Exeter University Undergraduate providing English GCSE Literature and Language tuition

I study English and Film and Television Studies at the University of Exeter.

I have been tutoring in different capacities for the past two and a half years. I started out working in a tutoring centre for children aged 4-14, helping them with English and Maths. I then worked at an 11+ tuition company as a tutor, which involved teaching classes of up to 15 children. I have privately tutored various students in English Literature/Language and RE over the past two years.

I absolutely love tutoring and find it highly rewarding to witness students grow in confidence and ability. I pride myself on creating an engaging and relaxed environment, meaning my students feel comfortable to ask for help and be honest about what areas they find challenging. I strongly believe everyone has the ability to succeed in English and it is a lack of confidence that holds many back, therefore one of my priorities is always to help cultivate a positive mindset in my students and show them their true potential.

I always tailor the tutoring to the specific student because we all learn differently. In our first lesson, I have a detailed discussion with the student to find out what areas of English they are struggling with - skills, exam technique, specific texts etc. - and figure out how we can work through these weaknesses together.

Many of my sessions follow the structure of looking at an exemplar answer, then planning and writing a response to a practise question together. Showing students exemplar answers is one of my favourite tools as it gives them an idea of what they need to do to meet the requirement of the mark scheme. I break down the paragraphs sentence by sentence, highlighting which assessment objectives have been met and explaining why.

When it comes to writing a response, I give students the options of writing everything themselves or having me write the first paragraph (explaining my thought process aloud as I go) to give them a guide for writing the second and third. I always maintain a dialogue while the student is writing: I give help whenever required and give running feedback on their successes and points for improvement.

More content based lessons could involve annotating poetry on the whiteboard, talking through my lists of key quotes for characters/themes or zooming in on important moments from the texts that could be referred to in the exam.