private tuition

[verykiasu2010]

jedamum:

Herbie:

I asked for lesson plan from a private tutor tutoring my kid and i was told there is no lesson plan. No worksheet nor notes. My kid just hv to ask questions.


Private tuition ought to hv lesson plan right?

oh! keep this discussion going! i just engaged a Chinese tutor and it seems like she has no lesson plan too. It is more of a consultative tuition session because we want the tutor to focus on Q&A, inculcating interest in CL, compre, oral conversation and mainly compo. For parents with kids having chinese tutor, what sort of lesson plan should we look out for?

actually there is quite a bit of resources which can be purchased from Popular. having a good tutor will point to which book is good for which section of the syllabus

some of the publishers are Xin Ya, Victoria, etc

good to read and add ideas and widen vocab and application of phrases .....

[atutor2001]

If I engage a one-to-one private tutor and he/she has pre-determined lesson plan, I will be worried. Super tutor who can manage wayward kids change their teaching method, tone, … after assessing and understanding the behaviour, attitude and weakness of his charge.


Super tutors are very rare endangered species. Do not confuse them with Super tuition centres, they are nothing special. They just get the top students and therefore can have good results. Tuition centres and school teachers also have lesson plans. Such plans cater to the general mass. Therefore, how can a good tutor has lesson plan without knowing the problem of the kid first???

[verykiasu2010]

jedamum:

Do we expect feedback or debrief every lesson, every month or wait to see results? How about homework?

not every week. good tutors / responsible tutors should debrief you at least once a month

[blessed777]

Champion:

Herbie:

This tutor this graduated from rjc.

I m not sure whether she is lying abt tutoring rgs/ri pupils.
But i think $40 an hour is very ex and i sat in for a couple of the lesson and u felt
that the lessons were rather disorganised which is why i m reque
for lesson plan. And the reply is if i want lesso plan then she rather not teach my kid

Hi Herbie :hi5:
Recently I casually approached my friend as I know that her brother-in-law is giving private tuition. Thinking that \"knowing\" someone is better than getting \"dont' know\" who to come to my place to tutor my DD1 for English only. She replied,\" My brother-in-law said to travel to your place is a bit far as he is staying in Woodlands and you are at Jurong West. So, his rate will be $40.00/hour and a minimum of 2 hours per lesson!\" :skeptical:

In my heart, I was like :? - so you charge by the distance you travel??

I never hire private tutor before, What is the common market rate fr private tutor fr Chinese? If the tutor of age ard 20 + is it considered less experience?

[Herbie]

[quote="jedamum"]Do we expect feedback or debrief every lesson, every month or wait to see results? How about homework?[/quote


Is gd to speak to get feedback from the tutor on a regular
basis. My kid’s mt teacher will write down the
their homwork in a small notebook for parent’s info.

[jedamum]

Thanks for the pointers. We just done 3 lessons. Will takenotes from veterans here.

[Ivy_lim]

I hired private tutors before too, many wont be able to spend time to come up any tuition plan and if you never see their teaching progress, you might be wasting your money away, as they would just follow the text book pages and speed will also depend on how slow or how fast your kid can learn, when the exam is drawing near, they might not even panic to make sure your kids know the topics well. It’s like a push button. One of the tutor I hired, would choose the easier way out…teaching my kid reading out loud on chinese text book and test spelling each week (after I get her to do so), spending very little time in covering areas like comprehension and composition, which is harder to teach. Had another tutor only know how to go through science text book and marking assessment book (with answer sheet) and not teaching my kid on how to answer science open-ended questions. In the end my kids would use his own standard of language with all the missing keypoint in the answer. He studied but failed as he did not know the correct way to answer science questions.


Am also very desperate to find really good teacher too…

[Herbie]

Some planning is certainly required prior to tutoring the kid.

However, this tutor tat we had does not do that.
She comes to my place empty handed.
She verbally explain the terminology to my kid and expect the child
to copy down her explanation.
And the poor kid has a hard time trying to take down notes.

If the kid writes too slowly she complains that it affects her train of thought.
After the session, i flip thru some books and find the terms with complete explanation inside
a reference book.

Hence, i think tutor shld plan ahead before giving tuition.

[limlim]

Ivy_lim:

Had another tutor only know how to go through science text book and marking assessment book (with answer sheet) and not teaching my kid on how to answer science open-ended questions.

Normally, I ask the secondary students to mark themselves (to let them learn to be independent), and then those questions that was answered wrongly or unable to answer, we can focus on that.

I feel it is more productive this way.

Tutors are engaged to teach the kids, to train them.. not to mark questions. Why spend money to pay tutors to mark questions if the answer sheet is available. Worse if the tutors NEED the answer sheet to mark all the questions.. something is very wrong....

Unless the students doesn't know better for his/her own good and cannot be trusted.. then the tutors need to mark the papers, or maybe even the parents can mark it, then ask the tutor to explain to the kids those that he got it wrong.

[limlim]

Herbie:

Hence, i think tutor shld plan ahead before giving tuition.

You should add the subject when making that statement.. It may be valid for languages but not for maths and science..

And I do agree that languages need prior planning. btw, my comments in this thread are for technical subjects like maths and science, not applicable to languages..