IGCSE English Tutors for First Language 0500, 0990 and Edexcel

Fluency and marks are different things. First Language English does not test whether a student speaks well; it tests whether they can explain the effect of a writer's word choice, compress a passage into a set number of words in their own phrasing, and write to a stated audience and purpose. Confident speakers often write the way they talk, which reads as unstructured on the page. Plenty of native speakers sit in the middle bands until somebody shows them what each question is actually paying for.

It asks the student to select powerful words or phrases from a passage and explain the effect they create. Most students lose marks by naming the device instead of explaining it, writing something like "this is a metaphor which makes it more interesting". The credit lies in the picture the word builds and the impression it leaves on the reader. A top-band answer can be written without using the word metaphor at all, and we drill exactly that until it becomes the student's default.

The one printed on your school's entry form or exam timetable, not the one on the textbook. Cambridge First Language English is commonly 0500, with 0990 as the 9 to 1 version and 0522 and 0524 as regional variants; Pearson Edexcel runs separate International GCSE English Language routes. Literature in English, usually 0475 or 0992, is a different qualification. The code determines the paper styles a tutor prepares for, so a wrong code costs real time.

First Language English works with unseen passages the student has never read before and with writing the student produces themselves, marked on reading comprehension, summary, directed writing and composition. Literature in English, 0475 or 0992, works with set texts studied over two years, plus unseen poetry or prose, and is marked on argument about character, theme, structure and language, supported by quotation. Many students take both. They need different preparation, and we plan them separately rather than folding one into the other.

No, and this is not negotiable. IB Gram tutors coach; they never write, complete, rewrite or co-author a coursework piece, and they will not hand over a paragraph to be pasted in. What a tutor does is unpack the brief before drafting, ask questions about a draft the student has already written, teach the specific skill the draft is missing, and let the student redraft it themselves. The portfolio is submitted as the student's own work and is moderated as such.

By building the calendar backwards from your school's submission dates. Portfolio work drifts precisely because nothing forces it, so the first session on this route usually produces a written schedule covering each piece, the drafting stage it needs to reach each fortnight, and the student's other subject deadlines sitting alongside it. After that the tutoring is skill work on drafts the student has written, in the order the school requires them, not a rush at the end.

Usually one of two things. Either they write attractively around the topic and miss points that were sitting in the passage waiting to be retrieved, or they find the points but reproduce the passage's own wording and lose the credit for using their own. The cure is unromantic: hunt points with a pen first, delete anything repeating a point already marked, then write continuous prose and count the words. Counting matters, because the word limit is a marked condition of the task.

Whichever they demonstrably write better, which is often not the one they prefer. Most students default to narrative and then run out of words for a plot they cannot resolve, ending with a twist or a dream that markers have seen thousands of times. Descriptive writing needs no plot but does need a shape, and it rewards the precise vocabulary and sentence control the reading paper already trains. We have the student write one of each, mark both, and choose on evidence.

Only in India, and only where a suitable tutor is genuinely free near you at the time you ask. Availability is densest in Gurugram, South and South-West Delhi, Noida, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune and Chennai, and it changes from month to month. Outside India, every session is online, because our tutors are based in India and we do not run centres or branches abroad. Tell us your city and area and you will get a straight answer rather than a maybe.

Around text on a shared screen. The tutor annotates the passage live, marks up where a summary should have found points, and puts two versions of the same paragraph next to each other so the student sees the difference rather than hears about it. Written work is submitted typed or photographed if handwritten, and returned with comments on specific sentences. Sessions are scheduled in your own time zone anywhere in the world, so a Dubai or Singapore family keeps a normal evening.

Different enough to need retraining rather than revision. Students arriving from those boards are often used to answers that reproduce learned content accurately and are rewarded for it. First Language English asks for the student's own words about an unseen passage they have never studied, and gives marks for explanation, selection and register rather than for recall. The transition usually takes a term of deliberate work, and it is much easier in Grade 9 than in the middle of Grade 11.

We do not publish a price list, because the figure moves with the tutor's experience and tier, the student's grade, whether marking of full papers is included and how often you meet. You get a specific quotation in writing before anything is booked, so you can compare it against other options without pressure. The trial session is free. Nobody is asked to commit to a package before a tutor has read the student's writing and you have seen the written feedback.

No. Nobody honestly can, and a service that promises it is telling you what you want to hear. English is marked by a person reading prose against criteria, and the final mark depends on the paper, the student's day and the work they do between sessions. What we commit to is specific and checkable: written feedback after every session, marking that points at particular sentences, and a tutor changed at our cost if the match is not working.

Normally before the next session, which is the point of it. A composition or directed writing task written during the week comes back with comments attached to specific sentences, an indication of where the piece sits against the criteria, and one or two things to change in the next attempt. Marking that arrives three weeks later teaches very little, because the student no longer remembers the decisions they made while writing it.

Where the school enters candidates for it, yes, but check with the department first, because whether it is offered and how it is reported varies by school and by series. Practically, the work involves choosing a topic with enough substance to sustain discussion, planning the individual talk so it has structure rather than a list, and rehearsing the conversation that follows. It is coaching in delivery and organisation, and the performance itself remains entirely the student's own.

The syllabus code, the student's grade, whether the school assesses writing by examination or by coursework portfolio, and a photograph of the most recent marked piece of work. That script is the useful part, because it shows a tutor where marks were available and not taken. Add your city and time zone if you are outside India, plus two windows in your week that would suit. Email ibgram24@gmail.com or WhatsApp +91 7439 368 115.