TeachOrTutor.com Presents: The Buzz

There are a lot of students who have a tutor to help them when they are studying a language. If you choose to get a tutor whenever you are trying to learn the English language, there are some things that you should do in order to the most out of your tutoring sessions:

1. Do your best to try to find a tutor who is a native English speaker. In this way you will be able to learn the correct pronunciation of words and the appropriate usage of them as well.

2. If your tutor is going to fast for you, you should not just tell them that they are going too fast for you but make them repeat themselves. Only then will you be able to figure out what is causing you the difficulties that you are having. It could be that your tutor is speaking too fast; using too many words that you do not know; that the material is unfamiliar to you; or that your teacher’s accent is confusing you.

3. If you find that your tutor is not challenging you enough, it is important to let him know. You are going to want to learn new words and work on them until you master them. Herein it is a good idea to provide your tutor with lists of words and patterns that you want to work on and information about mistakes that you always make.

4. Make sure that you are able to tell when your tutor is correcting you so that you can learn how to correct yourself and reinforce any information that you may be struggling with.

5. Be sure to use English as much as possible. Insist that your tutor use English, even if they have an excellent command of your native language. Let your tutor know that whenever he speaks to you in your native language that you feel as though he does not believe that you are capable of using English.

6.  Never allow your tutor to finish your sentence for you. Maybe you will need to develop 2 signals: 1 for asking for patience and 1 for authorizing the tutor to help you.  After all, you want as little help from your tutor as possible.

7.  In a one-on-one tutoring session, you should make sure to set clear boundaries stating who is really in charge. Herein it really is important for a tutor to understand that they are there to accommodate your needs as a student. This is especially true since you are not only paying your tutor with cash but you are also paying him with your valuable time. As such, your tutor should be more than willing to participate in any of the activities and drills that you propose, even if these things are not structured in the way that the tutor thinks they should be.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 10th, 2007 at 4:49 pm and is filed under Teaching Tips, Study Guides, In Home Tutors. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.