, we require you to offer your first lesson for free. Even if you do have a review, Superprof recommends that you offer the first class for free because;

It allows you to make a connection with the student

The purpose of the first meeting is not to give a class to your pupil, but to get to know and understand what their needs are, set up a lesson plan and a teaching method that will allow your pupil to reach his/her goals. 

It is a small investment for a greater reward

Offering one hour of your time for free to a student who may use your services all year and spread the word about your services is an excellent investment.

It reassures students

Students will contact you more frequently; it is more engaging for them

The first lesson offered for free is a chance for you and your student to get to know each other however, it does not have to be a formal lesson unless you and the student agree amongst yourselves to do so. 

The first free lesson could be a discussion about your aims and objectives or your teaching methods for example, or it could be a trial lesson to assess the students ability. 

Whatever form your free lesson takes, be sure to agree this with the student before hand, and make sure they understand what is being offered in this first meeting. 

Target your ads

If you give classes in several subjects (eg maths & english), create as many ads as you have subject areas. This will allow your classes to be more targeted (only indicate your maths experience in the maths ad ...) and adapt your rates according to the subject taught.

Carry out some testing

If few students contact you, increase or decrease your rates and / or change the title of your ad and / or profile picture and see what happens.

Talk about yourself

Share your Superprof ads on social networks, on specialized sites or on classified ads sites. Ask your baker, pharmacist, neighborhood association or your other students if they know someone who is looking for a tutor. The more you talk about yourself, the quicker you'll find students.

Our Pro Pass

If this is not enough, subscribe to the professional offer. For a fee of  ₦1,000 per month (or ₦7,500 per year), the score of your ad will increase by 100 points, giving your ad more visibility. If you have friends who are looking for someone, do not hesitate to tell them about Superprof and insert a Superprof link on social networks and your personal website. Increasing awareness of the site will bring more prospects to all

There are as many ways of organizing a class as there are professors - not to mention that the organization of the course depends on the needs and objectives of the student. 

Here is a tried and tested course structure:

Correct the exercises and review the material from the previous class (5-10 min)

This is a great way to test your students and make sure that they don't forget the material seen before.

Review the current lesson (15-20 min)

To know which points are most crucial for the student, it is a good idea to have them review the class. Ask them to describe what they have learnt, what do they mean, and can they expand on less assimilated points.

Practice exercises (20-30 min)

Understanding a course is good, but knowing how to apply your knowledge as part of a problem, an exercise or in real life is better. Have your student do as many exercises as possible.

Take stock (5-10 minutes)

Ask your pupil to make sure they understand the notions seen during the session.

Allocate homework

So your student does not forget everything from one week to the next, allocate some exercises to allow them to revise the most important notions as well as those in which they still have some difficulties.

Find out how to motivate students when starting your own tutoring jobs at home with our dedicated blog

You can receive recommendations by sending recommendation requests via email on your dashboard page. Recommendations can be made by friends/family and/or ex students; anyone that can provide a character reference for your teaching experience

Reviews can only be left by students who you have accepted through Superprof. Seven days following initial requests, students will see the option to review their tutors on their dashboard under ‘Recent lesson requests’.

Students sometimes ask for specific days/times or perhaps specific areas of teaching you’re not fully knowledgeable about when making a request. Even if these types of requests don’t match your own schedule or areas of expertise but you are still available to give lessons, we suggest accepting the request and explaining your own availabilities and limitations. Students can often be very flexible and so it is worth keeping the contact open. Once you have refused a request, students can no longer respond. 

Please note, you are not obligated to start lessons with a student even if you accept a request. 

All payments are between the tutor and the student and Superprof is not involved in transactions, nor do we take commission. Payments can take whatever form you agree between yourselves, cash, PayPal, bank transfer etc. So, be sure to make clear what you are providing for free, whether it will be a whole lesson or a discussion about aims and objectives etc. 

Here is a link to our blog on reporting your tutoring income in the UK in case it helps: http://www.superprof.ng/blog/disclosing-what-you-earn/

The Pro Pass boosts your position on the site so you will become more visible to potential students. This is based on your address and the amount of kilometres you have selected to travel. You will also receive statistics that can be viewed on your dashboard under 'Manage my listing'. The Pro Pass is only useful if you're providing face to face lessons and in an area that may be competitive.  

The Pro Pass is ₦1,000 monthly subscription or a ₦7,500 yearly subscription. Both payments are automatically renewed.

Please note, you can cancel the subscription anytime by clicking 'Manage my profile', and then 'Account'. 

Below you will find our advice on how to continue your lessons via webcam:

👨🏾💻  For one-on-one lessons, there are a number of different tools available.

Among the most popular are:

• Google Hangouts
• Skype
• Facetime
• Whatsapp
• Don’t forget the telephone (particularly for language classes).

Let’s take the example of a foreign language class. All you'll need to do is follow these three simple steps:

• Download your chosen application
• Ask your student for their username
• Connect with your student at the scheduled time for your class

It’s simple! Find your tutor through our search engine.

Choose your subject and your locality or neighbourhood, and that’s it! You’ll be able to access thousands of our best tutors, who are available to give lessons near you or via webcam.

Once you have run the initial search, you’ll be able to filter it by level, price, distance, ...

When you have chosen a tutor, you can contact them by clicking on the "Book a lesson" button, found on the top right of the ad.

In order to message tutors, you will be asked to pay a one-off fee of ₦1200, which is not connected with an individual tutor's rates. The Student Pass is valid for 1 month and allows you to message as many tutors as you want.

Your payment will only be fully processed once you have received an accepted request from a tutor. It might, however, be held by your bank to guarantee payment in case of an accepted request. 

Your student pass will allow you to message unlimited tutors for the period of the subscription. Your Student Pass will be automatically stopped after 30 days. Our site is 100% secure and we do not store payment details. If you wish to access the student pass again, you will need to resubscribe by inputing your payment method again.

Once a lesson request is accepted by a tutor and the contact details are transmitted to the student, Superprof will not be able to refund the student pass. The student can only be reimbursed if the teacher is unavailable. Depending on the case, proof may be requested in order to process the reimbursement.

Payments can take whatever form you agree between yourself and the tutor: cash, PayPal, bank transfer etc.

Superprof is not involved in transactions, nor do we take commission.