Tag: Memory

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 19th 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!