4. Online and Offline Tutoring to Enhance Learners’ Capability in English

Introduction

English is considered as a dominant tool of communication in the present 21 century. The mastery of language will lead the country to the much awaited title of the developed nation. The modern technologies have the potential to transform the students from passive recipients of information into active participants. It is time that we move to create a comprehensive language learning system that leads to enhanced knowledge of the language and technology. The integration of computers into the communication environment is very essential. The technological advancements should be a part and parcel of any teaching programme. The on line tutoring is a new emerging field. This paper discusses the recent developments in the field of online tutoring.

Online Tutoring

There are many ways to use the technology for the welfare of the society. One such positive and effective way to use the technology in education is online tutoring. In online tutoring, there is wide scope for the resources used towards teaching. The term used for online teaching is ‘tutoring’. There are many countries which use this online tutoring sector as the part of their academics. Instead of a teacher teaching the students with all the examples and definition in his/her own method without much concern about the students capability, online tutoring focus on individual students. The learning capability of the every student will be different. It is not possible for the teacher to focus on a particular individual it might dissatisfy the other students if the teacher concentrates on a particular person.

Online tutoring is a wonderful way to focus on the student’s potential and diverts it towards the subject. For example, if a student is not sure about the topic, the tutor (teacher) starts with example and goes on with the definition. If the student is bright the tutor starts the topic with questions to get the knowledge about the topic from the student. The tutor uses the technique known as ‘brainstorming’ to get the knowledge about the topic. After educating the student with the topic, a test is given to check the students understanding towards the topic. The method of tutoring depends according to the student’s learning ability.

In online tutoring the topic will be taught with the interaction with the student in each and every step. The student will be cross checked by the tutor as often as possible to make sure the student’s concentration on the topic. This type of tutoring enhances the student skill sets and it is always possible to concentrate only on the weak area of the student. After identifying the weak area or the doubtful area of the student the tutor concentrates on that particular area of the topic and makes sure the student understood the topic. These are the two extremes in the level of the students.

If there is a student with normal learning capability then the tutor starts with pre-reading activity followed by the lesson then post reading activity to show the earlier knowledge in the subject and the knowledge acquired by the student.

There are many companies which carries the work of online tutoring to the students. The students are mostly from U.S. because there are only very few teachers. These teachers can be used to monitor the students rather teaching them so a large number of students can be benefited. Most of the schools opt for this online tutoring so it is easy for them to maintain the student’s record as far as their academics is concerned. The schools and parents can check their child’s academic performance using the reports submitted by the tutors.

In online tutoring the subjects are specific like English, Mathematics, etc so it is possible for a student to learn more subjects just like what he learns from the class. The difference between online tutoring and classroom teaching differs only towards the student’s perspective. The student will be more focused and will be learning the subject according to his learning ability. The students who use online tutoring as a method have showed and improved a lot in their academics.

Offline tutoring

When we talk about offline tutoring there are two types (i) Helping the students with their writing through writing lab (ii) Preparing contents (teaching materials) for the students for their academics which will be used by the teachers as teaching aids to teach the students.

Helping the students with their writing – means for example if the student has to submit an assignment to the teacher. He/She will be totally lost because they will be confused like how & where to start for the assignment. The tutor will guide the student like a mentor and explain him/her with the ways to go about to complete the assignment. The student will be sending the work to the tutor for check if it is in the right track. The tutor will be providing embedded comments to help the student identify and correct the errors, if any.

Preparing content for the students for their academic purpose – Here since the lack of technology the teacher uses a single computer to the entire class and uses projector to explain the topic. The teacher explains the topic to the students with the visual aids and makes sure everybody understands the topic.

Conclusion

The concept of online tutoring has broken the barriers of distance and time in the transmission of knowledge. Many developing countries are adopting the new system of on line tutoring. The world wide class room has come into existence due to the advent of the Internet. It is only a matter of time before the entire world adopts the new technology of on line tutoring.

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