All About Finding & Evaluating Tutors

[janet88]

josephine_ng:

Exactly. Some students of mine can actually take the stress and they are looking forward to the practice after every lessons. So it really boils down to the student themselves. That is why it is very important for experience tutor to get to know the student and understand the student learning abilities.


Sometimes, changes have to be made. Maybe for the start when the student is still enthusiatic, the tutor can give a lot of homework. After some time, the student's \"engine\" turns of and the tutor would need to make necessary changes to the lessons and work given. That is to maintain the student's interest in the subject. Most importantly, the student has to enjoy the tuition. Else he/she would not concentrate on the lesson, not do the homework and etc.

I don't mind a tutor who is strict...have kept tuition to the minimum bcos son is busy with school work. I follow son's studies closely since I'm a SAHM. Asked the tutor to give him lesser homework during curriculum but more during holidays.

[josephine_ng]

If he has alot of school work to finish, then probably the tutor can do the work together with him, teach, guide and correct him at the same time. The only tuition homework he would have will be those that he cannot finish during lessons.

[janet88]

josephine_ng:

If he has alot of school work to finish, then probably the tutor can do the work together with him, teach, guide and correct him at the same time. The only tuition homework he would have will be those that he cannot finish during lessons.

Personally, I want the tutor to coach him in areas which school teachers do not have time to focus on like 好词好句. I will coach him while he does his school hw. It's too expensive to get a tutor to do school hw with him...my personal opinion.

[ppnqq]

josephine_ng:

janet_lee88:


I am a tutor myself and I think that if the student's result drop drastically (not due to school nor tough exam papers), it will be the tutor's fault. That is also one reason why parents will want to engage a tutor - to arouse the student's interest aside from what the school have already taught. Other factors to consider could be like:

1. The student is not suitable for a one-to-one home tuition
2. Stressed up
3. Lazy

Some students can feel stress and lazy when they have too many classes. Which in turn will cause them to lose interest in the subject or studying.

Tutors will try to help the student score, but not every student can do that especially if the given time frame is short, the student is a slow learner and has very poor foundations. For example, I have one student who is entering P4 next year and he just engaged me as a tutor. After assessing his standard, he can only start with P2 english and build his foundation from there. Basic english like \"a\", sometimes he would forget that it is singular. So if the parent were to give me 1 year for him to score, I can almost say it is impossible. For this year, I can only help him to at least pass and to catch up for P4.

*Sorry for the lengthy post. Just my 2cents =p*

sorry, but I only agree with this statement if the student is very lazy and refuses to put in any effort but if the student is willing to at least pay attention and put in some effort, they CAN DO IT! Nothing is impossible. I used to teach and gave tuition too. I have a boy who always fail his English, around the 30% range. When his parents engaged me as his tutor, I was left with only about 3 lessons with him before his English exam but I managed to help him score 83% if I did not remember wrongly.

From my experiences, there are many factors to help your tutee score. Besides their own efforts, we, as the tutor, has a lot of work to do and prepare too. The very 'first' thing is to try to understand our tutee within the shortest possible time because we do not tutor them for many days a week and the weeks and months pass in a blink and it's exam time.

From there, I will tailor-make my lessons and work for the tutee and ofcourse, we also need to find out what is the root problem that is 'obstructing' them from scoring. it could be the wrong study methods or not understanding the concepts etc. As tutor, we do not just teach and help them score. In fact, we are taking on a few roles - parent, teacher, counselor and friend. Once we understand our tutee well, the rest would be like a breeze and I would say 60% of the work and effort would be on us.

I noticed most tutors nowadays rarely set their own papers or notes to cater to the tutees' needs and most of them just make the tutees do work all from the test papers or assessments. I never do that.

Anyway, that was in the past and how I did. Things are no longer the same now. But it would be a great consolation if there are more hardworking, passionate and responsible tutors and teachers.

But never say it's impossible. Everything IS POSSIBLE, and we have to keep encouraging our kids or tutees/students that. Positivity is very important if we want to succeed in anything. JMHO.

[janet88]

Hi ppnqq,

Glad to know there are tutors who prepare lessons like yourself. Understanding the student and his/her interests in order to gain the attention is crucial. It’s tough to do this in such a short period of time. Students have their own workload and piling on more work on them is cruel.

Nothing is impossible. That is so very true. My son didn’t do well in P2 CA/SA but suddenly he had the interest in Maths in Term 3. He scored 92 for Maths, bringing up overall score and got 2nd in class. His form teacher was amazed. We used that example to remind him that if he puts in effort and interest, nothing is impossible.

[ppnqq]

janet_lee88:

Hi ppnqq,

Glad to know there are tutors who prepare lessons like yourself. Understanding the student and his/her interests in order to gain the attention is crucial. It's tough to do this in such a short period of time. Students have their own workload and piling on more work on them is cruel.

Nothing is impossible. That is so very true. My son didn't do well in P2 CA/SA but suddenly he had the interest in Maths in Term 3. He scored 92 for Maths, bringing up overall score and got 2nd in class. His form teacher was amazed. We used that example to remind him that if he puts in effort and interest, nothing is impossible.

Yes, that's very true. Most tutors just keep piling up tons and tons of work on the tutees. I never believe in that. Although it may help for some but this is also one of the 'side effects' that pulls the grades down too. Again, understanding and to find out the root problem is still one of the main concerns.

Understanding the students/tutees is indeed very crucial and important but again, it is not impossible to do so within a short period of time. But of course, may be the more experienced ones are better at it because basically children are 'divided' into a few groups. They are not as complex as adults. Just observe closely and pay more attention to them, not that tough actually.

As long as all of us are willing to put in our effort and work hard, we can see the results because EVERYTHING IS POSSIBLE if we are willing to help ourselves by putting in at least some effort.

Good to hear your child has picked up his confidence in the subject, that is very important and I believe you helped a great deal too. Kudos to you both! :celebrate:

[josephine_ng]

ppnqq: I have to agree that there are students who flunk their exams and we can do a crash course to help them score. However, what I am particularly referring to for this tutee is: -


1. he does not have a english background
2. it is not about him not knowing how to answer exam questions but the foundations are not there
3. he only have a lesson, 1.5hours per week
4. since he is only in P4 next year, I aim to make sure his foundations are there all the way even until he completes secondary school

And yes, I agree that there are tutors who do not prepare and plan lessons for their students anymore. It is very important that these tutors customise their tuitions because every child is different. Some tutors nowadays just take it as a good paying job and do not have the passion/ethics in teaching. Those parents who are not around to oversee the whole tuition will not know what is going on.

Sigh! I think we should set up a sticky post to boycott those tutors and warn unknown parents not to waste time and money on these tutors. I read about this post in the forum that a polytechnic student actually made the student learn simultaneous for problem sums. :x

[ppnqq]

josephine_ng:

ppnqq: I have to agree that there are students who flunk their exams and we can do a crash course to help them score. However, what I am particularly referring to for this tutee is: -


1. he does not have a english background
2. it is not about him not knowing how to answer exam questions but the foundations are not there
3. he only have a lesson, 1.5hours per week
4. since he is only in P4 next year, I aim to make sure his foundations are there all the way even until he completes secondary school

And yes, I agree that there are tutors who do not prepare and plan lessons for their students anymore. It is very important that these tutors customise their tuitions because every child is different. Some tutors nowadays just take it as a good paying job and do not have the passion/ethics in teaching. Those parents who are not around to oversee the whole tuition will not know what is going on.

Sigh! I think we should set up a sticky post to boycott those tutors and warn unknown parents not to waste time and money on these tutors. I read about this post in the forum that a polytechnic student actually made the student learn simultaneous for problem sums. :x

Hi, I get what you mean. In fact, the tutee I mentioned also faced the same situation as yours do.

1. He is also one from a Chinese background because his parents are from Malaysia and not educated at all. They speak only dialect and occasional Mandarin at home.

2. At that time, they just migrated from Malaysia to Sg, hence he had zero foundation in English too.

May be you can try to 'tailor-make' his lessons and work according to his interest, character and weaknesses, which I did for my case.

I believe you'll succeed in helping him to score better if the both of you work harder. You try to observe him more closely and if possible, let him open up to you so you'll have an easier time and able to help him better.

Good luck and all the best to you and yes, agree that if parents can have a list of the tutors' feedback would be great.

[WS1234567]

I think parents have to be realistic. If you are an experienced tutor, you should try to let the parent have a clear picture of the situation and not make promises of improvements just so that as to keep your job and income.

You’ll be putting yourself in a very embarassing situation should the tutee do really badly.
Personally, I screen the parents. If I can feel that the parent is the unrealistic and disillusioned sort while talking to the parent, I will not take up the job.
Some parents think that just with tuition and no change in lifestyle or habits of the tutee there will be improvements.
Don’t forget it takes two hands to clap. The tutee has to be a responsible student and play his role well too.

[tuition.032653town]

Hi parents


As your children are unique and special, it is understandable that different teaching styles be adopted when tutoring your children. It is entirely possible for you to state your expectations of the desired tutor, so that the agency can match a tutor who is best suited for your children’s needs. When contacting an agency, you need to state what works best for your children, for example, strict tutor, enthusiastic tutor, so that we can provide a good match for you. Tuition agencies are more than happy when you state your preferences as that would mean a higher level of customer satisfaction. Personally, I only recommend the best tutors to my customers, who become my friends eventually, often sharing their concerns with me freely. It is a win-win situation.