Looking for O-Level English Tuition in Singapore?
Distinction Tutors has a wide database of O-Level English tutors, which ensures that we only recommend the most suitable tutor for each student.
Importance of O-Level English Tuition
The English language skills picked up while students study for O-Level English will be useful whether students decide to go to Junior College (JC) or Polytechnics.
All students will need to take General Paper or Knowledge and Inquiry in JC, and both these subjects require a strong grounding in O-Level English. Students will also fall back on their essay writing skills while writing reports in Polytechnics. Hence, scoring well for O-Level English and building a good foundation for further education is essential for all secondary school students.
A student’s O-Level English score will also be taken into account for their L1R4/L1R5, which ultimately determines which school or course they can get into. The L1 component of L1R4/L1R5 represents the English grade. A student’s O-Level English grade will also be considered as proof for proficiency in English during university applications to some Western countries.
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Common problems faced when studying O-Level English
Nervousness for the Oral Communication Paper
The most feared paper for O-Level English is probably the oral communication paper. The oral communication paper is not particularly demanding, and students who have a natural ability to speak well usually excel at this paper. However, students who are easily nervous or not used to speaking proper English in a formal setting often struggle badly. This is not because students are innately bad at oral communication.
It is usually more of a vicious cycle where student’s nervousness causes them to make blunders, and these blunders cause students to become even more nervous, resulting in even more blunders. O-Level English tuition will provide students the opportunity to practice speaking in a formal environment to overcome their initial nervousness.
Lack of Content for Expository and Argumentative Essays
Students are required to learn how to write expository and argumentative essays in addition to descriptive essays to prepare for their O-Level Paper 1 Section C, which is the continuous writing paper. Three out of four questions in this section are asking for an expository or argumentative essay, hence it is crucial that students are familiar with these formats and able to generate a variety of content for such questions.
However, a common problem faced by O-Level students is not knowing what examples to use, and how to elaborate on these examples in order to argue their point. Students can use models like PEEL (Point, Example, Elaboration, Link) to have more structure for their essay, and use SPERMS (Social, Political, Economic, Religious, Media, Science) to generate a wide variety of examples across different fields.
Problems with Summary
The summary question in Paper 2 is a relatively new type of question that O-Level English students may not be used to. It requires students to find points in a comprehension passage that answer the summary question and reword these points more concisely such that the entire summary is only 80 words. O-Level English students are usually able to find all the relevant points in the passage. However, students struggle to paraphrase these points in a short and succinct manner. O-Level English students are usually unable to fit all the points into 80 words and end up leaving out a few relevant points.
What to look for in an O-Level English Tutor
Able to Identify Student’s Weaknesses
Different students will be weak at different aspects of the O-Level English examination. Some students have more common weaknesses, like oral communication or continuous writing, whereas others may have rarer weaknesses like listening comprehension. It is important for an O-Level English tutor to identify any weaknesses promptly, no matter what the weakness is. O-Level English tuition teachers should then develop a targeted approach by focusing more on improving the student’s weakness.
Provide Notes and Recommended Answers
It often takes O-Level English students lots of time to find a “model answer” by themselves. For example, students may need to comb through numerous online articles to find an example that is relevant to a science and technology essay. It would benefit students greatly if private O-Level English tutors can filter out the irrelevant information for the student, providing students a list of examples and explanations for each essay topic.
O-Level English home tutors can also provide a recommended format and detailed notes for the comprehension, situational writing, and oral communication aspects of the O-Level English examination.
Qualified to Teach O-Level English
It is crucial that the O-Level English tutor has the right qualifications to teach O-Level English. At Distinction Tutors, we only recommend O-Level English tutors with a certain amount of experience teaching tuition, or ex-students that have graduated with stellar results. This is to ensure that each O-Level English tutor matched with students is capable and qualified to teach O-Level English.
- Submit your request online or call us!
- +65 8875 1100
- Tutor Request Form
Benefits of O-Level English Tuition
Having a strong grounding in O-Level English will be useful to students whether they decide to go to Junior College or Polytechnic. The argumentative essay, summary, and comprehension aspects of the O-Level paper will be tested in a similar format in the JC General Paper examination, albeit at a higher difficulty.
The oral communication aspect of O-Level English will be useful to JC students in their oral presentation component of the Project Work examination, and to polytechnic students in their group presentations. Having a capable O-Level English tutor will allow students to build a stronger foundation in all aspects of O-Level English, which will enable students to do better in further education.
All our O-Level English tutors conduct English tuition on a one-to-one basis and from the comfort of the student’s own home. As lessons are one-to-one, last minute changes to schedule are more easily accommodated as long as both student and tutor agree to the change. Having lessons from the student’s own home is also much more convenient for the student as compared to having the student go to a tuition centre. This can save the student travelling time which could be used for more meaningful pursuits.
The aim of O-Level English tuition is ultimately for students to score better at their O Level English examination. Distinction Tutors helps students have greater confidence of an A1 by only employing the best O-Level English tutors. Our tutors have proven results, with many of our students scoring an A1 at their O-Level English examination.
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Distinction Tutors can help
We believe in results at Distinction Tutors. This belief is shared by our O-Level English tutors, who have generated proven results, with many of our students obtaining an A1 at their O-Level English examination. Contact us today to find out more!