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Re: Blog Thread IIIb : Look Who's Blogging Now

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Barmymoo:
OK, I have a question for you guys - I want to know whether I'm being unreasonable or not.

I tutor via Skype on Sundays, one hour a week. I've been tutoring this kid for over a year now and I enjoy it, he's bright and a fast learner. I'm well paid for it, £15 an hour which isn't bad since I have no teaching qualifications.

He sends me a written diary each week, so that I can look through it and make notes on grammar and spelling mistakes etc. We talk through it and discuss what he's got wrong, and he generally corrects it himself.

His mum just sent me an email asking me to please correct his mistakes and send it back to him before the class, in the same way that I do when I proofread her degree work. I don't want to do this. There are several reasons.

Firstly, a lot of his mistakes are silly mistakes which he knows how to correct himself. Pedalogically, I think it is useful for him to correct them himself.

Secondly, sometimes it isn't so much a mistake as a better way to phrase something. We talk about the possibilities and he chooses how to change it. I want him to take ownership of his writing.

Thirdly, it takes a long time to proofread. When I proofread professionally, I am paid £10 an hour. I'm not paid anything for the time it takes me to prepare each tutoring session, which can range from between 10 minutes and an hour depending whether I need to make new worksheets. If I proofread his diary, particularly if it's a long one like this week (we had a week off for New Year so I've got two weeks, and he wasn't at school so he's written something every day), it will at least double the amount of time it takes to get ready for the lesson.

Finally, the lesson is at noon on Sundays because they are in Korea and the time difference means that no other time is suitable. He sends the diary at varying times, but usually it arrives on Saturday night. I'm in chapel on Sunday mornings, and I leave Chapel breakfast early in order to plan the lesson. I would have to leave even earlier to proofread and return the diary - and there's a finite amount of "earlier" I can leave, because I warden the service and therefore have to be there until after it finishes.

Having written all of those things down, I now sort of feel like I am definitely justified in leaving things as they are. I think I'll compose an email with these points in it - anyone have any input?

bainidhe_dub:
Did she give a reason for why she wants to change things? I think that your objections of the value of discussing & letting him recognize and correct mistakes, and the fact that this kid is sending them to you at basically the last possible moment are the most compelling.
Does she really realize that you're not getting it until Saturday night? If my timezone calculations are correct, he's sending it to you early Sunday morning and has the tutoring at 9pm Sunday. Presumably if she knew you when they lived in England, then she probably knows you go to chapel, but she still might be thinking you've got "all day" to review it, and not taking into account that you're sleeping and at chapel for most of that time. If you got his journal on Friday, then reviewing and sending a marked-up copy back on Saturday so he could look at it and be ready to discuss on Sunday, that would be a more reasonable request, everything else aside.

Barmymoo:
She didn't give a reason. In the past she's made suggestions in a similar manner - once an email saying "I think [Student] should have homework" which I didn't wholly agree with, but I do set him vocabulary to learn or exercises to practise if I genuinely think they will be useful, and once saying "I think [Student] should write a diary and send it to you for review" which I definitely think is useful.

I think she does know I'm not getting it until Saturday afternoon/evening, and she is definitely aware of the time difference because she used to live in England too. Perhaps she's forgotten that I have chapel in the morning, but to be honest even if he did send it a day earlier, it would still be extra time I had to spend preparing for a lesson, and time spent doing something I don't think would be of any benefit to anyone. Really, most of the mistakes are simple typos or "brain working faster than fingers" issues which he can catch himself - I have told him as well as putting it in the email that he should read it aloud before sending it - and otherwise it's mostly just a matter of discussing alternative wording which would sound better. He doesn't make grammar mistakes any more. The diary is simply a way for him to practise writing in English and for me to know what he's been up to, and a good warm-up activity for the lesson.

It ain't broke and I dun wanna fix it, basically.

idontunderstand:
I'm a little confused. She asked you to start doing the diary thing with him, him writing it and you correcting it together with him. So it's basically a pedagogic exercise you do together. What's the point of you correcting it for him? Since she didn't give any reasons for that I can only assume she wants it to be tougher for the kid for the sake of it and I think you are right in saying no to it.

Also, is this the 10-year old you mentioned in the "what's so terrible about kids" thread?

Barmymoo:
Yup, that's the one. Frankly the only reason I still get him to do the diary is because it satisfies her need to see him doing homework (bear in mind that he goes to school AND to an institute where he learns English, as well as weekly lessons with me) and because it's a good starter exercise for the lesson. It's a good job he actually enjoys studying and learning English. When he had exams at school he looked completely exhausted for about two weeks; I could see that even over webcam. The plus side is that he's going to be very successful (if he doesn't burn out completely at about 16).

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