Tutoring primary, secondary students (PSLE, P5 , Sec 1) since mid-2020. Students have shown improvement from a range of 41-80 to a range of 82-97 and report me as a thorough and clear tutor.
Able to start in November 2021, group tuition will preferably be held at in the east on weekends, or where convenient for all parties (students and myself). I am committed to long-term assignments.
Rapport Building
I keep in touch with younger students' parents frequently, including providing updates in the student notebook on learning outcomes and homework. I expect students to be transparent with both myself and their parents and be willing to ask where they need help, and hence to do this, I foster and environment of mutual trust and understanding. I reward hard work and improvements necessarily, applying educational and motivational psychology concepts I learn and pick up as a Psychology undergraduate in NUS. Therefore, I balance firmness with patience and gentleness, never defaulting to scolding or reprimanding if the student is visibly putting in effort. I believe I adopt a fair and nurturing pedagogy, helping students to understand content but also to develop personal responsibility through empowerment and encouragement.
Keeping Up with Curriculum
Aside from downloading syllabi from the MOE websites, I revisit assessment books and take note of question trends that seem to repeat across the board. Because learning is not only about the curriculum and syllabus, it is important to understand the reasons for why certain types of questions or problem sums become popular. Most of the time, there is an underlying aim to instil a particular cognitive skill, which I then harness into my students, such as by teaching them meta-thinking skills and analytical thinking.
As a Good Tutor
A good tutor understands the learning processes of a student. As a tutor who has been teaching for 1.5 years, I learn to pick up the habits and learning styles of individual students and cater to them. Some students are able to take firmer and sometimes harsher tones from me, whereas some need more caring attitudes. I adjust my demeanour accordingly.
Not all students come from good family backgrounds and therefore I have learnt to extend compassion and understanding towards more academically-disinclined students. I do this by applying concepts from education and motivational psychology, acknowledging their need for more guidance and supervision.
Understanding the types of thinking skills needed to be inculcated in each student individually helps to cater the tutoring best for them. I believe that a good tutor is able to pick up the needs of students through their interactions and through behavioural observation and inferring from students' mistakes where they need more help.
