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So many of my readers are working from home as online English teachers. With the gift-giving season upon us, it’s a great time to consider the types of gifts that your family and friends who work as online English tutors will not just thoroughly love, but will also appreciate year-round. So skip the seasonal sweaters and consider thoughtful gifting choices that’ll definitely make you the hero this year.
The online English tutor is often the unsung educational hero. The hours can be challenging, but the results are very often well worth it. The curriculum and the students are provided to tutors, but tutors have to pay for much of their own work-from-home equipment. We’ve collected a great guide to some of the top gifts for the online English tutor.
Related reading:
Gifting Suggestions for Online English Tutors
The Laptop Riser
One of the best parts to working at home is being able to be there for your family, but it can also mean many hours of being seated behind a desk. Studies have demonstrated that being seated for an extended period of time can lead not just to a drop in overall productivity but can potentially bring some adverse health concerns with it. Our awesome sponsors over at Flexi-Spot sent me this awesome laptop riser, and it is a great gift for any person who works behind a desk. Not only does it allow for the transformation of any table or desk in your home into a functional office space, but this space-saving easy-rising desk allows the user to stand in a comfortable position while still having full access to his or her laptop. It adjusts to different heights, too!
Hand Puppets
Teaching English to children and adults alike can be a challenge at times. Using any number of props can make communication much more fun, and help the overall teaching experience for tutor and student alike. This collection of finger puppets offers a number of animal and people puppets for any number of lesson plans. They offer a great way to connect with students, where it may otherwise be a challenge to find that connection.
Headphones
Noise reducing microphone, and a comfortable fit, make these headphones a great choice for the tutor who needs to be able to focus on his or her student. This is thoughtful gift option for an online English Tutor who is perhaps working in a less than silent home environment. The comfortable fit of the headphones will help to avoid discomfort over the ears and top of the head. These headphones are multi-functional, and are likely to become one of the most-used tools in the tutor’s tool bag.
Alarm Clock
One of the concerns faced by an online English tutor with students across the globe is keeping hours that ensure he or she can meet the needs of the students. This can often mean getting up in the very early hours, and sticking to a strict schedule. This alarm clock offers a number of great features that include allowing it to stream music from your Bluetooth enabled devices, and it also functions as a charger for your USB charged device. This is one cool and multi-functional alarm clock.
Whiteboard
Whiteboards are an essential teaching tool for any teacher. This pack of whiteboards offers the online tutor the ability to work with a student on letters, sounds, and any number of other parts of the curriculum that may require visual assistance. Having a collection of whiteboards on hand will help to keep the lessons flowing seamlessly, and help to ensure that the tutor is able to best meet the communication needs of the student.
Flashcards
Flashcards are a great addition to the collection of teaching tools for the online English tutor. This set of cards has been designed specifically with the VIPKid program in mind. This is a great gifting choice for the online tutor who works with the VIPKid curriculum, and will definitely make some of those classes a little but easier for student and tutor alike.
ESL Tote
This ESL tote is a sweet gift for the online English tutor to show off his or her pride in profession. It’s lightweight and comfortable to carry, with a spacious interior that’ll make it a breeze to carry teaching tools where they are needed the most. It’s a great gift to get for your child’s ESL teacher, and it also makes a thoughtful choice in gift for that special tutor in your circle of family or friends.
Panda Planner
Being ultra-organized is essential for any educator. This Panda Planner is all at once practical, thoughtful, and adorable. It offers the ability to track daily tasks, plan effectively for projects, and keep up with all of those essential duties that can often slip through the cracks if someone is not making excellent notes and keeping up with each assignment. For the organized person there is sometimes no better gift than a new planner to kick off the start of a new calendar year.
Laptop Cooling Pad
As perhaps the most important teaching tool that the online English tutor has, it’s essential to keep the laptop running smoothly. When you spend all of your time working on your laptop, it’s going to feel the heat after a while. By adding a laptop cooling pad you’ll find that the life expectancy of the laptop can be greatly expanded, and it’ll just run better overall.
The last thing that an online tutor needs is a laptop that is slowing down or failing, as this would put a very rapid halt to his or her ability to work with students. This laptop cooling pad is USB powered, and is incredibly quiet when it’s in operation. It’ll even work with the laptop riser, as it has a very small footprint.
Laminator
Any educational professional can tell you just how useful a laminator will prove itself to be, no matter where the classroom is. Teaching tools that get a lot of daily use can quickly start to show the signs of aging as they are exposed to the wear and tear of use. Laminating flashcards, printouts, and other teaching tools that are useful to the online tutor will help to keep the lessons flowing smoothly and the words flowing effortlessly.
