Devdos, aged 15, seemed to be an intelligent boy, but he had low motivation; he was clearly quite clever, but he paid no attention to his studies. His parents were at their wits ends to know what to do and a friend of theirs had hired a tutor from Tutors from England and they decided to give that a try and I was sent out to live with the family for three months. 

Usually low motivation happens in a child when he or she is unlucky enough never to have had a really inspirational teacher; one often hears adults refer to a particular teacher at one of their schools who was particularly inspirational. Apparently Devdos had never come across one and he lacked any motivation in his studies, so he was an easy pupil to convert to being motivated. 

I started by playing with Devdos the sports that he liked, going to the films that he wanted to see and generally having fun with him. We got on very well and he came to like me very much. Once he saw me as a fun person instead of just a teacher, he opened up to me and the ideas I was trying to convey. By being around him all day long, I naturally had tremendous influence over him.  Only then did I start tutoring him in the subjects in which he had got behind at school; he became very motivated and worked hard at them so that I was quickly able to bring him up to the standard that he should have reached at the end of the previous term at school.

Frankly Devdos was a very easy pupil to teach, easy to motivate, easy to inspire. I understand from his parents that he has flourished at school since I left. MR