Hey guys I'm an year 11 student this year and I was wondering how I should be preparing for next year English.
I feel that my language is pretty good, but I always stuff up because I'm not prepared for the topic given to us on the assessment task.
Should I be writing an essay each week? How do I improve my ability to understand texts and write for any prompt?
I also feel like I need a very good English tutor. If anyone knows an English Tutor in South eastern suburbs, could you please help me out? Thank you.
Why aren't you prepared for the topic? Is it simply a lack of knowledge and understanding about your texts? Are you exploring them in depth enough? Say you're studying
Medea and you have a great understanding of passion/rage/revenge/etc and you know you can write anything on those topics, but then you get to the exam and it's asking you about how gender is explored in the play and you have no idea. Is it like this, or something else? If this is the case then you just need to work on understanding your texts better. Read them and reread them, use resources (mind maps, flash cards, etc) to connect and develop ideas. If you know your text well you should see improvement.
Writing an essay a week can't hurt and it would be helpful with any upcoming SACs and end of Year 11 exams. It might also be helpful though to write paragraphs, intros, conclusions (whatever you're struggling with). Don't feel like you need to write an entire essay just yet. Basically, whilst its great to employ these sort of study habits and whatnot early, you don't want to burn yourself out before Year 12 even starts. And obviously its important you have a good understanding of the novel and its themes/characters/etc before you start writing essays.
For tutoring, although I do think that you can do well enough without one if you and your teacher are willing to put in the work, if you absolutely feel like you need one then I'd recommend taking a look at the following websites:
http://www.gumtree.com.au/http://www.tutorfinder.com.au/region/melbourne/http://bettereducation.com.au/tutor/melbourne/tutors.aspxATARNotes actually does have its own section of awesome tutors but it doesn't look like its up at the moment. If you're willing to wait a bit though maybe keep an eye out.