Frequently Asked Questions
1. Why is the tutorial named "Oxford"?
2. What is the minimum age for the tutorials?
3. How much time do the courses require outside of class?
4. Does Oxford follow a regular academic year?
6. How much do the courses cost?
7. What is Oxford's relation to Escondido Tutorial Service?
8. What software do you use for online tutorials?
9. What about grades/evaluation?
10. Do you offer summer classes?
11. What if my child is younger than the minimum age for Great Books?
12. What if my child is younger than the minimum age for Latin?
13. Where do I get the books that are required?
14. How do you choose the titles for Great Books?
15. How do you choose the titles for the other courses?
16. What are the hardware requirements for my computer setup?
17. May I substitute other editions or translations for textbooks?
19. Why Amazon.com? Can I purchase textbooks somewhere else?
21. Is there a discount for the second student in a family?
22. Who are the tutors at Oxford, and what is their experience and background?
23. Amazon says they do not have the book I need for one of your tutorials. What should I do?
24. Can my child enter Great Books 2 without having gone through Great Books 1?
26. I've set up my CU-SeeMe correctly, but still am having problems. What should I do?
Like many of the greatest universities in the world,
Oxford University was built
by the church as an explicitly Christian institution. Through the centuries
some of the greatest Christian minds have studied and taught there, including
C.S. Lewis, J.R.R.Tolkien, Dorothy Sayers, Charles Williams, William Tyndale,
John and Charles Wesley, George Whitefield, John Wycliff, and T. S. Eliot.
Oxford Tutorial Service takes its name from this noble tradition and seeks to
emulate its finest ideals of a Biblically-based, culturally-engaged scholarship.
Dr. Lund earned his Ph.D. at Wycliff College (named
for the Oxford reformer,
John Wycliff) at the University of Toronto, Canada, in the Toronto School of
Theology. He worked under the supervision of Dr. Oliver O'Donovan (now
Regius Professor of Moral Philosophy at Christ Church, Oxford), and Dr.
Harry McSorley (Professor of Theology at the University of St. Michaels,
Toronto). Dr. Lund offers his tutorials to students who are willing to devote
themselves to a course of serious liberal arts study before they enter college or
the world of employment and family. The tutorials seek to provide guidance in
the development of a culturally informed, Biblical foundation and worldview.
2. What is the minimum age for the tutorials?
Oxford tutorials are open to students aged 13 and up.
3. How much time do the courses require outside of class?
This depends on the student and the lesson, but students should expect to
spend an average of 3-5 hours per week for most of the tutorials. Latin
students should schedule at least one hour to two hours per day for their
Latin homework, including vocabulary study and memory drill (chanting
the verb conjugations and noun declensions). Course taken for credit
through Academy Northwest may require extra work and study time.
4. Does Oxford follow a regular academic year?
Yes. Classes begin with the first full week following Labor Day, and
end
with the last full week before Memorial Day (early Sept. to late May).
5. How long are the courses?
All tutorials (except Logic) meet once a week, for two hours, for two
semesters (one year). Logic meets once a week for one and-a-half
hours. Each semester averages 16 weeks of class.
6. How much do the courses cost?
Prices are subject to change. For 2007-2008 the Oxford tutorials are
being offered for $ 200.00 per/semester, with a $ 100.00 registration fee
per course. Deposits and tuition are non-refundable, except for course
cancellations by Oxford Tutorials, because of the limitations on class
size and server lease commitments.
7. What is Oxford's relation to Escondido Tutorial Service?
OTS and ETS are separate tutorial services. There are close
connections
between the services through personal friendships, as well as a business
relationship. Oxford rents server space from ETS to conduct tutorials,
and follows ETS technological protocols. Many students take classes
from both Oxford and ETS, and therefore we try to make things as
consistent as possible. However, all fees, registrations, course offerings,
syllabus decisions, course requirements, and questions are handled
separately.
8. What software do you use for online tutorials?
See the Software/Hardware page.
9. What about grades/evaluation?
In order to help parents establish grades for their students Oxford offers:
1) Graded essay evaluations in Great Books, Rhetoric, C.S. Lewis, J.R.R.
Tolkien and Shakespeare;
2) Weekly reading quizzes;
3) Graded exams in Latin and Logic;
4) Access to sources and answer keys for Latin and Logic;
5) Brief written evaluations and recommendations (upon request).
These services are meant to provide parents with the needed resources to
grade their students' weekly assignments and overall performance.
10. Do you offer summer classes?
No summer classes are scheduled at this time.
11. What about younger children who are good readers Great Books?
There are exceptions, but generally it's not a good idea to start students
in the tutorials much younger than the minimum suggested age. The
reason is that there are more things to consider than reading and
intellectual ability. Emotional and spiritual maturity move at different
rates than intellectual maturity, and many of the ideas and levels of
discussion involved in the tutorials require a bit more emotional and
spiritual stability than a younger child usually has, even if he has no
trouble actually reading the books.
12. What about younger children with language experience in Latin?
This is not as much a problem as the above; if a student is a year or so
younger than the suggested minimum age, but has done well in a fair
amount of introductory Latin, exceptions can sometimes be profitably
made. However, twelve is usually a fairly hard minimum for the
presentation in these courses for reasons of emotional maturity and
personal discipline.
13. Where do I get the books that are required?
Textbooks can be ordered through the Oxford
Bookstore. Most books
have direct links to Amazon.com. Just click on
the titles listed in the
course descriptions. Others can be ordered through Canon Press,
Moscow, Idaho. (See question/answer #23.)
14. How do you choose the titles for Great Books?
Primarily from comparing the lists of other teachers. There are many
different "great books" lists available--from libraries, high school and
university syllabi, internet study groups, books about greats books (such
as Mortimer Adler's "How to Read a Book"), and other great books
courses of various kinds. If one collates a random handful of these lists,
you find an 80-90% percent overlap, which means that there is a small
group of "great books" that everyone, everywhere recognizes as
foundational to the development of our western culture and the ideas
that have driven it (ignoring the relativist/multiculturalist attack on the
western "canon"). Many others have ably defended the idea of the Great
Books. I accept the argument and offer the course for others who do too.
15. How do you choose the titles for the other courses?
There is a fellowship of Christian tutors who compare and share resources.
Every attempt is made to find the most economical books with the best
translations and student resources. Textbooks are chosen both for clarity
of presentation for the students' sake, as well as for the ease of teaching
for the tutor.
16. What are the hardware requirements for my computer setup?
See the Software/Hardware page for
information on these and internet
connection questions.
17. May I substitute other editions or translations for required texts?
For most of the books, no. There are some that require a certain
translation
or edition because of its importance for ease of understanding or accuracy
of translation or because of the value of an editor's notes. In some case, yes,
although it's better not to, because the student will be hindered by not
having the same edition, and therefore the same page numbers or line
numbers, as the rest of the class. It is a burden for the student, his or her
classmates, and the tutor, to have to keep asking: "Where are we?" (when
the page numbers don't match, etc.)
Registration for the fall tutorials is open as soon as the new schedule has
been prepared, usually before April 1.
19. Why Amazon.com? Can't I purchase textbooks somewhere else?
Oxford's association with Amazon.com is a valuable one, for these reasons:
1) Amazon.com has very good discounts that make purchasing through them
attractive, even with shipping and handling;
2) Amazon.com is usually very fast in processing and delivering orders;
3) Oxford Tutorials gets a percentage of the sales on books ordered from
Amazon.com (usually 5-10%).
However, if you wish to buy some of the books elsewhere, follow the link
to the Amazon.com site and note the exact title, author or translator,
publishing company, and especially the ISBN number. Then you can use
the information to order through another book dealer, or even hunt for
the book in used book stores.
20. In ordering from Amazon, I follow your instructions,
putting an item in my
"shopping basket," returning to your book lists to select another, putting
that in the basket, etc; but when I'm ready to order, only the last item is in
the basket! What happened?
It's probably because you have a "no-cookie" option selected on
your browser.
That means when you leave Amazon.com, their system cannot save your
shopping cart with a cookie. If you have IE 4.0, you can enable cookies,
or be prompted before accepting them, under View | Internet Options |
Advanced | Security | Accept, Prompt, or Disable cookies.
If cookies are disabled on your browser, the only way my bookstore account
can receive credit is if you submit separate orders for each book. This is
inconvenient for you and costs you more in shipping, but is otherwise
satisfactory.
If you are concerned about "cookies" on your hard drive, set your
browser
to show an alert before accepting cookies. In IE 4.0, go to View |
Internet Options | Advanced | Security, then check "prompt before
accepting cookies". In Netscape, go to Options | Network Preferences |
Protocols, then check "show an alert before accepting cookies". This way,
when you are in a place like Amazon.com, you can accept the cookies
necessary to make a multiple-book order, then refuse them on other web sites.
21. Is there a discount for the second student in a family?
There is no discount policy, although exceptions may be made under special
circumstances. Every attempt is made to keep prices at a minimum.
22. Who is the tutor and what is his experience and background?
See: Who Is the Tutor?
23. Amazon says they do not have the book I need for one of your tutorials!
Please to me at nlund@oxfordtutorials.com
I should be able to provide you
with alternate sources for any of the books we use if Amazon can't.
24. Can my child enter Great Books 2 without Great Books 1 first?
Yes. In general, it is best to take the courses in sequence, but there
are other
factors to consider. Later literature is so dependent upon earlier literature, and
much of our discussion of later works presupposes familiarity with earlier works.
However, a number of students have taken the subjects in reverse order (i.e. GBT2
before GBT1), express a greater joy of discovery in their second year. Having
developed a curiosity in the one class, they are even more eager for answers in
the second.
25. I'm keeping records/transcripts of my child's high school work in
preparation
for college--how should I list the Oxford courses on the transcripts?
For suggestions about classifying the Oxford tutorials visit the Course Contracts
section of the website. Please note that the "Accreditation Option" has
been
discontinued until further notice. You may also contact the tutor directly for
further suggestions nlund@oxfordtutorials.com.
26. I've set up my computer correctly, but I'm still having problems!
First, even though you think you've set everything up
correctly, please go through
the Getting Your Computer Ready page again. Many times
it's simply one item that
you missed. Second, check all physical connections. Sometimes a mic is plugged into
the wrong jack on the back of your computer. Sometimes a mic or speaker wire is
simply loose. Check any on/off switches or volume controls on the mic or speakers
themselves. Make sure no mute buttons on your monitor or speakers are on.
Check
your system for firewalls. You may have to disable "Instant Messenger" and
"Net-
nanny" programs, etc. during the class sessions. If you use a Microsoft Windows
Operating System should can make "Exceptions" to the Windows Firewall in the
Control Panel.