Tutor dumb it down or full steam ahead?

[suMMit]

I have had two sessions with a tutor. She is not my primary teacher, just someone to get in some extra practice with. Basically I give her a list of vocabulary revolving around a topic I have studied and ask her to discuss with me. She is different than other tutors I have studied with because she doesn't seem to dumb anything down. It's like talking to the guy on the street who you aren't always able to follow. She has very standard pronunciation, so that is not a problem, but her rate of speech, complexity of sentences(especially this) make it very hard for me to keep up and answer questions without stuttering something out. Nearly every answer i give, unless very short, is corrected. We do only 30 minutes and I put the phone down absolutely exhausted. 

 

So here's what I'm on the fence about: Do I ask her to dumb it down a little or just keep going full steam ahead?

 

I like the fact that she speaks naturally, doesn't explain everything, asks me questions I wasn't anticipating. I like that I'm being super challenged. I like that it's almost like a real-world conversation.However, I've always felt I learn best when things are "just slightly above my level". I feel like the two lessons with her have been a full two notches above where I'm at. I'm currently kind of low-Intermediate level.

[889]

"I put the phone down absolutely exhausted."

 

Says it all really. A great teacher leaves you sweating like a hog.

 

She's a keeper.

[艾墨本]

3 hours ago, suMMit said:

Nearly every answer i give, unless very short, is corrected

Of everything you've said, this is the only one I feel that might be worth a conversation with her about. Maybe pick a focus for her corrections per class or per month or whatever period of time is reasonable. For example, maybe just focus on the subject of your sentences being in the right spot or ensuring your 离合词 are probably separated (跑步跑得快).

 

At the end of the day though, the nuance between "too hard" and "a healthy challenge" is difficult to list in a forum post. All of those challenges you are facing are fine, the question is to what degree are they happening. Also, recognize that if your cognitive energy is being expended on simply understanding her, you will have less energy to put on your own grammar and vocabulary. (Look up cognitive load for more on this.)

 

Rather than simplifying it, if you like her, you could also record it and try to work through it several times to catch anything you might have missed.

 

The biggest catch to all of this advice is that if these classes make you want to study less, it is time to switch. No motivation will be the biggest barrier to any future study. If this challenge makes you want to find ways to succeed with her, then roll with it.

[amytheorangutan]

My Italki teacher also speaks fairly fast and I can tell she’s not trying to simplify her language too much, one thing she does that is probably a bit different from yours is that she takes notes as I speak and corrects me at the end of the lesson so it doesn’t seem like she’s cutting me off all the time. I suspect that can be quite disheartening and frustrating? 

[blackfalcon]

I think it depends on if she actually takes notes when you make mistakes, so you can review later. If she's just correcting you all the time, but there's no way for you to remember your mistakes so you can fix them next time, it won't be that effective. 

7 hours ago, suMMit said:

Nearly every answer i give, unless very short, is corrected.

If she's not explaining why they were wrong, for me this would get so annoying that I would just give up haha

[Flickserve]

3 hours ago, 艾墨本 said:

Rather than simplifying it, if you like her, you could also record it and try to work through it several times to catch anything you might have missed.

wonderful insight about the whole process 

 

33 minutes ago, amytheorangutan said:

she’s cutting me off all the time. I suspect that can be quite disheartening and frustrating? 

yes. I had that before. It broke me!

[alantin]

A keeper. Definitely!

 

However I also think that correcting absolutely everything you say is counter productive.

If the point is to practice free talk, I think it would be better to get help if you have trouble getting the point across and only correct recurring or more serious errors.

 

I have a couple of tutors with a professional teacher who corrects everything and dumbs it down quite a lot (With her the focus is more on saying it right), and another one who speaks very fast and doesn't really dumb it down at all. I'm loving the lessons with her exactly because they are like talking with a native friend and they are great for overall comprehension. I just checked and I have been having lessons with this tutor for exactly a year now and I can definitely see results. I remember in the beginning only understanding about 60% or 70% of what she said (as in 30% - 40% I had no idea what the subject even was anymore) but now I can pretty much understand all almost regardless of the topic. I have no chance of repeating what she says back to her in Chinese but I can understand what she is telling me.

 

In natural speech, even you don't understand every word, you can wait for the other person to say something that makes sense and then use that next part, that you do understand, along with other cues and context to fill in the blanks. That is an extremely important skill when communicating in  a foreign language, and you don't learn it if you don't get exposure to the real deal. In the street no-one is going to talk to you like they would to four year old and you most likely wouldn't want them to. A tutor who doesn't pull the punches in that regard is invaluable!

 

On the other hand, if the language is slowed down and dumbed down, I find that what is being said is more likely to have that one word (usually near the end) that you don't understand, which renders the whole sentence un-understandable. Then the teacher is going to notice that you didn't understand, and start the whole sentence from the beginning slower and then you'll get a grammar lecture or a lecture on the uses of that single word. In a normal conversation you would ask the other guy to rephrase.

 

I find that I'm disliking dumbing down more and more all the time.

 

That is not to say that I don't need and appreciate the more professional type teachers too. I merely think that both types are important and they train different things.

 

[abcdefg]

@suMMit -- I feel your pain! Like you, I enjoy a challenge but I don't like just being beat up. Many good suggestions already made, above, by other members.

 

What it sounds like is missing here is the element of repetition. Your 30-minute lesson format makes that difficult, but not impossible. A 45 or 60 minute lesson would be better. 30 minutes is really rushed. It's barely time to say hello and goodbye. 

 

Without repetition, it's just an overwhelming barrage of new stuff and you feel like you are about to drown for the entire time. You never get to experience improvement. You never get any more comfortable with the new stuff. 

 

I'm not sure exactly how to engineer it, but it would be good if your teacher threw less new things at you. Instead of a dozen new vocabulary words and six new sentence structures, only a half or a third of that amount of new material, used several times. More repetition of the items you have trouble with, less for those you find easy. 

 

That way you would have a better chance of absorbing the lesson content and you also would have a feeling of accomplishment because you would be better towards the end of the lesson that at the beginning. It would be more productive and less frustrating. 

 

Keep up the good work! 

 

[roddy]

If everything is getting corrected - that's just punishing, and it's too much to take in, and it also suggests you're not working at the right level. You will feel exhausted after a useful session, but you can easily feel exhausted after an overwhelming and discouraging one. It's perhaps not what you're looking for with this tutor, but if she picked out the mistakes most worth looking at (something that you should know at your level, something she knows you're working on at the moment), then did five to ten minutes on correcting that mistake to the point you can make correct, although probably slow, utterances - that would show results.

 

I don't think the term 'dumbing down' is helpful. You need level-appropriate work to do sometimes. That can be simplified input (here's the news, a bit slower with some vocab made easier) or simplified output (here's the news, which names of countries can you hear?). Your 'just above my level' idea is spot on. 

[Jan Finster]

It does not sound as if you really enjoyed it. Otherwise you would hardly be asking. Maybe it is challenging or even flattering, but it will be suffocating at some point.

 

Imagine you take sparring lessons with Mike Tyson and he goes 100%...

Imagine you take tennis lessons with Roger Federer and he goes 100%...

Imaging you are asked to "follow" Louis Hamilton by car and he goes 100%...

 

Let me guess. Your teacher is not a professional Chinese language tutor. Right? A good teacher should be able to recognize the level of the student and adapt to that level. This means going to the level of the student and a little bit above that. Neither too easy, nor too difficult:

 

 

Your teacher may be a keeper if she is able to adapt. Otherwise, study with someone else until you are at her level and then go back to her.

 

[alantin]

Good points on the appropriate level.
I also agree that the tutoring sessions should not be too exhausting. The whole thing should be interesting and rewarding. You may be tired, but if you aren't looking forward to the next session after one ends, then something is wrong. Nothing wrong in changing tutors and looking for another one. It needs to be fun and engaging for you to stay motivated to keep it up.

 

Also I too think 30 minutes is really short. I only have at-least 60 minute tutoring sessions and sometimes 90 minutes.

 

I really liked the idea of recording the session and listening to it again. I had a session today, but forgot to suggest it...

 

One thing I also do is I ask my teachers and tutors to only speak Chinese to me and If I don't understand something, explain it to me in Chinese using different or simpler language.

[杰.克]

I like a mix of both type of classes. I have 1 hard class a week, where my teacher is basically a history teacher, and doesn't dumb it down for me. I feel drained afterwards, and always have written down a million new nouns to learn. I also reward myself with classes on italki, where i basically just chat to someone, and barely learn anything new. Just iron out mistakes, or practice general convo. 

 

I wouldn't say don't do the solid classes. Just don't do them too often

[Flickserve]

Good points above. Love that analogy with sports because that’s exactly what we do. @Jan Finster

 

Most of the time we want to be one to two steps above a student. We have to push them in a way that encourages further progress without demoralising. 
 

Repetition is important but also recognition that a student is definitely not going to pick up a perfect skill within a hour. In fact, in one hour, we keep it very simple and try to change things one at a time. Adults usually like to be super ambitious and frequently over estimate their learning capacity. They understand the theory but putting into practice is much harder. 

 

If you know the words well, then it’s fine to be pushed because you are fine tuning the delivery, especially under real life conditions. But if you don’t know the words well, you are going you are going to be pulled around by too much corrective input - Tones, grammar, fluidity etc. Where are you going to start with your corrections after the lesson? 
 

Here’s an alternative. Let the teacher go at normal speed for about 15 minutes. Ask the teacher to note down your mistakes and the most common ones. Some might be very basic, some might be advanced. Pick about four or five of them and work through them for the next 45minutes. That way you are not trying to get every single correction. First, you focus on a couple of common problems - try to change habits into better ones. Common problems come up commonly so if you can fix those, you progress a lot. Second - you work on a couple of points of more advanced nature that keeps your interest up. 

[abcdefg]

@Flickserve -- His lessons are only 30 minutes long.  I see that as a problem in and of itself. 

 

16 hours ago, Flickserve said:

We have to push them in a way that encourages further progress without demoralising. 

 

Well said. That's exactly what I try to do when teaching (when teaching anything, not only language.) 

[Flickserve]

7 hours ago, abcdefg said:

His lessons are only 30 minutes long.  I see that as a problem in and of itself. 

 

I suspect he chooses this shorter time deliberately due to the intense nature of the mental workout. If he kept to 15 mins of intensity, he will be able survive another 45 mins of slower pace. 

[suMMit]

On 1/31/2021 at 2:36 PM, 艾墨本 said:

Also, recognize that if your cognitive energy is being expended on simply understanding her, you will have less energy to put on your own grammar and vocabulary. (Look up cognitive load for more on this.)

I think this is it basically. Interesting reading about that.

 

On 1/31/2021 at 2:36 PM, 艾墨本 said:

you could also record it and try to work through it several times to catch anything you might have missed.

A good idea but maybe more work than I'm willing to do. Might try it sometime though.

 

On 1/31/2021 at 5:37 PM, amytheorangutan said:

I suspect that can be quite disheartening and frustrating? 

Yeah I guess I walked away from that session very disheartened and frustrated.

 

On 2/1/2021 at 2:33 AM, abcdefg said:

What it sounds like is missing here is the element of repetition. Your 30-minute lesson format makes that difficult, but not impossible. A 45 or 60 minute lesson would be better. 30 minutes is really rushed. It's barely time to say hello and goodbye. 

I agree with you. This is just an extra lesson though, on top of my normal 3x a week 45min lessons with my usual teacher. My strategy is to just have some free talk recycling the same vocabulary I've been studying formally in a less structured setting. 

 

On 1/31/2021 at 5:37 PM, amytheorangutan said:

she takes notes as I speak and corrects me at the end of the lesson so it doesn’t seem like she’s cutting me off all the time.

I've had various lessons with many teachers, not one single one has ever done this. They always, always correct me on the spot. I should try asking for this and see how I like it.

 

 

On 2/1/2021 at 4:04 AM, Jan Finster said:

It does not sound as if you really enjoyed it. Otherwise you would hardly be asking. Maybe it is challenging or even flattering

On 2/1/2021 at 2:52 AM, roddy said:

If everything is getting corrected - that's just punishing, and it's too much to take in, and it also suggests you're not working at the right level.

Yes, I suspect she overestimated my true level.

 

On 2/1/2021 at 4:04 AM, Jan Finster said:

Let me guess. Your teacher is not a professional Chinese language tutor. Right?

She is actually, apparently a lot of experience with European learners. And there is something I like about her technique, which is why I guess I felt so frustrated.

 

On 2/1/2021 at 4:04 AM, Jan Finster said:

This means going to the level of the student and a little bit above that. Neither too easy, nor too difficult:

But yes, this works best for me.

 

On 2/2/2021 at 9:13 AM, Flickserve said:

If you know the words well, then it’s fine to be pushed because you are fine tuning the delivery, especially under real life conditions. But if you don’t know the words well, you are going you are going to be pulled around by too much corrective input - Tones, grammar, fluidity etc.

Yes, these are mostly words I've been learning very recently, they are not words that I know very well. I was not fine tuning, but just trying to use them and experimenting with them.

 

Thanks for all the input.

 

So I decided to tell her that I felt the sessions were too far over my current level. The subsequent class was then a bit too easy. There is something I really like about her way of conversing about the topic. Definitely something special about her approach. I will try a couple more classes with her and see how it goes. Anyway, this is just extra practice on top of my regular, structured classes, but I do like to maximize my time.

 

 

[889]

As to note-taking, I had a non-Chinese tutor message me continuously throughout the conversation so afterward I had a long list of corrections I could review.

 

As to raising your concern with your tutor, it's like sending a dish back to the kitchen because it's just a little too spicey: of course it's going to come back tasting like dishwater.

[suMMit]

29 minutes ago, 889 said:

As to note-taking, I had a non-Chinese tutor message me continuously throughout the conversation so afterward I had a long list of corrections I could review.

 

As to raising your concern with your tutor, it's like sending a dish back to the kitchen because it's just a little too spicey: of course it's going to come back tasting like dishwater.

Well I didn't say it was bad, she just over adjusted to the too easy side, but I still got something out of it.

 

As for notes, my main teacher(and this one in fact) also sends me a long list of all the corrections that I can review afterwards. But, they do correct me on the spot every time as well.

[alantin]

28 minutes ago, 889 said:

As to raising your concern with your tutor, it's like sending a dish back to the kitchen because it's just a little too spicey: of course it's going to come back tasting like dishwater.

 

lol. After only two lessons? I doubt it should be taken the wrong way..

But it doesn't surprise me that she dialed it down too much. Just need a few iterations of trial and error to find the correct amount of spice.

[suMMit]

9 minutes ago, alantin said:

ol. After only two lessons? I doubt it should be taken the wrong way..

But it doesn't surprise me that she dialed it down too much. Just need a few iterations of trial and error to find the correct amount of spice.

Yeah I agree. And a teacher should welcome constructive criticism. I welcome criticism of my Chinese - it stings a bit, but it does you good. And better for the teacher than the alternative which is the student just not booking another class.

 

One thing I failed to mention was that my plan is to give a list of recently learned words on a topic to a number of tutors(mostly on the low end of the price range). This way I sort of get different angles and lots of practice on the same words. I want to do this when I have free time, so not always the same day/time/teacher. However, I found this teacher quite interesting and would like to work with her more - as long as its not too far over my level.