From a lesson PDF to a published check before the student leaves the room

The session

Mateo is an adult learner. He's been in the country two years, his English is good enough to work in, and the thing holding him back is the one that holds most Spanish speakers back: the present perfect. He says "I have seen him yesterday" and "Did you ever go to Sydney?" and he knows something is off but not what.

Our session is four to five on a Thursday. The lesson is one I've taught many times and rebuilt for him: a three-page handout, saved as a PDF, with the rule, six examples drawn from his own sentences, and three short exercises. Nothing clever. The whole hour is about one distinction: a finished time in the past takes the past simple; a time that reaches up to now takes the present perfect.

What follows is what happened between 4:46 and 5:00, with the clock in the margin, because the question people ask me most is "how long does it actually take?". The answer is about twelve minutes, and three of them are mine.

Check: What single distinction was the whole lesson about?

4:46, the PDF goes in

Mateo is on exercise C, the last one, and he'll be at it for four or five minutes. That's my window.

I give the page two things. The lesson PDF, which it hasn't seen before, and one line about what I want: six questions, present perfect against past simple, aimed at the mistakes Spanish speakers make, two of them written answers.

The line matters more than the PDF. The PDF tells the agent what the lesson contains. The line tells it what I taught, and who to. Without it I'd get questions about the handout. With it I get questions about Mateo. I've learnt to write that line the way I'd brief a colleague covering my class: the topic, the learner, the mistakes to go after, how many questions.

Check: Why does the one-line brief matter more than the PDF itself?

4:48, reading the draft

The draft arrives: eight questions, not six, which is fine, because I'm about to cut.

I read it the same way every time, in the same order, and it takes about three minutes.

1. Is any answer wrong? First and only thing I check on the first pass. One question has a correct answer marked on an option that is actually fine English in a different context. Flagged.
2. Does any question have two defensible answers? One does. "Choose the correct sentence" with four options, two of which are correct. Flagged.
3. Does it test the idea, or the page? Question six asks what the handout calls the "up to now" rule. That's a question about my handout's wording. Delete.
4. Have I taught this? Question seven is about "for" and "since". Good question. Not today's lesson. Delete, keep for next week.
5. Are the expected answers for the written questions plain? One is a paragraph. The marker will hold Mateo to a paragraph. Shorten it to the idea.

Two draft questions, as they arrived, and what I did:

Draft: Which sentence is correct? (a) I have seen him yesterday. (b) I saw him yesterday. (c) I have been seeing him yesterday. (d) I saw him since Monday. What I did: Kept it. This is the exact mistake Mateo makes, and three of the four wrong options are things he has actually said. That's a good question.

Draft: Explain in your own words when we use the present perfect. Expected answer in the draft: a six-line restatement of the handout's rule, with the words "unspecified time" and "continuing relevance". What I did: Kept the question, rewrote the expected answer to two lines in plain words: the action happened at some time before now, and when it happened isn't said or doesn't matter; or it started in the past and is still true. Mateo will say it his own way, and that's what should be marked.

Check: In what order does the tutor read a draft set, and what is the first thing checked?

4:52, approved: six questions

What's left is six questions, which is what I asked for. Four choice questions, two written. I've reworded one stem so the ambiguity is gone, replaced one option, shortened one expected answer, deleted two questions.

Then I approve it, and it's live on Mateo's page. He's the only person who can see it, because the page is his.

Three things worth noticing about the three minutes just spent. I didn't write a single question from scratch. I did read every one of them. And the version Mateo is about to see is mine, in the sense that matters: every word in it passed through me, and the two bad questions never reached him.

Check: What did the approved set contain, and what had the tutor changed from the draft?

4:53, Mateo answers on his phone

He finishes exercise C. I say: "Six questions on your phone, then we'll look at them together."

He does them where he's sitting. It takes him five minutes. The choice questions are quick; the written ones make him think, which is the point. He submits at 4:58 and the result is on his screen and on mine at the same moment: each choice question marked, with a line under it saying why; each written answer with a score out of ten and the reason.

Nothing about this is exotic. It's a quiz on a phone. What's unusual is the timing: the questions are about the thing we did twenty minutes ago, they were written from my own lesson, and I read them before he did.

Check: How long did the student take, and what did he see when he submitted?

4:58, what the result told me

Four out of six, and the two he missed were the same mistake, which is the most useful kind of result.

Both were sentences with "ever" and "never". He put them in the past simple: "Did you ever go". The rule he'd learnt was "finished time, past simple", and he'd decided "ever" counts as a finished time. It doesn't. It's the opposite: "ever" means "at any time up to now", which is exactly the present perfect's job. He'd over-applied the rule I'd just taught him, which is what good students do with new rules.

His first written answer scored seven out of ten. The reason said he'd described the "some time before now" use well and left out the "still true now" use. Fair. He had.

We spent the last two minutes on "ever". I didn't re-teach the lesson. I pointed at the two questions, said "what does 'ever' mean?", and watched it land. He laughed, which is the sound of a rule being re-filed.

Check: What did the two missed questions have in common, and what did that tell the tutor?

Why "before the student leaves" is the whole point

Everything above could be done next week instead. Most tutors do it next week, or never. Here is why the timing is the feature, not a detail.

The memory is fresh on both sides. Mateo remembers what he was thinking when he chose the wrong answer. I remember what I said when I taught it. Next week, neither of us would.

The explanation lands. The line under each answer is read by a student who just made that exact choice and wants to know why it was wrong. The same line read a week later is just text.

He left knowing what to practise. Not "the present perfect", which is a chapter. "Ever and never", which is a line. He can do the check again at home on Saturday, and both of us will see the second attempt next to the first.

The session ended on attention, not on packing up. The last ten minutes used to be the loosest part of the hour. Now they're the tightest.

Check: Give three reasons the check is worth doing before the student leaves rather than at the start of next week.

If you're going to try this

A few things I'd tell a colleague, in the order I'd tell them.

• Build the lesson so a check is possible. One idea per session. If you can't say in one sentence what today was about, a check will show you that before it shows the student anything.
• Write the brief like a human would read it. Topic, who the learner is, which mistakes to target, how many questions. A sentence or two.
• Read every question. Two or three minutes. Wrong answer first, then two right answers, then "is this about the page or the idea", then "did I teach this", then the expected answers.
• Six, not twelve. You are checking one idea. Six questions is plenty, and leaves time to look at the result together.
• Their phone is fine. Better than fine. They'll do the retake on it at home.
• Look at the result together, briefly. Two minutes. Point, don't re-teach.

Check: What should the brief for a drafted check contain?

The whole thing in one minute

• 4:46 The PDF and a one-line brief go in, while the student finishes the last exercise.
• 4:48 Eight questions back. Three minutes reading: two deleted, one reworded, one option replaced, one expected answer shortened.
• 4:52 Six questions approved. Live for one student.
• 4:53 He answers on his phone.
• 4:58 Marked. Four of six; both misses the same mistake.
• 5:00 Two minutes on "ever", and he's gone.

Twelve minutes from PDF to result, three of them mine. The rest is the student doing the work, which is where the time should be.

Check: How many of the twelve minutes were the tutor's, and what were they spent on?

If you're in Australia

Most private tutoring here runs in 45- or 60-minute sessions after school or in the early evening, often with the next student waiting outside. If that's your day, the 4:46 habit is the one to copy: start the draft while the student is still working on the last exercise, not after they've left, so the check falls inside the paid hour and the turnaround between students doesn't eat it. Swap this section for your own country's rhythm; nothing above depends on it.

Check: When should a tutor start the draft so the check fits inside the paid hour?

Try it with your own notes →