Today I watched a tutoring session where David, the tutor, was helping a Year 10 girl with her trigonometry work. Right from the start, the atmosphere felt relaxed. David has a calm, friendly way of talking that makes it easy for students to ask questions without feeling embarrassed. He began by asking her what she already knew about sine, cosine, and tangent. She gave a few unsure answers, and instead of correcting her straight away, he used her responses to figure out where to start.
He drew a simple right-angled triangle and asked her to label the opposite, adjacent, and hypotenuse. She hesitated a bit, but he didn’t rush her. Whenever she got stuck, he guided her with little hints rather than just telling her the answer. Once she labelled the triangle correctly, he explained each trig ratio, writing out the formulas clearly and showing her how they connected back to the triangle. His explanations were simple and made everything feel less intimidating.
As they moved on, he gave her some practice questions. David encouraged her to talk through her thinking while she worked them out. This helped him spot exactly where she was getting confused. When she made mistakes—like mixing up the opposite and adjacent sides—he didn’t make a big deal out of it. Instead, he drew another triangle and even used a real-life example about finding the height of a tree to help the idea stick.
Throughout the session, David stayed patient and positive. He repeated things when she needed it and celebrated the small wins, which seemed to boost her confidence. By the end, she looked much more comfortable with the topic. She was able to work out missing side lengths using sine, cosine, and tangent, and she even tried some harder angle-finding questions with only a little help.
Watching David work showed me how helpful it is to keep explanations clear and use visuals when teaching trig. Most of all, I noticed how much difference a calm, encouraging tutor can make. The session felt supportive, steady, and focused, and the student clearly benefited from it.
Maria