How to Choose a Good Tutor 2

Continued from "How to Choose a Good Tutor (Part 1)"

Observation 3: Has the tutor prepared sufficiently?

If the tutor takes this job seriously, they should have done the necessary preparations beforehand.

After every few classes, parents should ask their children: Can you understand what the teacher is teaching? If there are any questions, did you ask the teacher? Did the teacher get stumped by your questions?

Of course, the skill lies in not asking too often, otherwise, children in adolescence might develop a rebellious attitude against being monitored and may not tell you the truth!

The purpose of asking these questions is twofold: on one hand, it's to truly understand whether the teacher is competent in the eyes of the student and whether they can teach effectively; on the other hand, it's to assess the smoothness of the teacher’s lessons through these topics.

Each child has different characteristics, so it's not wise to apply the same teaching method to all students. Otherwise, wouldn't that make the tutor no different from a school teacher? Therefore, if the tutor has thought carefully about the potential problems your child might encounter before the class and has prepared an appropriate way to explain them, the lesson will naturally flow smoothly. Under such guidance, students can easily integrate knowledge and achieve good results.

However, if the tutor often expresses confusion with phrases like "Hmm, there's still this part?" it indicates that they haven't prepared beforehand and thus haven't reviewed the subsequent content.

As for "Can the teacher be stumped by questions?" I think it's fine as long as it doesn't happen too frequently. However, if the tutor is often stumped by students' questions, then it's worth reconsidering whether this tutor is suitable. Perhaps, changing the tutor would be a correct choice.

Sometimes, the tutor's fluency in teaching can also be affected by personal factors. Nevertheless, as long as they prepare thoroughly, they can still compensate for any gaps caused by these factors. I believe that a tutor's academic qualifications are not necessarily that important (of course, for subjects with strong professional requirements, it would be another matter!)

Some parents, when looking for a tutor, insist on finding a specific background. For example, for math tutoring, they must find students from "a certain normal university's mathematics department" or "a famous university's mathematics department." In fact, this is a misconception!

There's no doubt that students from famous universities' mathematics departments are academically excellent. However, being good at exams does not equate to being good at teaching! If they have had a smooth sailing experience in learning mathematics without encountering any setbacks and have not made efforts to prepare for teaching, they may find it difficult to empathize with students. In their eyes, everything is simple, and solving problems is effortless.

Moreover, parents often assume that students from normal universities are better at teaching because they might become teachers in the future. But is this really true? If graduates from normal universities were indeed better at teaching, then most school teachers would also be graduates from normal universities, and they would have received "professional" training. So why do you need to hire a private tutor for your child? Isn't it because the school teachers haven't taught the students well? Besides, those normal university students who are still studying might not even have any teaching experience. The title "future teacher" is just informal and holds little significance for private tutoring.

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