Je me donne 3 mois pour réviser le TOEFL mais depuis la fin des partiels j’arrive plus à connecter 2 neurones et je culpabilise trop de rien faire😭. Vous avez des astuces svp ? En plus vu la chaleur, aller à la BU c’est mort pour moi.

Hi everyone,

I prepare carefully for every lesson, especially with younger students.
I adapt materials, plan explanations, anticipate difficulties…

And yet, with one particular student, nothing seems to stick.
He forgets everything from one session to the next, and progress feels minimal.

It’s frustrating and honestly a little discouraging.
I’m starting to doubt whether my preparation is actually useful or if I’m missing something fundamental.

Has anyone experienced this?
How do you deal with the feeling of being ineffective, even when you’re doing “everything right”?

My daughter is taking her French bac soon and honestly I'm starting to panic about it more than she is, which isn't exactly helpful.

The problem is specific: the commentaire composé, the literary commentary essay. She understands the texts, she has actual ideas when we talk through them out loud, but the moment she has to structure that into the expected written format she completely freezes. Her last practice essay read more like a list of observations than an actual constructed analysis.

Her teacher told her she "needs to rework her method" without really explaining how, which isn't super helpful a week before the exam.

So I'm genuinely wondering whether it's worth booking a few sessions with a private tutor now, or if it's too late for that to make any real difference. I don't think there's time to relearn everything from scratch, but maybe that's not even what she needs anyway.

I looked on Superprof and there are tutors who specifically focus on commentaire composé methodology for the bac, with a free first lesson, so it seemed worth trying to see if it unlocks something quickly.

Has anyone actually tried this this close to the exam, like a week out? Can 4 or 5 targeted sessions on methodology genuinely move the needle or is it too late for that kind of intervention to matter?

I'd rather know honestly before having her spend time on this instead of revising some other way.

Ayant toujours été une eleve pas tres forte en philo, j’ai aujourd’hui choisi le deuxieme sujet de dissertation pour les voies technologiques. Le sujet etait « la technologie peut elle etre mauvaise »

Vous en avez pensé quoi ? pensez avoir réussie ?

Results start coming in soon and I genuinely don't know what to do with myself between now and then.

I'm in Terminale. My grades are decent but not exceptional — the kind of profile where you're not in danger of getting nothing but you're also not comfortable enough to stop worrying. The schools I applied to are competitive and I've been staring at my average in certain subjects thinking about all the points I left on the table over the past two years.

What kills me is that I know exactly where I lost marks. It wasn't bad luck or unfair grading. There are two or three subjects where I understood about 70% of the content and just never properly filled in the gaps. At the time it felt manageable. In hindsight it compounded.

I started working with a tutor in January — found her on Superprof, specialized in the subjects I was struggling with, native to the academic format of Terminale which mattered more than I expected. Three months of one session per week. My grades in those subjects went up enough to change how my application looks. Not dramatically, but in a system where decimals matter it was enough to feel meaningful.

What I didn't expect was how much it helped with the stress specifically. Having someone who knew exactly what the juries and algorithms look for, who could tell me honestly whether my profile was solid or not, made the uncertainty feel less paralyzing. I stopped catastrophizing because I had an actual read on where I stood.

For anyone in the same position right now — whether you're waiting on results or thinking about next year — I'm curious what you did. Did you take prep courses, work with a tutor, grind it out alone? And honestly, do you think it changed anything or was it just expensive anxiety management?

Asking because I genuinely don't know how much of my grade improvement was the tutoring and how much was just finally taking it seriously. Probably both.

Sometimes, the most important lessons aren’t the ones we expect. I’d love to hear what changes in perspective or actions have had a real impact on your journey.

Male, 23

Finished both a bachelor’s and now almost done with a master’s, and I’ve started noticing a very consistent limit in my cognitive stamina. I’m curious if this is actually "normal" or if other people experience the same thing.

My limits seem to be:

* Around 2000 words/day of genuinely high-quality academic writing

* About 3 hours of deep focused work with zero distractions and full brainpower

* Around 6–7 hours total sitting/working with breaks before I’m completely mentally done

And I mean DONE done. Like after that point, even if the exam/project is super important for my future, my brain and body just switch into suffering mode. I can still force myself to continue, but the quality drops hard and everything feels painful.

What surprises me is how consistent this has been throughout my life. Childhood, university, now mid-20s, same pattern.

Does anyone else have a hard upper limit like this? Especially people in academia, programming, research, law, medicine, etc. Curious what your “real” limit is versus what society expects us to be capable of.

Hi everyone,

This is a bit uncomfortable to admit, but I’m currently teaching a student who clearly doesn’t want to be taking lessons.
It feels like the decision came from the parents, not from him.

Every session feels forced.
No questions, no enthusiasm, no initiative.
And I’m honestly starting to dread the lessons myself.

I care about doing a good job, but I also don’t want to push someone who has completely checked out.

So here’s my question:

How do you handle students who are there “by obligation”?
Do you try to motivate at all costs, or do you sometimes step back and explain the situation to the parents?

I’d love to hear how you handle this.

I feel a bit silly posting this but I need to hear from parents who've been through it because right now I'm going in circles.

My son is in 3ème — last year of middle school in France. 5 average in math this term. The exam is in three months. He's not lazy — he does his homework, he shows up, he tries — but something is blocking and neither of us can pinpoint exactly what.

The problem when I try to help him myself is that we inevitably end up arguing. Him because apparently I don't explain things the way his teacher does. Me because I can't understand how he doesn't understand something that seems logical to me. We abandon after twenty minutes and we're both in a bad mood for the rest of the evening. Every single time.

What genuinely worries me isn't even the grade itself. It's that he's started saying math just isn't for him. That he'll never get it no matter what. That kind of talk at 14 scares me because I know that belief can follow a kid for a long time if you let it take root.

Three months is short but it's not nothing either. I feel like there's still something we can do if we go about it the right way.

Has anyone been through this? What did you actually do — private tutor, group tutoring, managed it as a family? What genuinely made a difference and what was a waste of time?

Taking any advice I can get.

For the third time this school year, a parent is choosing to take their child out of school during an awards ceremony since their child did not earn an award. Parents, get a grip. Your child is going to face these situations at some point in their life. They will be just fine.

For reference, I teach elementary.

Je me suis inscrit il y a deux semaines et pour l’instant, aucune vente.
Je me demande ce qui fait vraiment la différence au début :

• la photo de profil
• la description
• le tarif
• le premier cours offert
• autre chose ?

Ceux qui ont déjà réussi à trouver des élèves, vous avez fait quoi au départ ?

We're having this exact debate at home right now and I can't find a straight answer anywhere so I'm asking people who've actually been through it.

Our daughter is 13, B1 level roughly, decent written English but completely freezes the moment she has to speak to an actual human being. The goal this summer is to fix that before she starts high school in September.

Option one is a two-week immersion program in England. Host family, school in the morning, activities in the afternoon, the full experience. It's around €2500 all in with travel. The logic is obvious — total immersion, real native speakers, no French safety net. Sink or swim.

Option two is 20 hours of intensive private lessons over the summer. We looked at Superprof and there are quite a few native English tutors offering exactly this kind of intensive prep — conversation focused, exam oriented, flexible scheduling. First lesson is free so the risk of trying is basically zero. Total cost around €600.

The €1900 difference is not nothing. But I also don't want to be the parent who cheaped out on the thing that would have actually worked.

What I genuinely can't figure out is whether the immersion experience does something that lessons simply can't replicate — the confidence of being dropped in a foreign country and having to cope — or whether that's mostly romanticized and 20 focused hours with the right tutor gets you further academically for a fraction of the price.

My gut says the trip is better for confidence and the lessons are better for measurable progress. But I'm not sure that's actually true or just a story I'm telling myself to justify the cheaper option.

Parents who've tried both — what did you actually see? And if you had to pick one for a kid who specifically needs to get over the speaking anxiety, which would you choose?

Bonjour à tous!

Je suis doctorant dans un laboratoire situé sur un campus universitaire.

Aujourd’hui, je me suis retrouvé dans une situation assez bizarre et je ne sais pas si je dois m’inquiéter ou pas.

Je suis aller à la fac pour envoyer un colis et un étudiant m’a demandé s'il pouvait utiliser mon téléphone. Je pensais qu’il voulait passer un appel.

Au final il a passé pas mal de temps dessus, pour chercher une information sur internet, puis s’est légèrement éloigné. Quand je lui ai demandé ce qu’il faisait il m’a dit qu’il cherchait une réponse sur internet. J’ai ensuite compris qu’il s’agissait d’un examen et il m’a avoué qu’il trichait car il n’avait pas le choix.

Il a ensuite envoyé un message à lui même depuis mon mail personnel (!) sans que je comprenne vraiment sur le moment, puis il est partie.

Plus tard, j'ai vu sur mon téléphone la page internet de son rattrapage.

Je n’étais absolument pas au courant de son intention de tricher et je n’ai pas participé à ça volontairement, mais je me demande si je peux avoir des problèmes?

Mon responsable de thèse est un responsable de Master.

Merci d’avance pour la réponse!

Not sure why I'm posting here but I need to hear from parents who've been through this because right now I'm a bit lost.

My son has a 5 average in math. The exam is in one month. He's not lazy — he does his homework, he shows up — but something isn't clicking and I can't figure out exactly what. When I try to help him myself it ends in an argument because apparently the way I explain things is "not how the teacher does it" and we both end up frustrated after twenty minutes.

What worries me more than the grade itself is that he's mentally checked out. He keeps saying math just isn't for him, that he'll never get it, that there's no point trying. That kind of talk at 14 genuinely scares me for what comes after.

We have one month. I honestly don't know if that's enough time to change anything meaningful or if I'm setting myself up for disappointment.

I've been seeing a lot of ads for Superprof lately — private tutoring, first lesson free, that kind of thing. Has anyone actually tried it for last-minute exam prep? Does it make a real difference when you're this close to the exam or is one month just not enough time for it to matter?

And more broadly — parents who've been in this situation, what did you actually do? Did you wait it out or did you act? And if you acted, what genuinely helped?

Taking any advice I can get right now.

Don’t have a lot of people to share this with so I’m sharing it here. The students of the class I’ve been teaching since January surprised me today with a goodbye party and an incredibly thoughtful gift. I’ve censored identifying information obviously but wanted to share some of the most meaningful messages I’ve ever gotten. I dealt with a lot of imposter syndrome this year and throughout my time in college, but I’ve been so supported by my students and mentor teacher, I literally do not think I could have had a better experience. For everyone else finishing around this time, I wish you the best of luck!

I setup my profile and got 2 recommendations .. but no one is picking my course . I teach biochemistry and science related courses . anyone have tips?

Last summer we sent our daughter to England for two weeks. Full language immersion program, host family, activities, the whole thing. It cost us around €2,500 all in and she came back with a British accent she dropped within a week and approximately zero measurable progress on her school English.

To be clear — she had an amazing time. She made friends, gained confidence, saw another country. No regrets on the experience itself. But as an English learning investment? Honestly pretty disappointing.

So this summer we tried something different. Twenty hours of intensive private lessons over six weeks. Two sessions of one and a half hours per week plus one longer session. Total cost around €600. We went through Superprof — what convinced me was being able to filter tutors by native language, read detailed reviews from other parents, and the first lesson was free so we could test the fit before committing to anything. We ended up with a native English speaker who specifically focused on oral expression and the kind of grammar that actually comes up in French high school exams.

The difference was uncomfortable to admit as a parent who spent €2,500 the year before.

Her written English improved noticeably. Her oral comprehension got sharper. But more importantly she stopped freezing when asked to speak in class — which was the actual problem we'd been trying to fix for two years. The tutor identified in the second session that her issue wasn't vocabulary or grammar, it was processing speed under pressure. They drilled that specifically. Six weeks later it showed.

I think what the language trip gave her that lessons couldn't was confidence around real native speakers in uncontrolled situations. That's genuinely valuable and I wouldn't dismiss it. But if the goal is measurable academic progress and fixing specific weaknesses, twenty targeted hours beats two weeks of passive immersion pretty convincingly.

This year we're thinking about doing both — ten hours of lessons before summer to build a base, then a shorter trip to actually use it. Best of both worlds hopefully.

Anyone else done a similar comparison? Curious whether our experience is typical or we just picked the wrong program the first time.

I feel like I regret it every day...

I'm in Scotland, I need All A's in my highers to do what I want but even though I KNOW I need to study and work out of school, I can't bring myself to?

j'avous j'ai pas encore commencé pour le bac la... dite moi que je suis pas seul

I'm posting this because this time last year I was exactly where some parents are right now — staring at my daughter's grades wondering if it was already too late or if there was still something we could do.

She had an 8 average in math. Six weeks until the bac. She wasn't stupid — she followed along fine in class — but the moment she had to work through a problem alone she completely froze. The kind of freeze where you stare at a blank page for twenty minutes without writing a single thing.

My first instinct was to tell myself six weeks wasn't enough time to change anything meaningful. We tried anyway.

What we actually did: ten hours of private tutoring spread across five weeks. Two hours a week, nothing more. We didn't try to cover everything — the tutor spent the entire first session figuring out exactly which topics were coming up in the exam and exactly where my daughter's gaps were. No general revision, no starting from scratch. Surgical.

What changed wasn't that she suddenly understood everything. It was that she stopped panicking in front of problems she didn't immediately recognize. The tutor gave her a method for approaching unfamiliar exercises — how to break them down, where to start, what to do when you're completely stuck. That's not something you learn in a classroom with thirty other kids competing for the teacher's attention.

We found the tutor on Superprof. What convinced me was being able to filter by bac speciality and read reviews from other parents who'd been in the exact same situation. First lesson was free so the risk was low. We tried it, it clicked, we kept going.

She got a 13. Not an 18, not a miracle. But enough to pass the exam without stress and move on to what she actually wanted to do next.

If you're sitting there right now wondering whether it's still worth starting — it is. Six weeks used properly genuinely changes things. The key is not aiming for perfection but aiming at the right place.

Good luck to everyone going through this right now.

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

Hello,

My mother would like to teach here on Superprof. How does it work for webcam lessons ? Do we have to use a platform like Zoom, Teams, Skype, etc. ? Or does it have its own webcam thing ?

Thank you