20th July 2018 9:00
By Blue Tutors
A student who has never been tutored properly before expects the lesson to be a bit like a class. They think the tutor will speak for 5 mins, explaining the concepts for the lesson, and then give the student a short test. If the student can’t answer any questions then the tutor will show them how to do it, and that’s private tuition. This isn’t the way our tutors work at all, and it can be a strange experience for the student.
The correct way to tutor is to ask the student to think, and give them time to contemplate an idea and respond. Inexperienced tutors worry about the student’s reaction, and they’re not wrong to be worried. However, there is such an obvious way around this problem, and that’s to realise that the correct tutoring method isn’t a trick! There is absolutely no problem with explaining the way we’re tutoring someone, why it works, and why the student might actually enjoy it more than lessons in a classroom.
Tutoring Standards’ pedagogy is something which is difficult to become an expert in. It takes significant practice to stop making the mistakes we all make when we start tutoring, mistake which are very human things to do. However, the pedagogy is not difficult to understand, and if your student is a bit unsure about the way in which you’re tutoring them, it’s a great idea to explain what you’re doing and why, and even send them a link to read through the pedagogy themselves.
Students will be reassured to know that they’re being taught in a professional way, and in a way we’re all tutored at Oxford and Cambridge. There’s nothing magical and mystical about the tutoring method, and explaining what you’re doing and why it works won’t stop it from working.