Tailor How Much?

“We cater to our students’ needs, but how much is enough?”

When tailoring an article of clothing, each Tailor would probably have a different list of the personal services they offer.  As a tutor, you are expected to aid students in your native language to help them improve their skills.  But how much of what is expected involves tailoring?

What is expected?

Most people looking to learn a language would like to learn or improve in speaking, reading, writing and listening in their target language.  With the end goal of being able to have a conversation in the language.  This is what is expected.  Now how you as the tutor plan to help your students reach this goal in each of those areas is up to you.  It bears planning.

Now one of the most common ways to help a student improve is to engage them in conversation.  Basically, you are strongly encouraging the student to use what they know.  This is one of the best ways to assist learners.  But. Yes, there is a “BUT”.  As you observe the students, you’ll find that they may need help on other grammar points, adding prepositions, including articles, pronunciation, intonation, expression and more.  The way you address those different areas for each student will need to be personalized or tailored for each of them.  This is where you will need to decide how much is enough.  What will the student need to work on and then you can support their learning through practical application?

Here’s an example.  Many people who are learning Korean prefer to just copy or shadow by listening and repeating.  But with a tutor, they may have to read.  If they never took the time to learn the alphabet or how to write and read it, it’ll be impossible to follow along with a tutor who doesn’t offer the service of teaching the alphabet.  Many tutors will ask the student to do some self-study on their own to learn the alphabet first then return to tutoring.    

Do you have a criterion?  Are you willing to teach the basics if needed?  Have you ever had a student who was a great reader, but couldn’t recite the alphabet properly?  What would you do when you started to discuss pronunciation but because the students didn’t know the alphabet, they couldn’t understand why that was so important and in turn, they couldn’t understand where those sounds were coming from or what they were based on.

So, when it comes to tailoring, consider where you will start and what your student may have to do before coming to you.  Just a hint, sometimes having prepared links to provide to your student can prove to be very helpful.  If you’re not going to teach it, provide them with a link that will help them understand it.  There’s nothing wrong with asking the student to do some work.  Afterall, it’s their goal.

Photo by Pina Messina on Unsplash