English Tutoring in Carcavelos

About our service in Carcavelos

We start with the structure of an academic argument, since that is where the great majority of marks are lost. A paragraph makes one claim, supports it with evidence, acknowledges the limits of that evidence and connects to the next claim. Students who write fluently but associatively, moving from one interesting observation to another, produce work that reads well and scores poorly. Rebuilding this takes a handful of assignments with detailed correction, and the improvement is permanent because what changes is how the student plans rather than how they write. Most of the work happens before the first sentence is typed. The second area is register and hedging, which in academic English carries real meaning. Academic writing distinguishes between what the evidence shows, what it suggests and what might be the case, and students whose first language handles this differently often write far more confidently than their evidence allows. That reads as naivety to a marker. We work on the vocabulary of qualification until the strength of each claim matches the strength of its support, which is a small change with a surprisingly large effect on how the work is received by a marker. The third is referencing and presenting. Citation conventions are entirely mechanical and are penalised heavily when ignored, which makes them an unnecessary way to lose marks. We go through the style the course requires once, properly, including how to cite a source inside a sentence, and the problem disappears for good. Presentations get the same treatment as writing: structure, signposting and the question session, practised rather than discussed, with the tutor interrupting and asking awkward questions. Anyone who has been through that a few times finds the real thing considerably less alarming. We work Monday to Saturday, 9am to 8pm, and we are closed on Sunday.

In Carcavelos, English tutoring usually covers:

Services Included

• The structure of academic argument, paragraph by paragraph
• Hedging and register, so claims match the evidence behind them
• Detailed correction of real assignments rather than invented exercises
• Citation conventions in the style the course requires
• Presentation structure, signposting and the question session

Areas We Serve

We cover Carcavelos and the surrounding area: Parede, São Domingos de Rana, Cascais, Estoril, Oeiras, Caxias and Paço de Arcos.

Work Gallery