Primary Tutor/PSLE Tutor - The Criteria
Do Primary School Teachers or Ex-School Teachers Make Good Primary Tutors/ PSLE Tutors?
You need to ask yourself a few questions first before you answer the above question:
- I am sure that you have been through at least primary and secondary schools. Reflect back and ask yourself: Are all your school teachers that have taught you good at teaching?
- Why are you looking for a primary school teacher to tutor your child when he or she is attending school everyday, being taught by the school teachers?
- The main difference between Primary School Teachers and normal tutors is that Primary School teachers are NIE trained for 1 year. Do you think that the extra 1 year of NIE training will make a big difference?
When I was studying in A Levels, I had a top school teacher with 20 years of experience from Hwa Chong Junior College tutoring me Physics. He was more concern about making money and always stopped at the exact time irregardless of whether I had any more questions to enquire. I also could not understand his explanation clearly because he always skipped all the minute details and would get angry if I probed further. My parents decided to stop his tuition and engaged a tuition agency which recommended an A Level graduate who scored 4 distinctions in his A Levels. He was doing national service at that time. He was a very patient tutor who explained everything clearly until I understood. Furthermore, he was willing to extend the tuition time a bit longer without extra charges if I had extra questions for him. I was really appreciative of him and my parents also paid much lesser tuition fee.
My conclusion is that there is a serious general misconception that MOE Teacher or Ex-Teacher will definitely make a Good Teacher or Good Tutor in our certificate-driven Singapore society. Many parents believe that an NIE certificate would boost the credibility of the teacher. The real scenario is that general teaching quality of School Teachers is indeed better than that of part-time tutors, undergraduate tutors and full-time tutors. However, the very good primary tutors need not be primary school teachers. Look at this article from the Sunday Times dated back in 2008 titled "Super Tutors". Out of the Top 5 Super Tutors ranked in Singapore, only one (Tong Yee) had taught in a MOE school before. The others do not have any prior teaching experience in schools before setting up their tuition centres.
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| From The Straits Times |
Then, what makes a Good Primary Tutor/ PSLE Tutor?
Irrespective of whether the primary tutor/psle tutor is a part-time tutor, full time tutor, ex-school teacher or school teacher, he or she should possess these qualities:
- Good Understanding of the Primary Syllabus.
- Patient and Caring towards students
- Good Teaching Methodology.
- Talks and explains up to 90% of the tuition lesson and not just sit down and ask the student to do work.
- Able to come up with Primary School Methods instead of Secondary School Methods (eg. using model method instead of algebra for problem sums) so that the students can understand better.
- Ability to adjust the speed and content of learning accordingly for weak, average or high-ability students. (Very important quality. Some tutors with brilliant results can only teach high-abiity students)
- Able to focus on the core of each topic as each lesson is only 1.5 to 2 hours per week.
- Do not change the tuition timing regularly.
- Communicate with the parents regularly to keep them updated of the student's progress.
I have several parents who engage me as a primary tutor/psle tutor after they cannot find NIE teachers to teach their children. Other parents stop the tuition of school teachers and request me to teach their child. Some parents tell me that I teach better than the school teachers.
