Some young family members have tutors, during part of the year. We have noticed they go backwards, while going to their private school. Their parents asked for help hiring a local tutor/tutors.

Other than placing an ad for retired teachers, looking to teach young kids, any suggestions?

Part of the parents' frustration, is the local school does not make the kids work. Their foreign tutors do.

How would I ask if the teacher is willing to make the children work?

What subjects are you kids falling behind in?

Are the tutors foreign because it is language based?

I'm editing my post in hopes of just answering your question.

What I have noticed in the past (I know MANY tutors and nannies because of my job and wife) is that if a parent needs the tutor to "make, or be hard" on a child then that means the parent is usually NOT doing their part and it is a "no-win" for the tutor or nanny. The ones I know would like to avoid working for parents that makes those type requests.

College students as tutors works.

They aren’t behind, at all, by the standards of the school they attend. They are behind in the expectations we have of them.

The foreign tutors teach them in Russian. I think we have found one to teach them in Spanish.

Ideally, I’d like to find another to teach them in German, but that could be hard to find.

quote:

Originally posted by Aglifter:
They aren’t behind, at all, by the standards of the school they attend. They are behind in the expectations we have of them.

The foreign tutors teach them in Russian. I think we have found one to teach them in Spanish.

Ideally, I’d like to find another to teach them in German, but that could be hard to find.

Okay okay that makes more sense now.

I will say that based of my language learning and attending a school that did nothing but taught language. The culture of the language taught will dictate that demeanor of the teacher.

Our teachers were native Korean, guess what you did after 8 hours of language class? 4 hours of homework, and if you turned down the extra hour of speaking practice you were a POS. Nobody likes an "Asian F" student. And anything less than a 100% is trash.

Meanwhile the Hebrew class had pot lucks every Friday and perhaps 2 hours of homework weekly.

The other 8 or so languages were somewhere in between. Also, the Korean teachers were most often taught to be teachers and had a degree in teaching or similar. While a portion of the Arabic teachers were simply immigrants who speak the language but may not be the best at teaching to native English speakers. So verify credentials.

So keep that in mind, native speakers will make the best tutors but they will not always be the same as the other tutors.

quote:

Originally posted by OttoSig:
So keep that in mind, native speakers will make the best tutors but they will not always be the same as the other tutors.

Potentially.

But keep in mind that a native South American Spanish speaker may or may not be a good tutor for formal/classical Spanish.

And native German speakers from Switzerland can be unintelligible to some Germans.

Hell, how many rednecks do you know that are native English speakers but you wouldn't want them tutoring your kid in English.

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:

quote:

Originally posted by OttoSig:
So keep that in mind, native speakers will make the best tutors but they will not always be the same as the other tutors.

Potentially.

But keep in mind that a native South American Spanish speaker may or may not be a good tutor for formal/classical Spanish.

And native German speakers from Switzerland can be unintelligible to some Germans.

Hell, how many rednecks do you know that are native English speakers but you wouldn't want them tutoring your kid in English.

You right, however, typically when one teaches a foreign language you will teach the "standard" of that language unless a dialect is required or preferred. Being a southern person myself I wouldn't teach them southern words or southern dialect. I think a Columbus, OH accent is considered "Standard American accent" so quite possibly that vocabulary also, though I'm not sure about that.

But more to my point, Native speakers are the only ones that can teach you the subtle differences in words. No matter what part of the country you are from you should be able to tell me the difference between careless/reckless or country/nation.

In my example, the little nuances of the Korean language are hard for many Koreans. There is NO way someone who speaks it as a second language could answer the same questions.

As an example, I recently had to ask several people the difference between two version of "to view" in Korean, both mean to view something and the difference was hard to explain but there is definitely a different feeling when a native speak hears them. One if viewing a movie, the other is viewing a natural event usually scientific in nature such as an eclipse. Subtle and usually only known by native speakers.

This is all caveated by my stated that not all native speakers are as good at teaching as the other. Some are trained to teach, some are not.

Any idea how Guatemalans would be, for Spanish? I'm probably biased - I'd prefer Argentinian or Chilean, but there's a woman who was a college professor in Guatemala, before becoming an elementary school teacher in the US.

If I can remember enough, I will talk to her in Spanish - I should be able to judge pronunciation, but I doubt I remember enough to judge grammar and diction.

quote:

Originally posted by Aglifter:
Any idea how Guatemalans would be, for Spanish? I'm probably biased - I'd prefer Argentinian or Chilean, but there's a woman who was a college professor in Guatemala, before becoming an elementary school teacher in the US.

If I can remember enough, I will talk to her in Spanish - I should be able to judge pronunciation, but I doubt I remember enough to judge grammar and diction.

My wife is Honduran and while not Guatemalan it's close in my experience. Some vocabulary will be different from say Mexico or Spain or Columbia, I don't think you can avoid that with a widely used language such as Spanish.

Just based off her education and work history I would hope she teaches proper Spanish (Proper for her region that is)

Don't get me started on how hard it is to learn the differences in Latin foods in Honduras and nearby countries after growing up in Florida!!!

Keep in mind too that even if their Spanish isn't like others, it doesn't matter. My Korean will never be fluent. But I still benefit the same as someone who is.

My wife speaks Honduran spanish, she can go to ANY spanish speaking country and understand perfectly and converse just fine. She gets by really easily in Portugese and Italian speaking locations. All from knowing "Honduran" Spanish.