Lee Shulman’s concept of signature pedagogies in the professions has captured the imagination of many researchers and educators. In higher education, the concept has been extended to teaching in particular disciplines, and it is here argued that the concept of signature pedagogy can be usefully extended to an influential teaching system in the humanities: the Oxford tutorial. Some of the specific aspects of the tutorial system, and the habits of teaching and learning that tutors and students develop are described; and some of the limitations of the term ‘signature pedagogy’ for this case are also identified. The term ‘powerful pedagogy’ is proposed as a useful extension of ‘signature pedagogy’, to identify ambivalent features of influential teaching systems.