Photo by Mike Tinnion on Unsplash

There are many things that you can do to prepare for a lesson, but here are 3 tips that I, personally, find useful. I’m always impressed when my students do these things. 

Online translators - One of the nice things about taking a lesson online is that you have immediate access to many great tools during the lesson. This is a great benefit for both students and teachers as we can easily look up definitions, convert currencies and measurements, find current news articles, and more! 

One tool that is particularly useful to have open in your browser before a lesson is an online translator. Unless your tutor has asked you not to use a translator, opening a website like DeepL before your lesson is a good way to prepare for situations when you really need help to say something (especially phrases that are hard to explain or translate into another language).

Physical notebooks - Although it’s possible to take notes on your phone or computer, and many tutors send notes to students after lessons, I still think it’s a great idea to have a pen or pencil and a piece of paper or notebook ready to go before a lesson. 

I do this, personally, and I write down not only notes to send to my students after our lessons but also new phrases that I learn, words that I would like to look into further, and other interesting details that come up during the lesson, such as upcoming birthdays or the names of recommended songs or movies. 

Physically writing things down helps us to remember them, and taking notes during a lesson makes you more active and engaged. Also, why not get a nice notebook to keep all of your language learning notes in one place? You can even personalize it with stickers, doodles, pictures, and other things to make it a fun part of your language learning journey!

New words - I’m always happy to hear my students trying out new words and phrases in our lessons, so my final tip here will be to recommend that you consciously prepare some new vocabulary or grammar to try out in your next lesson. It could be something that you studied recently, something related to the topic of the upcoming lesson, or something that you heard on TV or in a movie and want to try out for yourself. Even if you use it incorrectly, at least you’ll get some feedback and learn the proper way to use it! 

It’s not necessary to write extensive notes before the lesson - just jot down a few words you’d like to try out on a sticky note and put it in front of you (or in your notebook) before your lesson. You can even check off the words as you use them, which may give you a sense of accomplishment afterwards!