Tutors

[faith]

Lately, some of my friends, all IB students, have been talking about getting tutors. Does anyone here have tutors? Would having tutors really improve our results? Although I've always believed that it wouldn't I'd like to hear other people's opinions about it.

[Abu]

I've never had tutors. Tutors are only for people who are too thick to understand what their teacher says, or if their teachers are too incompetent to teach properly.

Usually if I have a problem understanding the course, I can just go the teacher after school to ask my doubts. Honestly, the only place where someone would need a tutor is in Maths.

[Sandwich]

I've never had tutors. Tutors are only for people who are too thick to understand what their teacher says, or if their teachers are too incompetent to teach properly.

Usually if I have a problem understanding the course, I can just go the teacher after school to ask my doubts. Honestly, the only place where someone would need a tutor is in Maths.

^^ I second this, although I'd also add that tutors can be useful if you're trying to acquire a skill (a language for instance) and you improve most through practice. I don't know many teachers willing to help their students practice languages! You can practice with friends, but you'll probably never spot your errors, are unlikely to advance a great deal and of course you'd have to have friends also interested in practicing!

Through a mixture of incompetent teaching and absent teaching, I had to get a tutor for one of my subjects. I don't think it's all that helpful to use them as a secondary source of education though. In the end I only had 4 hours of extra lessons because what helped me most was having badly taught/self-taught things clarified. Rephrasing of ideas often makes them totally obvious

Not having a tutor is no reason to stress though. If you've got somebody to fill that capacity and can practice yourself without needing somebody employed as some sort of overseer, there's no need. It's just if you're in a sticky situation and nobody's going to help you otherwise. People who put the effort in get rewarded, whether that effort is doing loads of questions with a tutor or whether it's doing loads of questions yourself and asking the teacher. Sadly it's decent/not absent teachers only!

[Vvi]

I had a French tutor 4 years ago when I was taking French as an extra subject for IGCSE. She spent most of her time looking over my shoulder at the exercsises she made me do in our lessons. Pointless waste of time, I would have preferred to actually talk and not spend my time writing.

2 of my classmates that took Math SL got a tutor for their exams because theur teacher was incompetent. He helped them a lot with explaining the things they didn't understand. Someone else had a French tutor but I don't think that helped much either. If you want to improve your language skills, go to spoken French classes that are held in groups. My classmate does this, and it's easier for her to speak French now.

[bohemian03]

At my school, a lot of people have Math and Chemistry tutors... but that is because we really have bad teachers and especially for Chemistry, they teach us AP things even though we're in IB. It's kind of strange. My friends do say that the tutors are helpful though.

[Sandwich]

At my school, a lot of people have Math and Chemistry tutors... but that is because we really have bad teachers and especially for Chemistry, they teach us AP things even though we're in IB. It's kind of strange. My friends do say that the tutors are helpful though.

Sadly this seems to be a big problem in many schools which don't teach the IB exclusively!

Our Bio teacher genuinely didn't realise there were subsections to the IB syllabus (like when it said "the heart" she thought it meant EVERY PIECE OF KNOWLEGDE THE WORLD HAS EVER KNOWN" about the heart). Even then she decided that the best thing to do would be to just teach us like we are A Level students. We learnt loads of extra stuff and missed out on some things, too! Really irritating.

Teachers become very set in what they're used to >___<

[__inthemaking]

I didn't have tutors while I was in IB but I did have tutors before. I did "accelerated tutoring" - basically tutoring not because I needed help, but to learn stuff in advance. For example, I learned grade 10 math when I was in grade 8, grade 11 math when I was in grade 9, and calculus in grade 10.

It actually really helped since by the time I did the actual stuff in school, it was my second time around learning it and thus it was much easier for me to grasp the concepts.

This post doesn't really apply to you since it's probably too late for accelerated tutoring now :/.

[doesntmatterwhy]

I think I'm managing fine without a tutor. But like mentioned, my chemistry teacher really sucks.

His teaching is basically the formulas that are already in the IB booklet.

All we do in class is a bunch of experiments that barely help in understanding the concepts.

The only reassurance is that we're failing as a class.

We're all pretty much screwed for exams next year.

[bohemian03]

I think I'm managing fine without a tutor. But like mentioned, my chemistry teacher really sucks.

His teaching is basically the formulas that are already in the IB booklet.

All we do in class is a bunch of experiments that barely help in understanding the concepts.

The only reassurance is that we're failing as a class.

We're all pretty much screwed for exams next year.

but i mean in that case I think it's better to get a tutor. Besides, if you are getting horrible grades and want to raise your GPA, then a tutor is great.

[Haney]

I totally agree with this. I've had an essay writing and french speaking tutor, but seriously... there wasn't that much differnce. However, computer programs do help alot.

I had a French tutor 4 years ago when I was taking French as an extra subject for IGCSE. She spent most of her time looking over my shoulder at the exercsises she made me do in our lessons. Pointless waste of time, I would have preferred to actually talk and not spend my time writing.

2 of my classmates that took Math SL got a tutor for their exams because theur teacher was incompetent. He helped them a lot with explaining the things they didn't understand. Someone else had a French tutor but I don't think that helped much either. If you want to improve your language skills, go to spoken French classes that are held in groups. My classmate does this, and it's easier for her to speak French now.

[DeStijl]

I've never had tutors. Tutors are only for people who are too thick to understand what their teacher says, or if their teachers are too incompetent to teach properly.

Perhaps it's just a matter of opinion, because I disagree. Sometimes, a teacher's style doesn't always "click" with a student, which makes it difficult to truly grasp the material to the best of their ability. The teacher in question could be extremely competent, but not necessarily compatible with certain students.

As for myself, I've never had a tutor. However, I have had experience being one in math, and judging by the improvements that I've seen, I'd say that the system can be pretty beneficial. In the end, all they really needed was to be offered the same material in an alternate method, because they personally couldn't connect with their teachers' style.

[Chelleee]

after failing math in term ??, i got a math tutor

i find its helpful, and no they don't do your hwk for you or assignments or anything like that. my friends who do have tutors tell me that they go to them if they don't understand anything

mine actually teaches me topics from the ib syllabus so it's almost like i have a 2nd math teacher - helpful since my tutor started with last topic and new math teacher started with first = overlap, so it's revision at the same time

considering getting a jap tutor because i swapped from chinese to jap only a month ago and i seriously need help catching up.

p.s - make sure you get a good tutor even if it means more money

[Mattias]

In where I live, tutors are extremely common.

Hong Kong's students are well known for either hiring tutors or going to a tutorial center, primarily for subjects such as Math, English and possibly Chinese. (Mostly Math)

In fact, almost all of my friends have at least one tutoring session per week.

I don't necessarily believe that tutoring will make a person a better student, but if the matter is truly one where the student doesn't understand the material (opposed to a student who just doesn't give a damn) then a tutor would prove to be quite helpful.

[Chesire_Cat]

I have a tutor for math and I find it helps a lot. I also think that having a tutor for subjects such as Chemistry or Physics could also improve results. It's just easier to be able to concentrate when it's a one on one session, and it's good to have someone who can tell you what your mistakes are and how to solve things. It's also good for a language, because it's easier to learn it by speaking to someone than by doing excercises.

[Adoran]

A good friend of mine (also in IB) has a tutor in Physics, mainly because our physics teacher is a really bad teacher, and physics isn't his strongest subject. It has helped him quite a bit.

[rrswong]

I only had a physics tutor for like a month because we had a supply teacher for that month and I had no idea what was going on, but I'm tutor free other than that. I know many, many friends who have tutors, though, and some of them do help.

[herong2x]

Though I have managed my first year in IB without a tutor, I am planning to get one in Math SL and Chemistry SL because I know I am not excellent in Chemistry and I got a 5 because my teacher was kind. Those are the subjects I dread in the externals, therefore I decided to get extra help since my teacher rarely has time for me after class. I am also getting a tutor in Math SL because I am aiming for a 7.

I personally would also want to get a tutor in English A1, though I am not sure most tutors will know about the existence in IB in this country, unless I find an IB teacher in another school.

[Tilia]

I've never had it, even though I tried to get some older IB students to help me with some subjects for service.

I think that if you're really unsure in a subject and have a crappy teacher, it might be a good idea, but surely you can do fine anyway.

[Taigan]

Tutors are very common in my school. Although, one of the IB teachers did mention that the IBO actually do have a thing against tutors. Maybe I misunderstood, but she said something like the IBO sets a certain number of hours for classes and getting a tutor would just be adding more hours, which would be unfair. However, I'm unsure of whether this only applies to when teachers tutor their students after school.

I've had the experience of being tutored but I found that, most of the time, it was a waste. I think people should only get tutors if they do not understand the theory in a subject. I understood the maths theory, therefore, when I was with my tutor, he just gave me questions and I did them. I think that if I was by myself, then I could have done more in that time. So it also really depends on the ability of the student. I admit that the reason I actually had a tutor was because all my friends were getting tutors and I felt apprehensive. It's actually all very silly.

[Feist]

I agree with __inthemaking, accelerated tutoring can really help, I know when I learned the advanced material the first time I got the gist but I didn't master it, but when I learned it the second time I completely understood it just looking through examples. So maybe a tutor can be good for teaching you some of the extra IB material you might have to know later on so when your teacher teaches it to you, you can clear up any ambiguity straight away and saving some stress out moments days before the exam.

It depends on the tutor as well, if they are feeding you the answers then you'll be in big trouble come exam time. I think it might be better to get a tutor closer to the exam dates since you'll know lots of the material already, but be sure that it's one who knows how to tutor for IB.