12th May 2011 9:00
By Blue Tutors
Our tutor assessment is designed to look past subjective ideas about what makes a good tutor, but there are some situations where a subjective point of view informs the objective observations made about someone’s teaching ability. A common example of this is when a tutor has a tendency to be nervous – something which is often magnified in an assessment situation.
The key skill associated with being a great tutor is the ability to ask a clear question, and then patiently wait for the student to think and respond. This actually takes a great deal of confidence, because as soon as there’s any silence in a lesson a tutor may begin to think ‘was my question unclear?’, ‘did the student hear my clearly?’, ‘is the student even listening?’, ‘is the student struggling to think and just waiting for my help?’. What often happens is that the longer the silence, the more the tutor begins to doubt him/herself, and feels that they have to do something to correct what must be a bad lesson.
Of course, periods of silence don’t indicate that the lesson is bad, it’s often quite the opposite, but this is the problem. A nervous tutor, someone who doubts their ability, will jump in, and fill the silence. This usually result in a rewording of the question, which confuses the student, or worse, the tutor begins to over-explain the idea to be taught, and becomes quite verbose.
It’s a strange feeling for many first-time tutors, but we teach them to behave almost robotically at first. We ask that when they’re tempted to break a silence, they stop and count to ten, because they’re bound to feel that temptation before the silence becomes ‘too long’.
Tutors will often realise that they’re nervous themselves; we regularly hear tutors tell us that they’re quite nervous after an assessment, and this realisation can be a really good thing. If a tutor isn’t aware that he/she is nervous then it will be a very difficult thing to control, but as soon as the tutor realises that nerves might get the better of him/her, he/she can use our guidelines to practise the techniques we suggest, such as counting to ten before breaking a silence.