A couple hours per week -
all it takes to help a Ukrainian refugee learn a new language
More than 4 million Ukrainians have fled Ukraine over the last month. Homes were destroyed, leaving many families facing uncertainty.
Will kids go to school or enter universities?
Will people find jobs?
It’s difficult enough being a refugee in a foreign land, but especially so when you don't understand the language spoken in your host country.
Help Ukrainian refugees adjust to the new environment by teaching them the language of their host country!
Can I volunteer as a language tutor?
1. Age
You must be 18 years old or older.
2. Commitment
You are able to commit to meet with a student at least 1-2 times per week for at least 2 months.
3. Experience
Tutoring experience is preferred but not required. Ukrainian or Russian knowledge is preferred but not required if you have a good level of conversational English.
How it works
1. Fill out the form & upload a video
Click HERE and fill out the form to tell us more about yourself, your background, interests, availability. Please note, that the form will ask you to attach a short, 2-3 min selfie video of yourself. This is a required step to ensure security for our students and it will also help us provide you with a better match. Please record a video before you start your application. We treat all files as confidential.
3. Join our Slack community
Once you fill out the form you will receive instructions to join our Slack community where you have direct contact to our team, other tutors. Additionally, we post news and announcements there.
4. We match you with a student and you can start teaching
What support will I receive as a volunteer tutor?
Office hours with an experienced tutor
For tutors with less teaching experience we have weekly online office hours with one of our volunteer tutors, who is our Teacher Trainer and Certified ESL teacher with over 20 years experience with learners of all ages around the world.
Educational webinars
Our tutor support specialists are organizing online webinars on different tutoring-related topics.
Please visit our Event page to see more past and future events that we organized.
Teaching materials & resources
Our community members as well as members of our organizational team are creating materials for you to aid you during teaching process. More is to come!
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Do I need previous teaching experience?
Teaching or tutoring experience is preferred but not required.
Do I need to know Ukrainian, Russian, or English to tutor refugees?
It is preferable to speak either of these languages. However, if you don't we still encourage you to fill out the form and we will try to match you with a refugee with the appropriate language level so that you can still be effective.
How are lessons taught?
We expect all tutors to teach lessons exclusively online via video-calls. However, you are free to choose the platform for your calls (Zoom, Google Meet, etc.).
How long and frequent should the lessons be?
You should discuss it with your student and decide on the lesson length and frequency that works best for both of you. However, we expect you to teach at least one per week to make the process effective.
What is the commitment level?
Since learning a language is a slow process we will ask you to be able to commit at least to meeting once a week for a minimum of 2 months.
Will you provide me with support (e.g. materials, advice)?
We have a team of experienced tutors who will be happy to provide guidance to you. We have weekly online office hours with an experienced tutors where you can get help and support on how to start tutoring, how to prepare for lessons, create materials etc. Additionally, we also have webinars in different tutoring-related topics. Also, our Slack community allows you to connect with fellow tutors and ask them for support.
We are also currently working on building a database of resources that will be made available to tutors. Some materials and resources are already available for our community of tutors.
Will I get any sort of certification or record?
We are happy to issue you a certificate or a recommendation that confirms your effort after you tutor successfully with us for at least 2 months.
What if I have further questions?
Please email us at team@tutors4ukraine.org and we will do our best to answer your questions.
Other ways to help Tutors4Ukraine and Ukraine
If you don't see yourself as a tutor here are a few ideas how else you could us:
Spread awareness about us
You could help other refugees too! Tell your friends, colleagues about us or share a post on social media.
It could help us recruit more volunteer tutors and spread awareness about us among other Ukrainians.
Join our organizational team as a volunteer
We are always looking for volunteers to help us with variety of tasks including: designer, blog writer, operations coordinator, event coordinator, tutor support specialist. If you wish to apply please fill out this form.
Help Ukrainian government directly
Looking to help Ukraine directly? Use www.u24.gov.ua - UNITED24 was launched by the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy as the main venue for collecting charitable donations in support of Ukraine. Funds will be transferred to the official accounts of the National Bank of Ukraine and allocated by assigned ministries to cover the most pressing needs: defense and demining, medical aid, and rebuilding Ukraine.