Honestly, as long as you can articulate notes accurately its more whatever works for you. Getting the notes to speak when you want it to is all that really matters, so just practice all different ways to find whats comfortable for you, but don't take the easy way out. Listen to your teachers and practice hard at what they tell you, because if it doesnt feel right at first doesnt mean you shouldnt try to get used to it.

Learning to tongue in different ways will help you in your musical experiences. When you say "tip of your tongue" do you literally curve it upwards to touch the tip or are we talking about the top side of the tip. I use the part that touches the roof of your mouth when you pronouce "T" or "ta" It sounds like the technique that your new teacher is showing you is "ghosting". You must still use the first way when playing in a jazz ensemble. It is the best way to cleanly toungue notes especially all of the capped, short accents in a big band setting. The "ghosting" technique is a way that some people learned how to articulate swing eighths. I learned it early on in my studies and use it occasionally but really haven't found a need for it often. It's more of an effect when you want to "ghost" or partially hide the sound of a note. Some also call it "muffle tonguing". It can aid in eighth note swing because you can ghost all of the downbeat eighth notes in a running line of eighth notes and let the upbeats sound clear which gives a swing feel. Or you can hide certain pickup notes in a line and then really accent the note that the line ends or holds on. Bird did this often. The swing feel is also achieved by simply tongue accenting eighth note upbeats and slurring them into downbeat to de-emphasize them downbeats. This gives a "doo-bah, doo-bah" swing feeling to swung eighth notes. This method is much more accurate than teaching young players to think of the swung eighth notes as two triplet eighth notes tied together followed by a third triplet eighth which is tongued. The triplet method is only an accurate model in very slow swing tempos. It only makes a player sound ricky-ticky at medium or fast tempos. A lot goes into articulation in jazz. Most players that I work with use the first method of tonguing that I described. The second way is valid in a few situations so you should definitely add it to your arsenal. Bird tongued like this a lot. I think listening to the differences between him and Sonny Stitt could show you the clarity difference between regular and "ghost" tonguing. Both have their place musically but the first method is adaptable to more situations. Good Luck, Kristy