British Kids + Online Tutors in India = Divided Opinions
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This is the VOA Special English Education Report.
India was once a [A]colony[/A] in the British Empire. But now Indian tutors are helping to teach math to some British children over high-speed Internet [A]connections[/A].
Early results suggest that online tutoring may improve student [A]performance[/A]. But not everyone is happy at this so-called [A]outsourcing[/A] of tutors.
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It's three thirty in the afternoon at Raynham Primary School in London. Students are [A]gathering[/A] for their after-school math lesson.
Five time zones and thousands of [A]kilometers[/A] away, their math tutors are also arriving for class.
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Each pupil gets an individual online tutor. The students work with [A]activities[/A] on their computer screen and wear a headset and [A]microphone[/A] to talk to their tutor.
Their classroom teacher, Altus Basson, says he has seen an [A]improvement [/A]in results.
ALTUS BASSON: " Children who struggle to focus in class focus a lot better on the [A]laptops[/A]."
Nine-year-old Samia Abdul-Kadir says she enjoys the online lessons.
SAMIA ABDUL-KADIR: "It helps me because sometimes when we're doing it in class, I don't hear the teacher very much and I don't [A]understand[/A], but online is better."
Her friend, Abdul-Fadil Badori, agrees.
ABDUL-FADIL BADORI: "Online, you can hear it, it's not shared by everyone, everyone has different [A]topics[/A] they're learning."
Tom Hooper started the company that [A]provides[/A] the online tutoring -- BrightSpark Education.
TOM HOOPER: "Children today feel very [A]confident[/A] online, they feel very engaged, they feel very in control. And that's half the battle with education. Give them control, make them feel confident and enjoy their learning and you'll see them start to improve and [A]embrace[/A] it."
Online tutoring costs between twenty and twenty-five dollars an hour. An online tutor is about half the cost of traditional face-to-face [A]coaching[/A].
But some people say an Internet [A]connection[/A] is not enough of a connection for teaching and learning. Kevin Courtney is deputy general [A]secretary[/A] of Britain's National Union of Teachers.
KEVIN COURTNEY: "We think there's something that's a really [A]important[/A] emotional connection between a teacher and a child, whether it's a whole class or whether it's one-to-one. You need that immediacy of feedback, and we're not [A]convinced[/A] that can happen across an Internet connection. In one of the wealthiest countries in the world, we think that we can afford to have [A]teachers[/A] with the genuine emotional connection there with the children."
BrightSpark Education says the online [A]tutoring[/A] is used only as an addition to supplement regular teaching. The company says its service does not [A]represent[/A] a threat to teachers' jobs in Britain.
Some parents say they are satisfied with the [A]results[/A]. And what about the children?
CHILDREN: "I love it!" "I love it!" "I hate maths!"
So math -- or, as the British call it, maths -- is still not everyone's favorite [A]subject[/A] even with the latest [A]technology[/A] to teach it.
