Category Archives: English as a second language (ESL)

Tutoring is a way of life in some cultures, including South Korea.  There children go to school for six to eight hours during the day, 220 days a year, and then they go to a tutor for another four to six hours in the evening.  Estimates are that Korean children spend up to 13 hours a day being educated, almost half of that time in the largest private tutoring system in the world. 

The cost is high.  Some Korean parents spend up to half their income on their children’s education, leaving them little money for other expenses.  It also has increased the debt of private citizens.

So why do parents in South Korea use private tutoring?

• Dissatisfaction with the fairly uniform curriculum available to Korean students;
• A desire for their children to be accepted at top universities;
• The option for students to study subjects they cannot get in school;
• The opportunity for students to receive excellent educations, leading to excellent jobs.

In the U.S., Korean parents continue using tutoring services.  They rarely cancel a tutoring lesson, and when they do, they make it up.  Often, they help their children with math and science homework, but use private tutors for English and social studies.

But in the U.S., many non-Asian parents balk at using tutors. Why?  They might think that

• tutoring is elitist;
• tutoring stresses children;
• tutoring leads a child to believe he is deficient and cannot learn on his own;
• tutoring usurps the time when children should be playing;
• tutoring interferes with organized sports programs;
• tutoring interrupts the time when parents might want to chill out after work.

Yet when you look at the valedictorians and salutatorians of our high schools, or at a breakdown of student backgrounds at excellent universities, you find many privately tutored students of Asian background.

One way of looking at extracurricular learning is that it can add months of learning to each year of a child’s education.  I have personally seen four-year-olds, who don’t know their ABC’s, start working with a private tutor and by the end of kindergarten—after working one hour a week, year-round—able to read at third or fourth grade levels and easily qualify for gifted programs in their public schools.

Should you hire a tutor for your child?  I cannot answer that, but I know that your child will be competing for scholarships, a place in college, and good jobs with children like your neighbors who are being tutored.  –Mrs. K

Many parents have their child participate in after-school sports for hours a day. They will drive many miles to have the child on the elite team or with the best coach.  They will send their child to sports camps and even hire a personal trainer. They’ll fly across the country for gymnastics meets or baseball world series.  They do not consider the athletic endeavors to be stressful, yet those same parents may never consider hiring an academic tutor.  In our typical American culture, too much time spent on academics is considered stressful.  Yet, a child who does better in school may be less stressed at school.  It is a complicated issue.  –Mrs. A

Tutoring is a multi-billion dollar industry in the U.S., so your neighbor joins plenty of other parents in using tutoring services. I work as a private tutor, and I have tutored four-year-olds in how to read. Good idea? Bad idea? It depends.

Parents hire reading tutors for many reasons:

• Many foreign-born parents speak English as a second language. They want their children to learn reading, vocabulary and pronunciation from a native English speaker.
• Other parents want their children to be the best in the class and can afford to pay for that excellence.
• Some children are poorly organized and benefit from systematic instruction.
• Some children have no one at home to help them. The tutor takes on that role.
• Some parents hire a tutor as a babysitter—someone to develop a relationship with the child and keep the child occupied in useful tasks while the parent is working.
• Some students have genuine learning problems—dyslexia, for example. The sooner the problem is identified and the sooner the child works with an expert, the more likely the child will keep up with classmates and learn ways to overcome her disabilities

In many Asian countries, using tutors is customary. When parents move to the U.S., they bring that custom with them. In some immigrant communities, almost all the children are tutored, so the children assume that tutoring is normal. Their parents are often engineers or doctors, and expect the same careers for their children. What gave the parents an edge in Korea, Taiwan, India or Shanghai is what they want for their children in the U.S.

One of the most compelling reasons for tutoring is the amount of extra education it gives a child. A four-year-old who is tutored only during the weeks when school is not in session gains 16 weeks a year of ongoing education. Multiply those 16 weeks by kindergarten, first grade and second grade, and that child will have studied a year more than her classmates when she starts third grade. A year more of education at a time in life when learning is so essential!

One grandmother I know said when her son was young, he struggled learning how to read. By first grade he was already behind and feeling overwhelmed. This grandmother helped her son with his homework, but it was always a struggle. If she had it to do over, she says, she certainly would get him a tutor, and enroll him in a structured summer program. Now it is 25 years later and she sees the same learning style in her grandson. She has recommended that her son hire a tutor for the boy, and he agrees.

Should your child be tutored? If it is just to keep up with the neighbor, maybe not. Talk to his preschool teacher. Read with him yourself. Not every child needs to be tutored, especially those who have an involved parent. I never had an outside tutor, but I had a wonderful mother who read to me every day and helped me with my homework. Don’t underestimate your capabilities or your influence. After all, most of the learning your child has done until now has been with you as his teacher.