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Education

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Tutoring adults compared with children

4 replies

TeenTimesTwo · 08/03/2018 11:05

Would anyone care to give any opinions on how helping an adult 1-1 might differ from helping a child/teen 1-1? (Specifically maths).

I'm thinking there might be

  • more baggage / negative feelings to the subject which might need to be overcome
  • more motivation to succeed
  • need to approach as adult-adult not teacher-pupil

Any insight from anyone involved in adult education most welcome!

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JoJoSM2 · 08/03/2018 23:38

Types of resources and activities, attention span, level of independence, general knowledge and being able to link to other subjects, awareness of self as learner, study skills etc Very different.

IHaveACuntingPlan · 08/03/2018 23:54

I tutored my sister when she had to do a maths test as part of her training course. I found that her lack of confidence and the embarrassment that came with it was her biggest hurdle. Once she realised that she wasn't as thick as her old high school teachers had led her to believe and that she was actually capable, she could look at the test paper without panicking and could answer the questions easily.

One thing we found difficult was time: we only had a couple of hours a week in between jobs and children etc so we had a lot to cram in to a short session which could lead to some confusions rather than in primary schools where we generally have a dedicated hour each day and only cover a small part each lesson.

Sorry I can't offer any more insight as that's my only experience in teaching adults.

PickleFish · 09/03/2018 09:48

I'm working with a dyslexic adult who is trying very hard to pass the numeracy test for PGCE training. (She won't be teaching maths)

She is more motivated and has more awareness of how she learns, and of the fact that she needs to do regular practice and work at it to remember things, whereas children often don't want that.

Her knowledge is quite patchy compared to children, where it is slightly more obvious what level overall they are at - she will remember some random bits from school, though not necessarily how it all fits together.

She doesn't have the time that children have to spend ages practising times tables for speed, for example, or all the mental calculation practice that they used to do in primary school, which would help.

There much less need to try to make the lessons fun and full of games, the way I need to with reluctant children. On the other hand, sometimes games or silly mnemonics or whatever are quite good ways of learning things, so there are times when I will use some more childish explanation, and tell her 'this is how I first introduce this to children', so that she can still have the explanation, but not in a patronising way. I have to work hard to make sure the relationship doesn't become too one-sided/always me being the authority.

TeenTimesTwo · 09/03/2018 09:52

Thank you all. Really helpful.

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