n British academic parlance, a tutorial is a small class of one, or only a few students, in

which the tutor, a lecturer, or other academic staff member, gives individual attention to
the students.[1]

The tutorial system at Oxford and Cambridge is fundamental to methods of teaching at

those universities, but it is by no means particular to them; Heythrop College (University
of London), for instance, offers a tutorial system but with one-on-one teaching. Another
example is Imperial College London, where tutorials in groups of 3 take place.[2] It is rare
for newer universities in the UK to have the resources to offer individual tuition; a class
of six to eight students is a far more common tutorial size. At Cambridge, a tutorial is
known as a supervision.

In Australian, New Zealand, and South African universities, a tutorial (colloquially called
a tute or tut) is a class of 10–30 students. Such tutorials are very similar to the Canadian
system, although, tutorials are usually led by honours or postgraduate students, known as
'tutors'.

At the two campuses of St. John's College, U.S. and a few other American colleges with
a similar version of the Great Books program, a "tutorial" is a class of 12–16 students
who meet regularly with the guidance of a tutor. The tutorial focuses on a certain subject
area (e.g., mathematics tutorial, language tutorial) and generally proceeds with careful
reading of selected primary texts and working through associated exercises (e.g.,
demonstrating a Euclid proof or translating ancient Greek poetry). Since formal lectures
do not play a large part in the St. John's College curriculum, the tutorial is the primary
method by which certain subjects are studied. However, at St. John's the tutorial is
considered ancillary to the seminar, in which a slightly larger group of students meets
with two tutors for broader discussion of the particular texts on the seminar list.

Some US colleges, such as Williams College, offer tutorials almost identical in structure
to that of an Oxbridge tutorial. At Williams, students in tutorials typically work in pairs
alongside a professor and meet weekly, while alternately presenting position papers or
critiques of their partner's paper.