GOLD COAST ENGLISH TUTOR

Primary English is often more focused on the technical aspects of the English language like reading and writing. You will see stories broken down by what was written and how the author did so, with less of a focus on why the author did so.

Success in this period greatly shapes whether a student will perceive themselves as ‘English-Brained’, or not ‘English-Brained’. The reason for this is that more complicated writing techniques are extremely difficult to implement if a student lacks the foundational knowledge such as grammar, structure, and vocabulary.

Since English can be such a multi-skill subject, our tutors try to work backward. This can be done by using an old piece of work and seeing common mistakes students can make. The one on one nature of tutoring lets your child learn at their own pace.

High School English looks to go beyond just teaching students how to communicate effectively. It attempts to instill a sense of creative thinking and explores new ways of thinking. This is also where student’s work will start to require stylistic skills in their writing to achieve higher results. Typically, students will be asked to complete analytical essays, un-seen essays, and speeches on a variety of texts.

Often the issues students face in this subject are the perceived ambiguity of the subject. For instance, while in math 1+1 will always equal 2, English as a subject can and will ask for personal opinions to be backed by evidence. This means multiple different answers can be correct.

The key to this is helping to provide structure and rationale to the assessments. This is to help students feel that the end result is not a completely random outcome.

English Extension is a notoriously difficult subject. It covers many different technical and theoretical approaches that can be used to explore and evaluate literary texts.

The problems in English extension are somewhat different to normal senior English. Put simply, English Extension is more like math in that it has definitive correct/incorrect answers. This is because the content is often split into learning theories of English text. The use of many different theories can become complex if a student falls behind.

Tutoring for this subject usually involves clarifying specific theories. This often includes giving insight into specific literary works.

History can often be underestimated by students, but can be a very worthwhile subject to learn. Primarily split into tests, assignments, and speeches, modern history requires that students understand the what, how, and why of historical events.

The most common issues for students with modern history is misunderstanding what is most important about the subject. We often hear students characterise history as just “remembering names and dates“. While this may be due to the way they were taught, the real core of History is the exploration of the minds of people who were at the center of major historical events. More importantly, understanding why they did what they did.

Once a Stress Less tutor can help a student understand this difference, we tend to see a greater appreciation for the subject and a change in their overall performance.