Thank you for your interest in joining our tutor community. Our team is made up of tutors striving to increase access to valuable learning opportunities for people of all means. We are self-financed, so we are driven above all else by our passion to help others. We hope that the LIM platform will transcend borders - that each connection will promote the exchanging of knowledge and cultural openness.
To make your experience using the platform to be as easy as possible, we have put together this step-by-step guide to help you as you begin your teaching journey.
How to Teach with LIM
Step 1: Sign up
The very first step is creating your LIM account. You can do this at www.limlessons.com/en/sign-up
Step 2: Create your Tutor Profile
If you signed up from one of our Teach pages then you will be taken directly to create your tutor profile. If you didn’t, you will need to switch from learner mode to tutor mode from the header of your profile:
Your LIM profile has 2 “modes”: Learner and Tutor
These 2 modes help you organize your profile information, separating what is related to teaching from what is related to learning.
Once you are in Tutor Mode, you will be prompted to answer questions to create your Tutor Profile.
You will be asked about:
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The language you will teach
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Your preferred teaching times
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Additional languages you speak
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The types of lessons you would like to teach
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Your interests
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Your educational and professional experience
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Your preferred pay rate for lessons
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Your acceptance of the terms of our platform
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Comprehension of our LIM Tutor Guidebook
You will be asked to add a:
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Profile photo
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Introductory video
You can choose to make your introductory video public or private. If it is private, it means that it will only be reviewed by the LIM Team during the review process to approve your profile for paid lessons. If approved, it will not be made public so no one else will see your video. Whereas public videos will be included in your profile on the LIM platform so all potential students will be able to watch it.
In order to teach paid lessons, you must have a fully complete profile and your profile must pass our manual review process. This is not required for Exchange Lessons or Social Scholarship Lessons. Also, for any students referred to the platform by a tutor, the tutor does not have to pass this approval process to teach paid lessons.
For Exchange Lesson and Social Scholarship Lessons, you only have to complete 75% of your profile and your profile does not have to be approved.
Tutors are informed of approval of their profile via email. Once their introductory video is reviewed, they will receive an email informing them of its acceptance or of any required change. After they receive the email that their video has been approved, they will be able to teach paid lessons.
Learn about the 4 different lesson types offered on the LIM Platform:
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Paid One-on-one lessons Teach learners in a one-on-one setting. You choose the rate to charge for these lessons. You must have a manually reviewed approved profile for these lessons.
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Paid Group Lessons Teach learners in a group setting. You choose the rate to charge for these lessons. You must have a manually reviewed approved profile for these lessons.
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Exchange Lessons Lessons with mutual teaching - you teach someone and they teach you in return. There is no payment for these lessons.
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Social Scholarship Lessons Learners submit requests to tutors to be granted or denied free lessons. There is no payment for these lessons.
Step 3: Get Students
As a tutor, your first question may be: When will I get students and how many students will I have?
Tutors can be discovered by students on our platform in two way:
- Recommendation
- Browsing
On the LIM Platform, lesson scheduling is controlled by students. They get to choose their tutor and when they will have their lessons. To facilitate students in this selection process, we have an algorithm which recommends 5 tutors who we think would be a good match for the student. This process also gives tutors a chance to proactively move the student toward confirming a lesson because these recommended tutors can schedule lessons with these students. Scheduling these lessons does not guarantee that the student will confirm the lesson, but it is a step in the right direction.
Students can also choose their tutor by browsing through all available tutor profiles.
Tutors can also visibility and acquire more students by sharing their referral code. Students get a 20% discount when they use the code to sign up or to pay for a lesson. Tutors skip the platform fee for referred students so they keep 100% of every lesson payment.
To increase the likelihood of being chosen by students, we recommend tutors:
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Teach some free Exchange Lessons or Social Scholarship lessons to add 5-start ratings to their profile
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Make sure their profile is complete and professional
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Make sure they have a wide range of available teaching times in their profile
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Stay active - log in periodically so their profile appears as active for students
Step 4: Start Teaching
We seek to provide our tutors with all of the support, tools and information they need to have a successful experience.
Once you have a confirmed lesson, you will have:
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A detailed lesson plan explaining how to structure your lesson
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Teaching materials assigned to the lesson for you by our algorithm based on the level, goals and interests of your student
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Access to our database of teaching materials so that you can further customize your lesson by adding additional materials you think will best meet your student’s needs
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A virtual classroom with a whiteboard where you can easily and comfortably conduct your lessons without requiring any software download and which is accessible from any device (cell phone, tablet, or desktop computer).
In order to provide you with enough time to prepare for your first lesson, we do not allow students to schedule their first lesson less than 48 hours in advance. As tutors ourselves, we know how important it is to have adequate time to prepare. Once you have a completed lesson or if the student is referred, then this 48 hour requirement is waived as we also understand that flexibility in scheduling is important when there is already an established relationship with the student.
To assist you in choosing materials for your lesson, you can filter our materials by level, area (grammar, vocabulary or conversation), and by keyword.
We are also available around the clock with live support if you have any questions as you prepare for your lesson. You can reach support by clicking the blue “Support” button in the right hand corner of your profile.
After each lesson, you will be asked to add a homework assignment for your student and to provide brief notes regarding what was covered in the lesson to help both you and your student track their progress.
Step 5: Get Paid
It is important to remember that for our Exchange Lessons and Social Scholarship Lessons, there is no payment, these lessons are free. Our Paid One-on-one and Group Lessons are paid and both have the same pay rate.
When a lesson ends, both tutor and student confirm that the lesson was completed. Tutor payments are released to a tutor's account for withdrawal 14 days after the lesson transitions to this completed status. Lesson payments can be withdrawn by tutors via PayPal, Stripe or as credit for lessons.
To ensure affordable pricing on a global scale, our lessons are priced to match each country’s local rate, meaning different students will pay different rates. Tutors decide which rates are acceptable for them by confirming their minimal acceptable rate in the profile. The rates they are paid for their lessons will vary, but will all be at or above this rate.
We value our tutors tremendously, and believe that they should get the most of each lesson payment as possible. So while other tutoring platforms charge tutors a fee of 25% or more on all lesson payments, our fee is only 6.25% for our most commonly purchased package - so tutors keep 93.75% of each lesson payment. And we waive our fee completely when tutors refer new students to the platform - in this case the tutor keeps 100% of all lesson payments.
Have questions about teaching with us? Tell us! If you already have an account, use the blue “Support” button or write us an email at hello@limlessons.com. We would love to hear from you! We also answer many common questions about teaching on our Support page and FAQ page.
Teaching is more than just a job - it is about changing lives, including your own. We know the positive impact education has on a person’s life. Our platform was built by educators - we greatly value the experience and dedication of each tutor in our community - we hope you will join us! :)
