Rostov English Tutor's Frustrations with Students and Exams

The heroine of our story is an English tutor from Rostov with eight years of experience. She says she loves working with children, but unstable income, preparation for the Unified State Exam, and parental irresponsibility make her doubt her work. What infuriates the tutor — in another episode of the series “What’s Boiling Over”.

«Parents Don’t Care If the Child Has a Lesson or Not»

Let’s start with my personal pain — lack of stability, lack of consistency. The most infuriating thing is last-minute cancellations.

When children are on vacation, they continue to study with a tutor, but they still have more free time. Children don’t manage it well. Therefore, during vacations, every second child forgets about the lesson.

There was another case when two of my students went on vacation with their parents and forgot to notify me. I found out about it when I wrote to their mom complaining that the girls weren’t connecting to the lesson. It turns out that the mom delegated the task of notifying the tutor to the children. But you can’t rely on children in such matters. I believe it’s the parent’s responsibility to write and notify. It’s not difficult at all.

I have another student who constantly forgets about the lessons. We always hold them on the same day, at the same time. But she forgets about it. I’ve talked to her mom many times, and it hasn’t had any effect. Parents don’t care if the child has a lesson or not. They just forget, which is unimaginable to me. How can an adult, responsible for a child, forget that for many months on a certain day the child has a lesson?

And, of course, I always have to make concessions because this is my income. I have to find a slot to conduct the lesson, often at the expense of my own plans.

«Lessons Are Less Effective When Homework Isn’t Done»

It infuriates me when homework isn’t done. Moreover, this “affliction” affects not only children but also adult students (the author conducts lessons for children and adults. — Ed.). It’s understandable that children have other tutors and school classes.

I have students whose entire day is scheduled. They have no free time; everything is planned to the minute. They go from one sports section to another, then to school, then home, study with one tutor, then another, and a third. I understand that it’s hard to find time for homework.

Nevertheless, both children and adults don’t understand that lessons are less effective when they don’t do homework.

It’s also annoying that there is absolutely no parental control over their children. I’m not calling for monitoring every step of the child. But if a tutor frequently reports that the child systematically doesn’t do homework, it’s worth paying attention to.

«When Exams Start, I Start Shaking»

The Unified State Exam in all its forms irritates me. It’s an absolutely stupid system that in no way reflects real knowledge. It’s just drilling teenagers to perform template tasks.

School doesn’t prepare for the Unified State Exam at all. I’ve heard the opinion that when creating the USE, they base it on the knowledge given in specialized schools where many hours are devoted to core subjects. This is inaccessible to children from regular schools.

Often, when people come to me for USE preparation, it’s not the child’s own decision. I had a student whose mom wanted her daughter to become a linguist. The girl found it hard to study, she protested against enrolling. The lessons stopped.

Often, people seek USE preparation late. I had a student who had six months left before the exams. He had a decent level of knowledge, but insufficient for the USE. He did okay, but could have achieved better results if the lessons had started earlier.

There’s another example. One student came to me a year before the exams. Her knowledge was weak. There were obvious problems with learning the subject. But intensive lessons led to her scoring 70 points on the USE. This is an amazing result, considering that a year before she understood nothing about the subject.

Overall, the USE is a big stress. Every year, when exams start, I start shaking. I remember how I took the USE myself. I start having sleep problems before my students’ exams. Until the results are announced, I have internal tension, I can’t calm my nervousness.

Therefore, this year I didn’t take students for USE preparation. When I remember the exam period, everything inside me clenches, I just can’t.

Now I only take students for Basic State Exam preparation. Preparing for the BSE is much easier. There isn’t such a serious grading system, children are required to have a lower level of knowledge. Much calmer.

Authoritarian Moms with Unrealistic Expectations

Some parents infuriate me. Many of them have unrealistic expectations. When your child just starts learning English, in two months they won’t be speaking it fluently.

I haven’t had conflicts with parents, but I feel pressure. Sometimes they write: “What can we do to learn English faster?” Nothing. You can’t just “upload” knowledge into a child in a short time. Only if they’re a genius. But children often aren’t geniuses. Plus, they have other activities and things to do.

There’s another separate category of parents — authoritarian ones. It’s almost always moms who force children to study against their will. There was one student who dreamed of becoming a programmer. But his mom thought it was nonsense. Instead of computer science, she brought him to me for English lessons. I tried to make assignments related to programming topics to at least somewhat interest the child. But often children sit without any emotions, nothing sticks in their heads because they’re not interested. When I see this, I can’t stand it and tell the parents that it’s better to pay attention to the child’s interests.

Another category of parents are those who bring children to a tutor to have homework done with them. It might seem there’s nothing wrong with that. Parents might not know English, but they want the child to have good grades. Or they don’t have time to help with homework. But such a system doesn’t work with all schools and teachers. Homework might be done well, but in class the child will perform poorly, and the grades will still be low.

In schools, children are really given a lot of homework. In a 50-minute lesson, we only have time to do the homework, but not to prepare for a test or go over some topic. The child doesn’t learn the language just by doing homework.

Unfortunately, parents often don’t realize this. Hence the failing grades on tests, lack of understanding of the foreign language. But then the mom will want to send this child to study philology because they “studied English” for many, many years.