All About Finding & Evaluating Tutors

[Leanne]

Hello all,


What are the factor would u consider when hiring a tutor other than the capability ?

Distance of the tutor home
Indiv vs group
Female or male
How the tutor’s students peformance?
Qualification

Do u believe in talking to the tutor and thus able to gauge how well the tutor can teach?

Thank you all.

[janet88]

I face this problem almost every 2 years…no difference from a maid.


1) Since tuition for my kids is once a week, I go for one-to-one.
2) At my home, so tutor pref should be staying near my place.
3) Female preferred.
4) Qualification wise, pref be a teacher in the school so that she knows the syllabus and exam format/changes that MOE has.

Regarding student’s performance. That is a something I would like to check with parents.

If a tutor coaches a student and the student’s result dropped badly, who is at fault ?? Of course there are factors like tough exam paper, student’s interest to consider for eg…should the tutor be responsible because it’s considered her responsibility to make sure he/she does well.
Personally, I feel that when I hire a tutor, he/she has to make sure kids score and not just pass.

[Leanne]

Personally I have come across a female and male tutor.My observation is male tutor are very relax, female will do lots of hw and materials.

Not sure parents here face the same thing.

rgds
Leanne

janet_lee88:

I face this problem almost every 2 years...no difference from a maid.
Thanks Janet for the feedback.
I just wonder, why a female tutor and not a male tutor.
1) Since tuition for my kids is once a week, I go for one-to-one.
2) At my home, so tutor pref should be staying near my place.
3) Female preferred.
4) Qualification wise, pref be a teacher in the school so that she knows the syllabus and exam format/changes that MOE has.

Regarding student's performance. That is a something I would like to check with parents.

If a tutor coaches a student and the student's result dropped badly, who is at fault ?? Of course there are factors like tough exam paper, student's interest to consider for eg...should the tutor be responsible because it's considered her responsibility to make sure he/she does well.
Personally, I feel that when I hire a tutor, he/she has to make sure kids score and not just pass.

[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

[janet88]

Hi Josephine,

I appreciate your comment as a tutor. I also agree with you regarding too many tuition classes too can backfire.
Recommended son’s CL tutor to son’s classmate in P2. That boy has tuition for all 3 subjects. He did very well (2nd in class). The CL tutor told me he’s so bored during lessons bcos there is so much tuition hw.
As a parent, I know my son will pass his exams but engaging a tutor is to help him score better results. Also asked his CL tutor not to give him too much hw as the school literally piles on.

[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.

[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.