To Find My Tutor Irritating

[GeishaTrumpet]

I am currently studying via distance learning so all lessons are online and I have a tutor who can’t seem to stop using the phrase “you know”. She says it almost every other sentence. I once counted and she said it over 30 times in ten minutes. I find it very distracting and irritating. Would I be unreasonable to, you know ask her to stop?

You can ask, politely, but it sounds like a tic, so unlikely droppable on request. Yor options are to boost your resilience or request a different tutor.

I attend meetings on line and the main contributor always says “you know like”
I can’t even listen to him and like you have counted how many times he says it in a short period. Could you request a different tutor. My child sent me a video of a large lecture they attended at uni. Not one word could I make out of what was being said.

I can’t request another tutor, all the lessons are the same day and time each week to fit around the rest of my working week. I will have to suck it up but it’s so annoying 😂

I think it sounds more like a filler word rather than a tic - so, um, right, like are other ones. But I agree that it won't be readily apparent to the tutor that they say it as much as they do and it's not an easy thing to control. OP I'm sure you also have ones you use without realising. You could ask them politely but it isn't easy to suddenly stop. I know once you start hearing it, it becomes annoying, but I think you are better trying to focus on what she is teaching you rather than the term. If you don't already try taking notes as that might help you focus on the content.

As irritating as it might be, you have no right to police how another person speaks.

I had one who constantly said “in terms of doing it..”

And it was so distracting I couldn’t listen to anything he said 😂

If just try and filter it out tbh. Though I can see how it might be annoying.

I remember once I was interviewing some finance director or something for work and he got really cross with me and said 'can you stop saying 'sure' all the time, it's really annoying'. I hadn't realised I was and said 'sure' as a response?! I didn't do it again though and was more aware of the kind of prompting words I used when listening to someone. I did feel embarrassed though for a moment definitely!

My husband says y'know a lot, mainly when he's trying to explain things he's not entirely sure about. It is irritating, but you can train your brain to ignore it - the other option is listen for it knowing it will annoy you, which seems ridiculous (although I do know how hard it is to stop yourself).

I don’t want to control how she speaks you know but I do you know want to be able to concentrate you know on the content she is teaching you know which is difficult when you know she is constantly saying you know.

I'm sensitive to repeated phrases such as this, it's very distracting. Your tutor is probably completely unaware that she does this. I'd probably have a gentle conversation with her about the issue.

I had a boss once that used to say “hmmm-kay” after each sentence. It’s drove me nuts and was so distracting. I never said anything because I thought it was impolite, but I also struggled to retain anything he said 😂.

Not a distance counselling course is it ... I'm not the tutor btw.

Tutoring is a relationship between learner and teacher and if that relationship doesn't work, you need to find someone that suits you better.

If you can understand what they say, then complain. If it’s just irritating then I can’t see what you could do. Lots of people have got irritating speech patterns or tics - you could get one much worse next time!

It is scary how inarticulate some teachers/lecturers are these days.

When I think of my university lecturers 40 years ago!!! They were so intellectual, well-read and articulate.

You can't ask a tutor to change her speech patterns for you.

Yes, it's annoying, but most people have some verbal tics that they use a lot (even people who think they don't) and 'you know' is quite a common one. It's like saying 'um' and 'er' while talking. Things like 'um', 'er', 'you know', 'like', 'so', 'yeah', 'right' etc mid-sentence are all ways that our brain is giving us time to process what we're going to say next. My lovely boss has a particular adverb that he uses constantly when he's talking or presenting and sometimes it drives me mad, but I'd never say anything.

Also (and I speak from experience, as I interview people a lot for video and audio content at work) pointing these things often a) doesn't stop people doing them and b) makes them nervous and awkward which makes it worse.

I have a bad habit of starting a sentence with "Rrright..." (yes, I string out the R) when teaching. I am intelligent, articulate, and have taught up to post-grad level (and down to EYFS!).

I know I do it, I try to limit it. And frankly, I would be a little upset if a student complained about it.

This.

Also, teaching online, as many of us discovered during Covid, is ghastly. It’s impossible to read the room and grasp whether someone’s not following or doesn’t know a term, or needs something repeated. And students are a lot more silent and passive be, so any tutor who is nervous or given to filler words or phrases to fill up silences, often uses them a lot more. Which is why I don’t think asking him or her to stop will do any good. Possibly the reverse.

My niece recently had the same irritation with one of her tutors. She's just hoping she doesn't get her again 😁

My Mum trained me out of this when I was around 7 and started saying "y'know". I'd say it and she'd say it right back to me before I had a chance to continue with whatever I wanted to say. She did me a favour - I dropped the habit very quickly - but I think if someone's old enough to be your tutor, it may be too late to try this. You'll just have to ignore it.

But surely you don’t say Rrright up to 30 times in ten minutes.