learning – Page 4 – Emma Williams: Latin tutor

One-to-one tuition

What is the benefit of working one-to-one with a student, and why does it trump group work every time? This is a question I have been pondering this week, as I listened to two podcasts aimed at private tutors, both released on the same day, both making the case for tutors like me to make the shift into setting up groups for online tuition. The podcasts were great. The group tuition model? I’m not so sure.

With the explosion of online tutoring into what amounts to one of the fastest-growing corners of the gig economy, I find myself and my recent career-change somewhat on trend. As usual, however, I also discover that I am swimming steadfastly against the tide. Well, thank goodness for that; being in the zeitgeist is definitely not something I’m used to and I’m more of a heckler than a celebrity.

Many online tutors are expanding their businesses into groupwork, to the extent that some are abandoning the one-to-one tuition model altogether. The reason seems obvious; as one parent pointed out to me when they first got in touch to seek help for their daughter, I could make a lot more money if I worked with several students in each slot. This does, of course, rely on there being a high-enough demand for a certain kind of tuition at a particular level: to be frank, in my rather niche subject – taught in only around 2.5% of state schools – I am not sure that’s ever going to be the case. I do have one group of three, which arose because a parent contacted me directly with the request that I work with three children of the same age who were all ab initio and wanted to learn together: in that circumstance, with three friends at the same level who are all keen to start a new project together, the model works very well and I’m enjoying it. But with remedial tutoring (by which I mean the process of supporting a student who has come to you because they are struggling), I have serious doubts. Firstly, I doubt that demand is high enough in my subject but secondly – and I am still idealistic enough to say more importantly – I do not believe that group tuition is a good model when it comes to making that kind of difference to an individual child’s progress.

One of the absolute joys in switching from classroom teaching to one-to-one tutoring is the incredible privilege of taking a child from the bottom of their class to the top. Taking a child who is failing and turning them into one who can achieve the highest of grades. Taking a child who hates your subject and turning them into a GCSE candidate. Taking a child who has been hiding at the back of their classroom for so long that they need a huge amount of coaching and coaxing before they find their feet. One parent told me that their child was coming home in tears after their Latin lessons because they simply had no idea what was going on in the class and had no idea how to access the learning; after working with me, that child went on to choose the subject at GCSE and achieve a very good grade. One of the client reviews I am proudest of reads “you have turned despair and dismay into enjoyment and enthusiasm”. Another says simply “your lessons were transformational.” None of this could be achieved without the one-to-one model. I stand by that. I simply cannot accept that you can take a child who is failing dismally in a subject and get them a top grade without working with them closely as an individual. It’s what tutoring is all about.

I have written before about the power of tuition and the overwhelming benefit which comes from the opportunity to delve in and unpick a student’s understanding – or rather their lack of it. A good tutor will uncover a whole raft of small misconceptions or gaps in a student’s knowledge within the first session. I likened a student’s developing knowledge of a subject to a wall; students who come to a tutor for help have often got bricks throughout that wall that are either misshapen or missing altogether, causing the whole structure to be at risk of collapse. One-to-one tutoring diagnoses the problems, finds the missing bricks and provides the repointing, replacement and reinforcement required. No amount of rhetoric will ever convince me that the same can be done in a small group. Of course, small group-work is great and you can achieve much more than can be achieved with a class of 30; but it still can’t beat the one-to-one model.

Quiet students can often suffer the most in the mainstream classroom – they can fall behind without being noticed or can have enormous potential in a subject – again, without being noticed. A good tutor (and indeed a good classroom teacher) is an excellent reader of body language. I’ve thought a lot in my work about non-verbal cues, those tiny indications that an individual student can give off when they’re not following something – a twitch of the mouth, a furrow of the brow. In a one-to-one session, that’s my cue to pause and rewind and it’s an absolute joy to be able to do so. In the classroom, not only did I not have the time to respond to every non-verbal cue but the reality of a large class meant that I more than likely missed the majority of them. Due to a quirk of timetabling which I won’t bore you with, I once ended up with an extra Year 9 class of 5 students. Yep. Five. I had another group of 24 and yet another of 28 and one of 5. Ask the previous Head why that ridiculous situation arose. Of course, the children in the group of five progressed – on average – better than those in the two larger groups. But it still wasn’t one-to-one tuition and they still didn’t progress as well as they would have done had each of them – in some kind of fantasy parallel universe – had a good private tutor as well.

I have no desire to stand in the way of progress and if enough online tutors are finding that there is enough demand for small-group tuition in their subject and can get decent results with that model then good luck to them. For me – and this is perhaps because I have spent far longer at the chalkface than any other professional tutor I have met so far, I do not believe my heart will ever be in it. I came into tutoring in the sure and certain belief that the one-to-one model is absolutely unbeatable when it comes to building a child’s confidence, tackling misconceptions, breaking down the mindset that they “can’t do it” and launching them onto a new path of success.

For me, nothing else will ever be as rewarding as that.

Long, lazy summers?

Is a child’s progress affected by the long summer break? Research seems to suggest that it is. Classroom teachers often report that some students struggle in their first few weeks back at school in the autumn. The phenomenon of summer learning loss means that young people lose academic skills and knowledge as a result of the long break.

Photo by Drew Perales, published on Unsplash

One obvious question is to consider why on earth it is that we have such a long summer holiday in the first place. A popular myth is that school children were let out of school over the summer so that they could help with the work in the fields. There seems to be no basis to this widely-held belief (I believed it myself for years).

The UK school system was in fact developed over the course of the 19th century, by which time English farms were rapidly becoming mechanised. Children being required to help with the harvest would only have been relevant to a vanishingly small percentage of the population and besides, anyone who knows anything about farming will tell you that a holiday ending at the start of September is not going to be of much use for bringing in the harvest, the bulk of which tends to happen in early autumn. Whatever the origin of the traditional six weeks off at the height of summer might be, it certainly wasn’t for agrarian purposes.

The educational tradition of a long summer break allowing for travel dates back to the concept of the Grand Tour, which in the 18th century was an important rite of passage for young men graduating from Oxford or Cambridge. The Grand Tour involved visiting classical sites, viewing great works of art and architecture, developing their language skills and cultural knowledge and collecting souvenirs; the whole process was seen as an extension of a young man’s cultural education and an essential part of their initiation into society. While the Grand Tour may seem like something from another era, its principles are still with us – what we do as tourists (visiting museums, buying souvenirs, practising our language skills and trying to absorb local culture) is strongly influenced by the aims of the 18th century; the enduring popularity of Paris, Rome, Florence and Venice as essential destinations for all perhaps betray the fact that we’re not as far from that mindset as we think we are. Given that the educational reform acts of the 19th century were driven in parliament by enlightened educational idealists, it seems plausible that they were (perhaps unwittingly) influenced by the notion that extended time for leisure and travel must be built into the academic timetable. Quite how they thought the working poor were going to access its benefits is anybody’s guess, but maybe they were able to see into the future and predict the advent of cheap flights in the 20th century.

But, I digress. The long summer holiday is here to stay and while there have been numerous calls over the years for the system to be adjusted, nobody has yet come up with a viable suggestion for how to make it happen. So here we are, with all students facing six to eight weeks out of school and the potential learning loss which comes with it.

Let’s look at what the research says about summer learning loss, which has been superbly summarised in a recent blog post by Innerdrive. They point out that according to a recent meta-analysis of 13 studies, which looked at over 50,000 students, children experience an average summer learning loss of around one month. But learning loss over the long summer holiday is neither inevitable nor insurmountable – not all students suffer from it. Therefore by taking some proactive steps and preventative planning, not only can summer learning loss can be minimised but the long stretch away from the classroom can be an opportunity for catch-up.

So what can families do to support their children during the long break? Without a doubt, the most powerful thing they can do is to read to and/or with their child. Children benefit in multiple ways from being read to. Adults reading aloud to children exposes them to material that may currently be beyond their reading age but to which they are able to respond; this helps to increase their vocabulary as well as their general exposure to literature and the wider world.

Many families like to make the most of the holiday to do more educational trips and visits; museums and galleries are much more child-friendly these days and most of them offer interactive workshops free of charge. While such experiences may not appear to support your child’s curriculum directly, you’d be amazed what a difference they make to a child’s general view of the world and their place within it.

There has been a notable increase in demand for summer catch-up sessions this year, and I wonder whether more and more families are taking action to counteract the various ways in which their children have suffered learning loss over the last two to three years. This summer I have several clients who have specifically sought out a tutor for intensive work during the summer holiday and this can certainly be a powerful way to make up for lost time. Parents can help with studies too by supporting their child when it comes to the rote learning; a tutor can do the complex work, demystifying a subject and identifying misconceptions, but the process of memorisation requires frequent repetition: unless you want to pay your tutor to meet with your child every day (or even several times a day!) this is where you come in. Ask your tutor to give you a copy of what your child should be learning and spring frequent quizzing upon them: there really is no substitute for regular, short bursts of retrieval.

Whatever decisions you make for your child during the long summer break, remember that learning in itself is a valuable and enriching process. Too many people remain convinced that children require a “complete break” from learning, as if learning in itself is a strain. The reality is that children are hard-wired to learn; asking them to continue to do a little bit of academic work is not going to ruin their life (although some teenagers may of course claim otherwise …).

Why is tutoring so effective?

As a teacher of 21 years as I have spent my day job teaching groups of 25, 30 or even more. I remain fascinated by the different dynamics of the one-to-one setting in comparison to the mainstream model.

One-to-one tutoring is remarkably powerful compared to what teachers can achieve in the mainstream classroom. As a tutor, I have taken students from the bottom of their class to the top; I have also witnessed other tutors do exactly the same for students who were at the bottom of my own classes. So what is it about what tutors do that can make us so effective?

The overwhelming benefit comes – in my opinion – from the opportunity to delve in and unpick a student’s understanding – or rather their lack of it. I usually uncover a whole raft of small misconceptions or gaps in a student’s knowledge within the first session. I imagine a student’s developing knowledge of a subject as like a wall; students who come to a tutor for help have often got bricks throughout that wall that are either misshapen or missing altogether, causing the whole structure to be at risk of collapse. This is where tutoring comes in: repointing, replacing and reinforcing the bricks as required.

During the process, a tutor can build a real relationship of trust. Some of these students are so convinced that they’re “rubbish” or simply can’t do it that the revelation that they can understand the concepts in front of them is remarkably powerful. It is not that a tutor necessarily knows their subject and better than the classroom teacher – it is the fact that a tutor has one-to=one time dedicated solely to one child’s needs; it is also that the tutor is (or should be) skilled in identifying and resolving a host of minor misconceptions or gaps in a child’s knowledge that are holding them back. The result can seem like a miracle.

There’s a lot of talk in education that teachers can and should be doing this – that through the right kind of differentiation every single child’s needs can be met by their classroom teacher. The truth? This is absolute nonsense. Of course classroom teachers can’t do that, as anyone who has been one will tell you. Of course children with particular needs can fall behind in the mainstream classroom – those who have missed a large amount of the curriculum through absence, those with SEND, those who have fallen behand for whatever reason and indeed those who are ahead of their peers.

Students who often suffer the most are the quiet ones – they can fall behind without being noticed; yet they can have enormous potential in a subject – again without being noticed. I’ve thought a lot in my work about non-verbal cues, those tiny indications that an individual student can give off when they’re not following something – a twitch of the mouth, a furrow of the brow. In tutoring, that’s the moment to pause and rewind: it’s an absolute joy to be able to do so. In the classroom, not only do I not have time to respond to every non-verbal cue but the reality is I am more than likely to miss the majority of them in the sea of 30 faces.

Like anything, there are of course downsides to the one to one setting as well as benefits. Tutoring can be at risk of lacking direction – you’re potentially not following a set curriculum, rather tailoring each session to the child, and as a result the sessions can seem to lack direction and it can be hard for inexperienced tutors to assess where to go next in terms of content. Similarly, how does one pitch one’s expectations and also how does one manage those of a client who’s paying for our services? Some parents see a tutor as the panacea for everything, not realising that what their child needs is – for example – some basic but regular help with learning their vocabulary. Of course, tutors can and should advise on the methodology, and there is definitely a place for a skilled subject-expert working on vocabulary with a child as part of their time together; but parents sometimes need to invest a little of their own time in their children’s progress too. Vocabulary learning should be done little and often (ideally in short bursts every single day); so unless you can afford to employ a full-time live-in tutor (and believe me, there are some families who actually do so!) then you need to spend some time on supporting your child with their learning.

One of the biggest issues to consider in the one-to -one setting is the risk of cognitive overload, especially in sessions lasting an hour. (I counsel clients against the hour-long model for this very reason). One-to-one tutoring is remarkably intense, both for the student and for the tutor, so we really do need to consider how to pace our sessions to mitigate against this. Cognitive overload is counter-productive and can make students even more anxious and overwhelmed; tutors need to consider how not to over-burden students’ working memory during the session whilst still keeping the level of challenge high.

I have enjoyed my 21 years at the chalkface immensely and my time in the mainstream classroom has gifted me with what I hope will be a long-lasting insight into the problems that my clients are facing when they come to me; it also grants me an insight into the challenges faced by teachers and my aim will always be to support them in the almost insurmountable challenges they face. Tutors should never undermine the classroom teacher, nor use resources that could ruin their lesson: there is nothing worse for a classroom teacher than handing out a resource and then hearing a child pipe up “I did this with my tutor at the weekend!” So don’t do that, please! In an ideal world, a tutor should be able to communicate with the classroom teacher to enable a powerful support network to form around a child who is struggling – I think we are a long way off teachers reaching that level of trust just yet (something I might explored in another post), but I hope to see it happen before the end of my career.

7 effective ways to learn Latin vocabulary

Learning vocabulary is essential to learning Latin and indeed any language. It might seem tempting to a student to leave the rote-learning of their vocabulary list until closer to the examination, on the grounds that in the meantime they can make use of it while they are studying. This is a huge mistake: by avoiding the process of rote-learning students are placing themselves in cognitive overload every time they pick up their text book.

Whenever you look a word up in a dictionary or on a vocabulary list, you are having to hold it in your working memory – just at the same time as you are grappling with a new grammar concept. Our working memory is extremely limited; at best guess, we can hold a small handful of things in our head at any one time, and over-taxing our working memory leads to cognitive overload. By contrast, our long-term memory is infinite – there truly is no limit to how much you can learn! It is therefore important to exploit our enormous capacity for long-term memorisation in order to free up the working memory to do what it needs to – tackle and understand new concepts.

If you’re really struggling with Latin grammar, it is worth asking yourself whether your lack of vocabulary is contributing to the problem. If your working memory is constantly overloaded, it will struggle to grasp new concepts. Learning your Latin vocabulary can help to alleviate the strain.

So, what is the best way to learn your Latin vocabulary? Fortunately, we know a great deal more about the process of memorisation than we used to, and more and more teachers are becoming research-informed about what works and what doesn’t. Let me explain what’s most important in the process:

1. Test, test and test again:

Even if you think you don’t know any of the Latin vocabulary in front of you, the first thing you should do is to cover up the meanings and begin by testing yourself. I know that might seem strange, but the process of testing forces your brain to concentrate. Just staring at a word and its meaning won’t work; you’ll find yourself thinking about the latest cat video or whatever else is more interesting! To succeed at memorisation, you need to engage with the process and the best way to force yourself to do so is to test yourself. For more on how to approach this, keep reading …

2. Test yourself on small amounts, little and often:

I cannot stress this enough. If your Latin teacher has set you 30 Latin words to learn over one week, you will need to tackle the task repeatedly. While for most homeworks you may be able to sit down and tick them off as done after an hour’s blitz, vocabulary learning should be done in short bursts: take 5-10 minutes once or twice a day and spend that time testing yourself. Start with 10 words. Then later that day or on the next day, return to those 10, adding another 5 words on top. Then repeat those 15 words, adding another 5 and so on. By the end of the week you should be confident. Why so much repetition? There is a reason, and here it is …

3. Be wary of the forgetting curve:

First posited by psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus at the end of the 19^th century, this memory model proved what we all know instinctively: that when you rote-learn a series of words very quickly, you forget them pretty quickly too. But do not despair! The process of well-spaced repetition strengthens the links your brain has made with what it is learning and lengthens the retention of vocabulary. In the graph below, the red line shows what happens when you learn a series of words in one sitting and then don’t look at them again – after 5 or 6 days, you’ll have forgotten the lot. But the green lines show what happens with repetitive revisiting: your recall strengthens with each sitting until – within the same period of time – your retention is almost perfect. The sobering lesson is: if you do your vocabulary learning in one sitting, one week later you will have completely wasted your time; instead, do it in short, spaced-out bursts, with “forgetting time” in between, and you’ll spend around the same amount of time in total but your recall will be close to perfect. (For more on the longterm effects of spaced learning, see this fantastic post from InnerDrive on how quickly students forget things). For more on the value of forgetting time, see my blog post on this topic.

4. Make intelligent use of flashcards:

Flashcards are an outstanding tool when it comes to learning your Latin vocabulary. You can use the traditional method of physical cards or an online version, which has the advantage of speed and efficiency. Personally, I am a huge fan of Quizlet, and you can gain access to my own flashcards here. What do I mean by intelligent use of them? Well …

Firstly, don’t spend hours making them look pretty, especially not drawing lovely pictures all over them. Many people confuse the evidence-informed method of dual coding (the process of combining words with visual stimulus, either through the use of images or diagrams, like the one above) with the idea of simply putting a nice picture on their work. In reality, the use of images has close to zero impact on students’ ability to learn vocabulary, which if you’re not careful can turn into a ridiculous game of “say what you see.” For example, if I show you the Latin word “femina” with a cartoon picture of a woman next to it, I’ll place a bet you’ll be able to tell me that the word means “woman”. But what have you learned? Well frankly, nothing. You’ve recognised a picture of a woman, which a two-year-old can do. Much better to consider the meaning of the word “feminine” and fix the Latin word in your head through the understanding of derivatives (of which more later).

Secondly, make sure that you’re using the flashcards to test yourself (a process called retrieval), not to reassure yourself through recognition. Research shows that one of the biggest mistakes students make is to turn the cards over too swiftly; students become convinced that they know the meanings of the words when in fact they are merely recognising the answers – and it can be surprisingly difficult to discipline yourself out of this habit. Guard against it by using different activities on Quizlet such as the “learn” feature: these force you to type in your answer. With physical flashcards, consider getting someone else to test you so they’re in charge of the flip!

Thirdly, another temptation is to keep testing yourself on the familiar words (we all like to feel comfortable!) Remember, flashcards are a tool to help you to learn the words you don’t know, so separate out the ones that you’ve gained confidence with and spend longer on the ones you’re struggling to recognise. That said, another mistake students make is to overestimate their level of confidence with words they have recently learned, so make sure you revisit the “no problem” pile a couple of times before you decide that the words have really stuck in your longterm memory.

Finally, shuffle the deck. This is hugely important. Your brain works by mapping links between the things that it is learning; as a result, it has a strong tendency to remember things in order, so the danger with learning several words at once is you will remember them only in order. You must constantly shuffle the deck to ensure that this isn’t happening, or you’ll never recognise the words out of context.

5. Focus on derivatives:

Not only does this help with vocabulary learning, it will develop your knowledge and understanding of your own language and any other language(s) that you are learning. Furthermore, it will consolidate your learning because your brain will be linking its newfound knowledge to prior and future learning – and this all helps with its innate mapping skills! So, do you know the word “procrastinate”? (If you don’t know the word, I bet you’re a past master at doing it!) When you learn the meaning of “cras” (tomorrow), reflect on the meaning of “putting something off until tomorrow”. Likewise from the Latin “donum” (gift) we get words like “donate” and “donation”. If you’re learning Spanish or French there will be infinite links between those languages and Latin: the French for “son” is “fils” from the Latin “filius”. The Spanish for “always” is “siempre” from the Latin “semper”. The list is endless and should help you with all of your studies.

A good tactic as you gain confidence is to select a passage from your text book that you have translated in the past and attempt it without reference to your vocabulary lists. Highlight any words that trip you up and take note of them. If you’re working towards an examination, make sure that you’re using a book tailored to the vocabulary from the examination board’s list, for example Latin to GCSE by Henry Cullen and John Taylor or Latin for Common Entrance by NRR Oulton.

6. Don’t shy away from the principal parts:

To master your vocabulary in full, you need to recognise words in their different forms. For example, if you learn the word “rex” meaning “king” but you don’t make yourself aware that as it declines, the stem changes to “reg-“, you may struggle to recognise it in any other case, for example the accusative (regem). The good news is that the different parts of your Latin words will in fact often give you the derivative: for example, we get the word “regal” from the stem “reg-“ rather than its original form of “rex”. Likewise, check out the principal parts of the verb “traho”, to “drag”: traho, trahere, traxi, tractum – from which we get words like “traction” (the act of pulling/dragging something) and hence “tractor” (literally, a vehicle that pulls!)

7. Focus on high-frequency words:

Consult past papers and practice papers written by the Chief Examiner to create a shortlist of the most important words to know. Don’t know how to do that or don’t know where to start? Well, if you’re working towards the OCR GCSE then you’re very much in luck: you’ll find my flashcards for the list of high-frequency words right here!