How can tutors help students to improve their Academic skills?

In a decade where home tutoring has slowly transitioned into online tutoring for many, apart from rolling with the punches with the teaching style, tuition teachers have had to also adapt to the dynamic changes within the learning style and capabilities of the student population.

Parents have many burning questions:

• Will my child adapt and adjust to the mode of learning?
• Will my child get the right guidance?
• Will my child be able to emerge as a good student even in a competitive school?

And the list is endless for any anxious helicopter parent, needless to say.

So, here are some ways private home tutors and online tutors can guide their students to perform the best in their academics...

Firstly, tutors should occasionally give students timed practice during their lessons. However, this timed practice should be planned such that the time given is not sufficient to complete the entire exercise.

The idea of time-crunch:

The limited time will place the student in an uncomfortable and difficult situation. They are forced to make spontaneous decisions on how to plan their time and determine which questions they should prioritise.

This simple but stressful exercise will help students develop their quick thinking, time management and their ability to evaluate which questions are more important. These are all very useful academic skills that are necessary for students to train to be successful in the future.

Secondly, many students have the habit of just sitting in lessons and listening to their tutors hoping that they can retain the information said by the tutor in their memory.

Active participation:

This is more common in one-to-one tuition as students may think that they have to pay attention and maintain eye contact while the tutor is speaking. However, tutors should make it clear that during lessons that students do not have to sit quietly and listen to everything that they are saying. Instead, they should encourage students to take notes during lessons.

Moreover, they should also encourage students to ask questions during the lessons instead of waiting to process the information outside of the lesson as it may be too late and the students may forget too many details.

Asking questions and taking notes are two very vital skills that students need to learn. It may sound easy and intuitive but it is surprising how few students are actually efficient and effective in taking notes and the type of questions they ask.

Thirdly, there is always scope for research no matter what the subject is. Many tutors think that research writing and essay writing should be taught by English tuition teachers and that it is not their own responsibility. However, even if the tutor does not teach English, they should still be training their students in essay writing and writing research papers. This can be trained by tutors by setting appropriate exercises for students to do.

Pushing the boundaries:

Tutors can set thought-provoking open-ended questions that require students to search online to receive inspiration to solve the question. The thought process required for this will be beyond the norm indeed.

This will help to simulate how doing actual research is like. Tutors can also give requirements on how students should format their answers as research papers also have a standard format.

The answer should have an abstract, introduction, methodology, results, discussion and references. Giving students the habit of writing in this format will help them make this writing style second nature.

Fourthly, throughout their entire journey as a student, they will have to write countless examinations and even then, many students still do not have a strategy for doing well in an examination. Thus, it is the duty of the tutor to help students develop a good strategy to do well during an examination.

Practice, practice and more practice!

To become the best, there is no better way to go about it then to practice diligently.

Tutors should conduct timed exercises with students but this time, sufficient time should be given to solve all the questions. Tutors should then observe how students solve questions, how they check their working, how many times they check their working and what type of careless mistakes they make.

Many students make the mistake of simply reading their answer again while checking which is useless as they will follow the same thought process which will most likely lead to the same careless mistake. Instead, students should try to solve the questions independently again or try to work backwards in their answer.

These methods of checking will be much more useful and it is important for tutors to emphasise this. Moreover, checking just once may not be sufficient to spot careless mistakes.

Fifthly, the only way to improve public speaking skills and presentation skills is for students to continuously practise doing so until it feels normal for them. Schools however do not provide enough opportunities for students to practice these skills which leave students who are naturally anxious and shy at a massive disadvantage.

Overcoming the fear:

Students may also be too shy to develop these skills in front of their parents or friends and without anyone to ‘force’ them to do so, they will never improve. Thus, tutors should also occasionally ask their students to prepare presentations on certain topics sometimes with a script and sometimes without.

This will help students both learn how to prepare well and also how to spontaneously give a presentation on a topic that they are already familiar with. Moreover, doing these presentations can also be a good chance for the students since they may be too tired of just writing essays.

IN A NUTSHELL, it is undeniable that inculcating these skills is no mean feat. It may take a considerable amount of time to see some progress but it's never impossible!