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Guide to Choosing a Tutor

6. How Does the Foreign-Language Tutor Structure the
Lessons?

It is very important that your foreign-language tutor firstly covers each of the 4 main language disciplines mentioned earlier - reading, writing, speaking and listening, including vocabulary and grammar - in each lesson taught.

Some tutors who are not particularly fluent in the language will tend to focus excessively or even exclusively on grammar and writing characters, rather than ensuring that their students are proficient in all the language disciplines.

The reason for this is that these tutors themselves are not competent speakers of the language and have difficulty with vocabulary and sentence structure in their writing. They therefore take the easy option of teaching the more simple components of the language that can be found in many books.

Another very important point to consider is how the tutor teaches. You should avoid lazy tutors who teach in a 'classroom style', where you are simply told what to say, read or write, or given printed notes to study on your own.

The major benefit of personalised tutoring is to maximise student interaction, to accelerate your learning. This is what makes good tutoring lessons so effective. By promoting student participation in their lessons, a good tutor will not only ensure that you get the most from your lessons, but that you will enjoy learning the material, rather than making it a painful, boring process. And this of course will motivate you and make it easier for you to progress.

You should be able to get a reasonably good idea of how a prospective foreign-language tutor structures their lessons, simply by talking to them. Of course you'll only get the full picture about your chosen tutor once you have actually experienced a few of their lessons. So don't be afraid to quit from your tutor after several lessons if you feel that they're not what you expected. There is no point persevering in a situation that is clearly not ideal for you while other, more promising opportunities are available.

©2005 Gloria Kaneko - All Rights Reserved