7th January 2010 9:00
By Blue Tutors
A lot of new tutors approach their first few lessons by trying to recreate their own favourite teachers, the teachers who communicate really well to students. Unfortunately this tends to lead to a teaching style that it more suited to teaching a group of students, rather than a student in a one-to-one tuition situation.
There is no attempt to disparage classroom teaching, or the education system in general. There appears to be no better way to teach large groups of pupils as we must if we believe in providing education for everyone. However, a school teacher’s style has been developed to teach these large groups, and we must think again before assuming that it is also the best way to tutor individual students.
A classroom teacher attempts to provide all the information that students need in as clear and understandable way as possible, they move at a pace which is appropriate for the whole class, and they don’t/can’t ensure that every student has understood an idea before moving on to the next. The trouble with this is that some students are bound to be left behind, and others will find the lesson too slow, and could learn much more quickly.
With one-to-one tuition, all of these problems disappear. A tutor can tailor the lesson to the student, and allow the student to decide on the pace and style of the lesson. Sometimes this will be more slowly than it would have been in a classroom, and sometimes more quickly, but at every stage the tutor can confirm that the student has understood an idea before moving on.
Tutors have to identify this difference when they begin to teach in a one-to-one situation, and realise that being a great classroom teacher doesn’t necessarily make you a great tutor.