Solveig K.

I'm Solveig, currently going into my third year of studying English at Oxford University. I have been tutoring over the past 3-4 years, at a variety of levels and abilities, and am familiar with (from learning myself, and teaching) Edexcel A level and GCSE, and AQA GCSE English. I also have experience of helping a university applicant (now studying English at Cambridge) with the interview process, and with recent experience of going through this process myself am in a good position to guide others through the Oxbridge admissions process, from personal statement and ELAT to interviews. I am eager to tutor students who enjoy English and want to achieve the top grades, as well as students who struggle with English to help them get to grips with the subject and get the best grade they can, and make sure they are getting the most they can out of the subject. 

What I find most important as a starting point in a tutoring session is that the student is able to engage with the text we are looking at, in order to then be able to get to grips with the exam questions they are expected to be able to answer. I believe that the best way to tutor someone in English (and this goes for admissions tutoring too) is to encourage and train them to approach a text - and a question - through their own thoughts and feelings about it, and in this way the text will become something that works for them and not against them when it comes to answering exam questions about it. 

My approach to a tutoring session is usually to start with a general conversation about the part of the text we are looking at, helping the student develop their ideas about it, and then going on to looking at a particular question, and discussing how to use what we have discovered about the text to formulate an answer. Once we have a plan, I will go on to discuss various ways to make an answer clear, precise and developed - and how to apply this to the question we are looking at - before returning again to the text and picking up and analysing details we might have missed before.

I believe that through my approach, which is largely based around the text, I am able to give students a valuable route into exam questions as well as into the subject itself, and I believe that looking at the text first and foremost and then going on to discuss essay and exam technique is the best way of giving each student (whatever their ability or interest in the subject) a chance to understand the subject in the way that most suits them, because the work we produce together will essentially be led by their own thoughts and ideas, and will give them confidence which I have found to be invaluable when you reach a hurdle in an exam or when writing an essay.