Mistakes That Parents Often Commit When Hiring The Service Of A Personal Tutor

By Blaine Dur


Parents believe that tutors perform exactly the same job that school teachers do. It is true that tutors and teachers follow the same principles in doing their jobs. Their functions, however, are not interchangeable.

First off, students with learning difficulties necessitate more individualized attention for them to discover learning methods that would work for them. A teacher does conduct intense, close scrutiny of individual students. However, this is done on an occasional basis. The curriculum for students in a classroom setting is intended for collective learning. Students are thus given enough time and opportunities to learn how they can cope with the lessons on their own.

However, not all students could cope to this teaching design. And that small percentage is none other than the students who need the help of a personal tutor to cope with their learning challenges. Through one-on-one teaching approach, students are provided with sustained, personalized instruction because tutors have enough time observing students learning behavior. Tutors indeed offer closer scrutiny of the student's learning performance so they can gather as much information about the student's learning struggles.

Another mistake that parents often commit when hiring tutoring services is that, sometimes, they go overboard. Parents tend to express their disappointment right before the child and the personal tutor. In instances like this, tutors have to be neutral in their response so students with learning difficulties will realize that there are other people that have not yet given up on them.

This though does not signify that tutors should baby their students. Tutors can exhibit their authority without saying embarrassing words when the student shows no positive improvement in their performance. Hence, a tutor can tell the student that the next meetings will be cancelled if he will not take his homework seriously.

The tutor should choose to say it directly to the students so the latter will realize that this issue is a matter between the two of them. For sure, the student will show initiative because he does not want his tutor to do what his teacher commonly does when his class performance is poor; that is, to invite his parents to come to school.




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