All About Finding & Evaluating Tutors
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Hi parents, just wana ask when choosing a tutor, if the tutor is of a different nationality but teaches the subjects your child requires, are you ok with it or you would prefer someone of a localized background?
I had this experience of having this tutor who is from a different country that taught my daughter both subjects English and Mandarin. The Mandarin was no problem but after the 2nd lesson, when I revised the English spellings words that were gone through with the tutor, to my horror, some of the pronunciations were so wrong! She was a sweet lady but that was her last session.
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i always believe that if it's two different languages, it's better to separate two different tutors to teach. Cuz we seldom see a person who is good with two languages, plus the child will be confused during the lesson. Is the tutor suppose to converse to him/her in English or Mandrian? :stupid:
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Yeah I should then separate the both subjects, but to be honest I didnt know she was a native in her mandarin background until she came. Anyway, she's history
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Original Title: How To Find & Evaluate Tutors?
Hi,
I was interested in finding out what are some of the problems you face when finding the right tuition teacher and how did you go about seeking for a good tutor e.g. engaging a tuition coordinator etc? What are the major concerns you look out for when looking for a new tutor?
The reason is that I am keen to start up a free online service to pair prospective parents with available tutors. However I am not sure how can I improve the search experience for you guys, so any advise would be cool! -
A coordinator attempts to match a parent/child to a tutor but there are inevitably differences that must be resolved.
One of the biggest differences is the price.
Tutors want a good price for their time, parents want to lower their ever rising expenditure. Low price offers will result in more tutor responses with little/no experience or tutors who can’t keep their students for long.
Its good to advise your tutors & parents about the market rate and what to expect so that either side won’t have a rude shock when receiving offers.
Another would be to ask for details and more details. Raise and highlight things that would be objectionable to either side or prepare suffer huge headache & a dent to your reputation. Objectionable points might be race/gender/nationality (as discriminatory as it is), length of tuition (most tutors won’t do just an hour, others require min. 2 hours), length of commitment (just need tuition for june holidays for example/poly module which completes in 2-3months & would not need tuition thereafter) and location. Location defines transportation time (indirect costs) & costs (bus fare etc) and would make a very attractive offer into one that just doesn’t have enough incentives. I.e. I once received for secondary sch tuition at $50. It sounded good till it was mentioned that it will be at Sentosa Cove, & each lesson shall be only 1hour! -
Ah I see,I have got those ideas down tutor availability seem to be a viable concern…I will add that into the field!have you engaged with coordinators in the past? How was the experience?
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Didnt like the experience so I advertised for my own students.
Rates are low and assignments are usually fastest fingers first. You would have to communicate with the coordinator and wait for their repeated calls as they try to negotiate for timing as and when a assignment comes in. Besides that, one would have to pay the 50% commission for the first month, and that means whatever is left usually only pays for the transportation.
By advertising on my own, I can find students whom are willing to pay for prices which I think Im worth rather than waiting for an assignment that pays that amount or trying to "bargain" with coordinators for higher prices. Apparently my self advertising is much cheaper and I have saved several hundreds in the process. Definitely less hassle, more accomplishment and better response. -
Yes...I shared similar experiences which is why I am keen to provide a free platform for tutors to their own advertising without coordination cost. However I need a better understanding of what are the search concerns of parents. Without this understanding, it would be a pretty one-sided affair... :(. Anyone with insights?
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IMHO, Parents are generally concerned with the pricing, qualifications and experience. They want to know if they are getting the best fit for their child and if they can afford it.
Parents with daughters are particularly concerned with male tutors and would prefer female ones. -
At the end of the day, finding the right tutor is like finding the right employee.
Yes, there is a set of criteria that you look out for. Afterwhich, it is mostly luck, trial and error.
Even from an educational centre’s point of view, our criteria are more defined than the typical parent but the ratios are as follow:
Out of 10 applicants, we will have 1 applicant we want to interview. If we are lucky we will have 2.
Out of 3 applicants whom we interview, we are lucky if we get 1 that we want to put on probation.
1 out of 3 applicants we put on probation will be hired.
Although our criteria are slightly stricter, i would assume a parent will need to look at at least 30 possible tutors before settling on 1 good tutor.
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