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Making the Most of a Tutoring Session

  Tags: Tutor
 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center Post Reply
BaronBill
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
HowToLanguages.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 4498 days ago

335 posts - 594 votes 
Speaks: English*, French, German
Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Persian

 
 Message 1 of 2
24 March 2014 at 11:58pm | IP Logged 
Hi guys,

If any of you have been following my Chinese log, I've been using italki for tutoring in Mandarin about 2-3 times per week. My question is: Am I using this time wisely? I'm not questioning the value of the tutoring, only if I'm taking full advantage of the time that I have.

Basically, I'm looking for any tips on how to make the most out of a tutoring session. Some are with professional teachers and some are with informal tutors (little or no teaching background). All are native speakers.

Thanks in advance!
1 person has voted this message useful



sctroyenne
Diglot
Senior Member
United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5200 days ago

739 posts - 1312 votes 
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Spanish, Irish

 
 Message 2 of 2
25 March 2014 at 12:33am | IP Logged 
A really good tutor takes the responsibility of making sure you get the most out of
your sessions and should leave you with little doubt that it's working. You should feel
like they're pushing you outside your comfort zone. If there are some that don't seem
to be as good, I'd recommend dropping them (or maybe use them for some conversation
practice if they're not too expensive and they're decent at correcting you). That way
you can focus on one really good tutor who can get to know your strengths and
weaknesses really well and continue to fine tune your lessons with them. While a good
tutor should be open to using materials you want to work on (books, songs, movies,
articles, etc), it shouldn't be your responsibility to source this kind of stuff. They
should present you with materials that are around your level but that are still
challenging.

What can you do? As you come across things between sessions, prepare questions for your
tutor. Be sure to do all the work they assign you. If s/he corrected you on something,
work on that between sessions so that you've "mastered" it by the next one. If they
point you to a certain source during a lesson (such as a newspaper, for example), feel
free to look around and find other things in your down time, etc.
3 persons have voted this message useful



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