John W.

I am a former student of Merton College, Oxford, where I studied English for BA (First class) and MSt (Distinction), and of Hertford College, Oxford, where I took the BCL postgraduate degree in Law (Distinction). My secondary school was Watford Grammar School for Boys. I have also have the Graduate Diploma in Law (Distinction), the equivalent of an undergraduate degree, from City Law School, University of London. 

Though I am new to this particular platform, I have been teaching, independently and sometimes within schools and universities, since 2013. Unlike many tutors, this is my full-time job, and will be for the foreseeable future.

My specialism: helping students at all levels with structured writing. This is a unique and important skill - knowing how to shape an essay is just as important as knowing what to put in it. It is also a skill which I think schools and universities often neglect. There is a strange and prevalent myth that it can’t be taught: that you can either write well, or you can’t. My view is that good essays can be reduced to a few simple techniques for setting out ideas clearly and in appropriate language. 

Many (though not all) students who contact me feel confident with content they they need to grasp, but, having received inconsistent or confusing advice from teachers and tutors, struggle with exam technique and written expression. I aim to prove that academic writing is best kept simple. The difficult things often fall surprisingly quickly and painlessly into place once the basics - basic research, essay planning, and critical thinking skills, plus basic grammar and expression - are all in place.

As for what a tutorial with me is like: I know that being in a one-on-one tutorial is very different to being at school. I sat in college tutorials myself all the way through university. I have no doubt that it is by far the best way for anyone to improve their understanding of their subject. People are social animals: we’re engaged by conversation, and we’re much better at memorising what we discuss than what we read. 

The easy part of my job is explaining ‘the material’ or ‘the facts’. And this is, in reality, a very small part of what happens in tutorials. They’re not lectures! Tutorials are really about looking at something together - a draft of an essay, a part of a set text, a past paper question, whatever it may be - and getting it under control. This is how confidence is built. I’ve taken all of the exams before (by now, you might say, many times over). Passing exams and getting the grades - these are important things. Often they’re priority number one, and the reason why I’m called in to help. But what I think this really involves is getting confident with the material, achieving what teachers sometimes call ‘mastery’. Examiners love confidence. If students can display in everything they do a confidence in their power over the material, the examiner will go along with them. This is as true for GCSE students as it is for undergraduates.

For this reason I put confidence- and skills-building at the centre of my approach. That is the challenging part of my job. I think that the extent to which a teacher can encourage self-assurance and intellectual independence in students… that is the difference between an experienced and committed tutor, and the many, many tutors who drift in and out of the job. 

To build this confidence, I try in tutorials to create a relaxed and informal environment. I’ve given thousands of hours of tutorials by this point, and I’ve put a lot of thought and practice into how to make them feel like natural conversations. Therefore I ask students to respond naturally and feel assured in their instincts (which are usually, I aim to prove, right anyway).