Tutor interview questions and answers

I spend the first session on a diagnosis, not teaching. For a Class 9 maths student, I give a short paper of twelve questions from earlier classes: fractions, integers, linear equations and basic geometry. I ask the student to talk through two answers so I can see how they think. I also look at the latest school test and ask what they find hardest. From this I make a one-page plan listing gaps in order of priority. I share it with the parent at the end, so they know why we might spend two weeks on basics first.

I keep the student doing something every few minutes. I use a digital whiteboard and hand the pen to the student to solve steps while I watch. I ask them to hold their notebook to the camera after each sum. Sessions are sixty minutes but split into three parts: review of homework, new concept, and timed practice. I keep the camera on and ask the student to do the same. For a Class 7 student who kept drifting, I added a five-question quiz on a quiz app at the end of each class, and her attention improved noticeably.

I teach physics and maths for Classes 9 to 12 in CBSE and the state board, and physics for ICSE Classes 9 and 10. CBSE uses NCERT books, so I follow NCERT examples closely and add exemplar problems for stronger students. The state board textbook in my area covers some topics in a different order and the papers have more direct questions, so I focus on definitions and derivations there. ICSE physics goes deeper into some practical topics. Before starting with any student I ask for the school’s syllabus split and last test paper.

I keep a simple progress sheet for each student with the date, topic, homework status and score in a monthly test I set. Every month I send parents a short message: what we covered, the test score compared to last month, and one thing to work on at home. I also note school test marks when the student shares them. For one Class 10 student, the sheet showed her algebra score go from 9 to 17 out of 20 over three months, while geometry stayed low, so the parent understood why I then shifted time to geometry.

By then the syllabus should be finished, so the focus shifts to practice under exam conditions. I give one full sample paper every week, timed at three hours, and mark it against the official marking scheme so the student sees where step marks are lost. Between papers we revise weak chapters using past questions. I teach a plan for the paper: read it fully in the first fifteen minutes, attempt the sure questions first, and leave ten minutes to check. For the last week we only revise formulas, diagrams and mistakes from their own sample papers.

In a batch of eight to ten, I teach the core concept to everyone for the first twenty minutes. Then I give tiered worksheets: level one for basics, level two for standard board questions, and level three for challenging problems. Students start at the level I assign based on the last test and move up when they get four in a row right. I spend most of the practice time with level one students. If the gap is too wide for a month, I suggest moving a student to a different batch or adding a short extra session.

If the problem is “A shirt costs 800 rupees after a 20 percent discount; find the marked price,” I would first ask the student what 20 percent discount means. Then I would say: the selling price is 80 percent of the marked price, because 100 minus 20 is 80. So 80 percent of the marked price is 800. One percent is 800 divided by 80, which is 10, so the full 100 percent is 1,000 rupees. I would then ask the student to check by taking 20 percent off 1,000 and seeing that they get 800.

I keep tuition homework short and targeted: usually six to eight questions that should take twenty minutes. Half are on the day’s topic and half are revision of a weak area from earlier weeks, because spaced practice helps retention. I avoid repeating what the school has already given. I ask students to mark each question as easy, okay or hard, which tells me where to start the next class. If a student misses homework twice, I ask about their week before assuming laziness; often it is a school project deadline.

I check the board’s website at the start of each academic year for syllabus changes and new sample papers. I solve the latest sample paper myself before teaching it, which shows me any new question types. I am in two online groups of teachers who share school test papers from different schools, and I solve a few each week. As a recent graduate I also revise a chapter from a higher class each month, so I understand where today’s topic leads. That helps me answer the “why do we learn this” question students often ask.

I would start with problems I am sure they can solve, so the first session ends with success. Then I find the real gap, which is often something from two or three classes earlier like negative numbers or fractions. I fix that first with short practice. I point out progress with evidence: “Last week you got two of these right, today you got five.” When I tutored my neighbour’s son in Class 6 during college, he stopped saying he was bad at maths after about a month, once he saw his own test go from 11 to 18 out of 25.

For home tuition I prefer to teach in a common area of the house, with a parent or family member at home. Online, I send class links to the parent’s number, not only the child’s, and I do not chat privately with students on personal social media. I keep the camera on and never ask a student to switch theirs off. Schedule changes and fees go through the parent. If a student ever shares something worrying about safety, I would tell the parent or, if the concern involves the family, a proper authority, rather than keep it secret.

A Class 11 student came to me after scoring 22 out of 70 in her first physics test. She could manage formulas but not word problems. I noticed she skipped drawing diagrams, so for every problem we first drew the situation and listed known and unknown values. We did twenty minutes of this each session for six weeks, plus a weekly timed test. Her half-yearly score was 41, and in the annual exam she scored 55. More importantly, she started asking me “can I try it first” instead of waiting for me to solve it.

A mother called to say her son’s school marks had not improved after two months of tuition and she was thinking of stopping. I asked for the actual test papers. They showed his concepts had improved but he was losing marks for incomplete working and poor handwriting. I explained this, showed her my monthly test scores, which had gone up, and proposed that each session end with ten minutes of timed writing practice. I also started sending her a short weekly update. In the next school test his marks rose by eight, and she continued the tuition.

I was teaching moles in chemistry to a Class 11 student and my definition-based explanation left him blank after three tries. I stopped and asked him how shops sell eggs. He said by the dozen. I explained that a mole is just a chemist’s dozen, a fixed count of particles, only a very large number. Then we converted grams to moles using that idea with actual salt and sugar packets from his kitchen. He solved the next four problems alone. Since then I keep at least one everyday analogy ready for every abstract chapter.

During exam season I had fourteen students, and two schools announced extra classes that clashed with my evening slots. I made a shared weekly timetable, asked each parent for their fixed constraints, and moved three students to a weekend morning batch. For two students who could not shift, I offered forty-five-minute online sessions at 8 pm instead of an hour in person. I sent the new timetable to all parents in one message with a clear start date. Nobody missed more than one session, and I did not have to drop any student.

While tutoring a Class 8 boy during my college years, he came without books twice and kept checking his phone. I asked him what he actually enjoyed, and he said cricket. I started using cricket examples for averages and run rates, and I agreed with him that the phone would stay in his bag until the last five minutes. I also told him plainly that I would inform his mother if homework was missed again, and I did once. After a few weeks he was bringing homework and even set me a cricket-based problem.

I once taught a Class 10 student a shortcut for a trigonometry identity and later realised I had written one sign wrong on the board. She had used it in homework. In the next session I told her directly that I had made a mistake, showed the correct working, and asked her to redo those three problems. I also used it as a lesson on why checking with a simple value like 30 degrees can catch sign errors. She said it made her less afraid of making mistakes herself, and I now double-check shortcuts before teaching them.

For one-to-one Class 10 maths and science, I currently charge 600 rupees per hour at home and 500 per hour online, billed monthly in advance. For small batches of up to six students, I charge 3,000 per student per month for three sessions a week. For your centre, since you provide the students, space and materials, I would expect a per-hour rate of around 700 for senior batches, or a fixed monthly amount if the schedule is fixed. I am open to a trial month at a lower rate so we can judge the fit.

I have taught home tuition for three years, and the limit for me is the number of students I can reach in one city. Your platform teaches small online groups with a fixed curriculum and regular tests, which matches how I already work with monthly progress checks. I also like that you provide content, so I can spend my time on teaching and feedback instead of making worksheets from scratch. I can offer twenty hours a week, mostly evenings and weekends, and I would like to grow into a senior tutor or content reviewer role.

On weekdays I am available from 4 pm to 9 pm, and on Saturdays and Sundays from 9 am to 1 pm. That gives about twenty-five hours a week. During December to February, when board exams are close, I can add two extra evening slots and a Sunday afternoon for doubt sessions, because I plan my other commitments around that period. The only fixed break I take is one week in May. If a batch timing needs to change, I would like at least a week’s notice so I can inform my other students properly.