Recently I was talking to James, a friend and fellow tutor; he's been a French and German language tutor for quite a few years now.
We were talking about learning styles, and he mentioned that one of his tutees wasn't doing so well with French language retention and vocabulary. James was perplexed. He had pulled out virtually every worksheet, game, and flash card trick he could think of, and even tried to put together some fun quizzes hoping that they would help. No luck.
Then suddenly it dawned on James that every technique he was trying had been visual in nature. Maybe what his tutee needed was audio based learning tools. True, many people are visual learners, but some respond best to the non-visual.
So, James' next French tutoring session included speaking drills, fun spoken word games, and an audio CD that included some basic French conversations.
It was a success! James' tutee aced his next test, felt much more confident with his French language skills, and suddenly his vocabulary was improving dramatically.
James' story got me thinking - how often do I stick to the same old routine, and not pay close attention to the non-visual learning styles that some tutees respond to?
Maybe it's time for me to re-evaluate my tutees' needs and see if I can help them perform even better!
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