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Tutor Trouble

daboyfergie

I'm doing finance at the moment. As this year counts for 50% of my degree, I have decided to go to some lectures. However the tutor taking my finance tutorial does not have the basic English necessary to explain the subject; her delivery was barely audible and incomprehensible. She was'nt even using the same book that our whole year was instructed to buy. In fact the whole tutorial was nearly a waste of time. Is anyone else unimpressed with the teaching standards in UCD.

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r3nu4l

Many tutors are pursuing either a masters or PhD degree and as such, departments often 'require' that they conduct tutorials. For many tutors this is great because they get some extra cash but for others it's a nightmare because it takes up valuable time they could use to do their research. For others still, they know that their English may not be up to scratch and are embarrassed by the fact that they are intelligent people but have to struggle to get the material across in another non-native language.

If I were you I would complain not about the Tutor but that the department are providing tutors who through no fault of their own are unable to communicate the materials properly. Your tutor may not be too happy about having to do the tutorials either

This is not just a problem in UCD, it's the same in any University or 3rd level institution in the country.

Jonny Arson

i had a similar issue in a lab yesterday asking the instructor (Chinese i think) for help and i couldn't understand a word he was saying, bit of a nightmare tbh

from my experience as a rep, departments do like hear feedback on tutorials and how the tutors are performing and engaging with the students so they can improve standards as tutors have sweet FA supervision in the tutorial room

i'd probably feel apprehensive myself about 'complaining' about a tutor's lack of English but at the end of the day it's your (and your classmates) education here and if it's impacting upon your ability to learn i don't think you have much choice but to contact the module/year co-ordinator and discuss the issue

The_Minister

I had the same thing with a Chinese tutor. It's a right pain in the ass.

remus808

Although my tutors speak proper english, I still find to Tutorials to be useless, disjointed affairs. None of them seem to know what's being covered in class for a start.

redcar

Your doing finance, as in finance with Jimmy O'Neil finance?

If so talk to him about it or go to another tutorial.

Red Alert

Just to give some perspective on this - yes it's right as they said above, pretty much all postgrads are required to do some teaching duties. These can be labs, tutorials or other stuff such as being available for US-style office hours to answer questions.

In my case I've to demonstrate for roughly three hours once a week. This will be my second year doing demonstrating officially, although I was helping out (as gubbie will confirm!) in some of the labs that were to do with my final year project when i was in 4th year. At least most people who demonstrate labs aren't on their own so it's easier to get the hang of initially - I can see alright that facing a tutorial group on your own could be a bit daunting.

It might be a good idea to try approaching your tutor about your tutor's inability to communicate. A lot of people don't know how loud or soft their voice actually is. But this depends on whether you think they'd be receptive to some feedback. Certainly if the situation doesn't improve you should bring the matter to the attention to the module co-ordinator. The department could possibly reshuffle the tutors or give her some basic guidance on tutoring skills.

In postgrad, particularly once you get beyond your first year you've to be able to stand up and present your work at conferences - to both people who know much less about your area of work and people who know a lot more. It's really boring to be at one and sit through what possibly is a very interesting piece of work where the person does little more than read the slides or mumble. For international conferences the universal language in engineering mostly is English - in time you'd probably be doing this person a favour to complain either to them or to the module coordinator.

Paul Tergat

If it is with Jimmy O'Neill then I would strongly advise you to go to the external tutor (or get the notes from him). he's very good and those who go to him all recommend him.

Red Alert

What's an external tutor?

Pythia

Peter something isn't it? The external tutor, ie the grinds guy.
The guy who does all the BComm subjets.

When I did Finance two years ago, I had a tutor from China. She was awful. She couldn't speak English properly or pronounce the words. The tutorials were also a waste of time.
Luckily, Jimmy does a 'Professor's Special Lecture' at the end of the year, so you should be ok!

Assets Model

I'm doing an MA and noone is required to do tutorials. I'm not doing them as I reckon I would be ****. Complain to the dept those tutors are getting 31euro an hour to be crap.

the evil lime

Yeah, my finance tutor couldn't speak much English either...

Paul Tergat

Pythia wrote:

Peter something isn't it? The external tutor, ie the grinds guy.
The guy who does all the BComm subjets.

When I did Finance two years ago, I had a tutor from China. She was awful. She couldn't speak English properly or pronounce the words. The tutorials were also a waste of time.
Luckily, Jimmy does a 'Professor's Special Lecture' at the end of the year, so you should be ok!

yeah thats him, i think he lectures at DCU or something.

big hints are given at the end of the year!

m1ke

Many of the tutors that I know are gifted teachers, highly qualified, experienced and well respected by their students. Unfortunately, I also know tutors, lecturers and professors who vary from mediocre to terrible at teaching.

I think you should complain if you come across someone who is not teaching or lecturing well, as it will effect your education. Just make sure that your complaint is very well founded. Also, if you're not a good student (poor attendance, don't hand in assignments etc...) then your complaint will carry a lot less weight.

One final thing, remember that academics don't receive any training for this part of their job (except for perhaps a short seminar on teaching). So be gentle and give new tutors a chance to get to grips with teaching, especially at this time of year when many will be doing it for the first time. However, if it is clear that they are not preparing in advance or are obviously not suitable for the job... don't accept this.

nellybelly

Assets Model wrote:

....Complain to the dept those tutors are getting 31euro an hour to be crap.

more like €42ish. I was asked to do some of these...but tutoring BComm corp finance is something i would definitely rather avoid...and i could use money!

If you're having a problem with whoever it is, complain to jimmy o'neill or your own admin staff. Otherwise, put up with it. The course is really not too bad anyway.

besty

I'd also recommend Peter Brady for finance grinds. I got them back in 2nd year and got a first in the subject. I'm not mathematically inclined so it just goes to show that he's good at what he does. That combined with, as Pythia says, the special review lecture, you'll be fine. Make sure you do the coursework too - easy marks. From what I've heard, he doesn't even check it in any substantial way, he just checks to make sure you've submitted something.

smallthing

Hi! the best thing to do with any problems like this is to speak to ur class rep! I've recently been elected as 3rd science class rep and one of our jobs is to help students deal with these kind of problems! If you let me know exactly what course you're doing I can find out who your class rep is or alternatively if you go and talk to the education officer, Ronan, in the SU corridor he'll be able to help you!

remus808

smallthing wrote:

Hi! the best thing to do with any problems like this is to speak to ur class rep! I've recently been elected as 3rd science class rep and one of our jobs is to help students deal with these kind of problems! If you let me know exactly what course you're doing I can find out who your class rep is or alternatively if you go and talk to the education officer, Ronan, in the SU corridor he'll be able to help you!

Yeah your dead right. I'm a class rep also (BA CompSci), and if anyone has any academic problems you should notify your class rep, who can work with the Education Officer and staff to solve student's problems. Reps can sit on Staff-Student boards, and can really get staff to sit up and take notice of problems such as poor tutors!