Can graduates tutors be trusted?

[OakleyLuscious]

OakleyLuscious: i know where you are coming from, perhaps because you are a full time grad tutor and that's your rice bowl, but throughout my whole education life my parents kinda forced me to have tuition. thats about 10 yrs or so. so my experience with the older generation ones always turn out to be so. they are really blur. i am serious. either that or they think they know, since they are experienced and all, but honestly they don't, because i did clarify with my teachers in school and was my tutor taught was the old method which MOE doesnt use anymore.

it's just a point i am stating across, even you yourself have got complains like that against you, so i do believe i did make a valid point.

it's not against anyone, it is just based on my bad experiences and observations with the older ones, that's all. all same pattern one.

just 2 cents worth there.

Having 10 yrs of forced tuition is scary!!! I have also gone for a tuition with an old tutor for physics. ***.... She was sooooo technical until I spent half the time trying to understand what were the terms she used and the other half the time trying to understand what's it got to do with me. I didn't feel she wasn't relevant, I felt I was dumb!!! Eventually I drop my triple sci to pure bio and combi chem/phys hahah...

Yea actually the complaint against me was made via a translator, so till now I am still not sure what was the parent's exact issue against me. The kid just smsed me last night, saying that the mindmap I planned to use to teach her in Geog, was a great help to her.... . I guess maybe the kid and parent are both expecting different kinds of coaching, but ultimately parents are the ones paying.

SummerX, yes school teachers can teach tuition! One advantage of hiring school teachers is that they are "in the know" for the latest exams stuff. Rates will be higher, but I think they will be stricter too. I see most of the online tuition agencies do list assignments which req only current/ex teachers, so you can check them out!

[OakleyLuscious]

But back to the OP's query - I personally don't think undergrad or even graduate tutors are good if they aren't majoring in that subject i.e. why engage an Arts student to teach EMS even at primary level when (1) syllabus is so different from their time (2) they are probably not personally invested in Math and Science, etc?
But guess what, they are cheap. So they will function well as nannies to force children to do their work, and possibly to do homework for the children by spoonfeeding.

We can't expect cheap AND good pedagogy.

I have heard of agents who called my friends and asked them to do EMS. They didn't want to teach math n sci. The agents said, "aiya lower primary is very easy one what... Try ***." Like that also can!!! Personally I felt that it was wrong of the agents to try to "force" them into assignments like this.. I mean, if you have no passion for the subject, you wouldn't do well in it to begin with, then how can you teach it right!

[SummerX]

Thanks OakleyLuscious.

Just spoke to the coordinator of Schtutors. He sounds pretty experienced and quite sincere. And he reassured me that the tutors are definitely school teachers; he says I can check with the school's website if they are indeed school teachers. So I think I will just stick with Schtutors.

[SummerX]

The teacher arrived today. Good. She was very detailed; she brought a range of questions to gauge my child's ability and even produced a rough plan at the end of the 1st lesson. Exactly what I wish for. Hopefully the money is well spent.

[miztgral]

OakleyLuscious: the agents do that because in the situation the parents feel that the tutor is not up to it after the first lesson, the tutor still has to pay for the agent fee. So by sending any tutor out for the first lesson, the agent is guaranteed at least 1/2 the fees for even that particular lesson. Sure, this has bearings on their reputation but bear in mind quite a lot of agents out there are part timers or even ex-tutors themselves. Like housing and insurance agents, there are good and bad ones out there. So choose with caution (both tutors and parents!)

[CarmeLicious]

Hi cotters, Might be OOT here, im searching for a tuition teacher for my sister (PSLE)as she got a horrific score of 25/100 for her Mid year exams in Maths, May i know what to look out for? What are the rates like and other relavant info?


Really appreciate if someone could reply...TIA!

[ke_ai]

Hi cotters, Might be OOT here, im searching for a tuition teacher for my sister (PSLE)as she got a horrific score of 25/100 for her Mid year exams in Maths, May i know what to look out for? What are the rates like and other relavant info?


Really appreciate if someone could reply...TIA!

wow, where are you staying? her foundation must be really bad.

i know tutors who specialise in Maths, $25 an hour if your sister goes to her house

[nailsluver]

Speaking from experience, check with ur sister school teachers what is the average for the math paper.

Some school set really challenging questions especially for mid-year to scare the pupils to buckle up.

But if its really lower than the average, then grill on the basic esp the questions in Paper 1.

[memorylessme]

Hi cotters, Might be OOT here, im searching for a tuition teacher for my sister (PSLE)as she got a horrific score of 25/100 for her Mid year exams in Maths, May i know what to look out for? What are the rates like and other relavant info?


Really appreciate if someone could reply...TIA!

omg! that's really bad...hmm the rate for pri sch is only abt $18/hr and covering EMS for 1.5 hrs usually.

[dancingpromqueen]

im a graduate and i teach part-time tuition one-to-one for sec/pri students. Usually there isn't any educational plan because the plan is always just to follow the syllabus used in the particular sch that the child attends.

IMO, tuition is not to re-teach everything that they school has taught but just to go through doubts that the child has and make sure he/she does adequate preparation to handle the exams. These can include assigning assessment book questions or going through past year papers. The tutor can also impart some exam skills to the tutee to handle the questions.

The thing about one-to-one tuition is to customize the lesson to the child, not the child adapting to the tutor. see the child's problem and try to rectify... slow learning? careless? lack of focus?

[doublemsg]

Let me contribute my here. Parents / students need to be careful of who they engage to be their tutor. The market for tuition is just too lucrative for some people (tutors/agents) who are just out to make a quick buck.
Tutor faked credentials

I am also a graduate tutor myself so I might be biased in saying that you can't say all graduate tutors can't be trusted. Personally, I'm choosing to make tutoring my full-time career (giving up a rather well-paying job in Japan to start on it this August) because I've done 6 years of part-time tutoring and I really enjoyed it. It's gratifying to see my students understand the Maths concepts, improving their results and liking the subject more.

However, I'm of the opinion that you can't rank tutors by the groups they belong to, like saying all school teachers are better than graduate tutors who are better than undergraduate tutors. In certain cases, a secondary student might be better at tutoring a primary school student than a graduate tutor. A lot of factors come into play, such as how patient the tutor is, how good he is at getting the student's attention, how committed he is to helping that student, is he able to communicate with the student and help him understand the concepts, etc. For max results, the tutor has to be of a good fit with the student. Most of my students have found my tutoring effective (which gives me the confidence to make this my full-time career), but I've also had my cases of failures where I was simply ineffective for that particular student. Through such experiences, I learn too, and this is why I only want to teach self-motivated A Level students, because I find that I'm most effective with them.

In short, don't just look at a tutor's educational background and teaching credentials, but look at how well he can communicate with the student. If you're a parent searching for a tutor for your child, you need to first understand what your child needs and why you think he needs tuition (tuition is not a must-have, by the way), and monitor your child's progress.

Hope this helps!

[cootcoot]

Hi All,

let me contribute. A study plan actually exists but it is only created by the most experienced and patient teacher.

My son's tutor showed it to me during the 3rd lesson and requested my boy to follow through with it. (I was also amazed when I saw it) Of course there are times when my son couldn't meet the milestones, but his progress was seen over time.

He scored A* eventually for his PSLE. Whoever is keen, PM me.

Thanks.

[notapig]

I think is unfair to generalised graduate tutors as out of dated and teachers as good.

I, as a tutor, will pick and study any new topics in the syllabus and practise till I am very good at the new topic. I dare to say I am better than some of student school teachers who do not have time to pick up the new topics properly. Some of my students' teachers really problematic, teaching the wrong methods or even out of sylllabus stuff. One of the school teacher even registered my student for the wrong O level paper. The list will go on. However, I do not always insist I am right, when I am in doubt about whether the teacher or I am correct, I will check around. I will look through the teacher notes and workings and if the teacher is good or better, I will compliment the teacher and ask my student to stick to the teacher's method and will just emphasize and add on when necessary. A lot of my students asked me about quality of school teachers and tell me their frustrations with the teachers who can't teach. my dipolmatic reply is, " is hard to teach a big group of students."

If they are devoted teachers in school, how much time do they have for tuition?

I met a girl when I was doing relief teaching. She broke down during her a maths exams. I asked her why and she said that she is having a blackout and her mind is blank. Moreover, she felt very guilty as her mother spend a lot of money employing a current school teacher to teach her. However, she could not understand what the tutor was teaching at all. I did not give her my contact but ask her to do trial and error as different character suit different tutor. The best tutor is one who put in effort to teach and the student can understand and not the most qualified. I have seen A-level graduates and even O-level graduates with a flair for teaching and are able to teach well.

Lesson plans is not necessary for all unless is for revision for O level or PSLE especially if it is one to one. Sometimes students have exams coming up or common test or requests to do some topical revision and some schools shuffle the syllabus. The most important thing is, a tutor is always ready to deal with them.

[sakura28]

Yupz agree with cootcoot. But these tutors are very hard to find.

[elderflowertea]

Yupz agree with cootcoot. But these tutors are very hard to find.

cootcoot only has 1 post. haha~ maybe he/she is the tutor himself/herself and just self-promote!