There are ONLY 3 types of Tutoring Activities

Learning is the application of knowledge and skills. Once you’ve ascertained what your student knows and can do, and what knowledge and skills they need to acquire next, there are only three categories of tutoring activities to plan. Most of your tutoring sessions will include a combination of all three.

These 3 types of tutoring activities are: 

• Introducing knowledge/skills activities
• Applying knowledge/ skills activities
• Recalling knowledge/ skills activities

For example:

Let’s say you’re working on a modern foreign language. You might:

Start with a quiz to get your student to recall previous vocab. 

Then introduce them to a new set of words. 

Lastly, you could ask them to apply the new words to a conversation or piece of translation.

Or if you’re tutoring GCSE English, you could:

• Recall the plot of the set text.
• Introduce some new essay-writing techniques
• Apply the new techniques to respond to an essay question on the plot.

Once you realise that whatever you’re doing as a tutor will always be either introduction application or recall, you can plan specific activities with a lot more clarity and ease.

Can you think of any exceptions to our 3 Tutoring Activities rule?