Finding an English Tutor – Near Me or Online?
Before choosing your ideal English tutor, you might face a difficult choice between an in-person tutor and an online tutor. Besides the old-fashioned face to face tutoring, online tutors have also become increasing popular due to the fact that they are more flexible and often charge less. So, which one should you go for? What are the pros and cons?
Hiring a English Tutor Near me – Pros and Cons
Hiring an in-person tutor remains a common choice for language learners. Many prefer it because of the interactions you are able to have with a live person instead of talking to a computer screen. Face to face tutoring also lets you have more accurate and instant feedbacks on your work or output. However, it is limited to your location and requires traveling time for the tutor or you. It also usually cost more than an online session and is less flexible.
Pros:
- More interactions in class
- More precise feedback on your works
- No interruptions from connection or network issues
Cons:
- Less flexible schedule
- Requires travel time
- Limited to your location
- Smaller tutor pool
- Often cost more
Hiring a English Tutor Online – Pros and Cons
Study with a online English tutor is much more convenient for most people. You no longer need to waste time on travel to get Spanish lessons. Also, you will not limited to your location and can find high-quality or native teachers far more easier. Not to mention the price is often cheaper than face to face tutoring. However, it could get boring talking into a microphone and therefore requires more concentration. You might also have a bad learning experience if the internet connection is not stable.
Pros:
- Flexible schedule
- No need to travel
- Easier to find native tutors
- Not limited to the tutor pool near you
- Rates are often cheaper
Cons:
- Some people don’t like the lack of human interaction
- Might get interrupted if network connection is not stable
- Harder to concentrate
With that being said, let’s focus on some of the best platforms for you to find the perfect English tutor online or in-person!
Best Websites for Finding Online English Tutors
In recent years, more and more people are choosing online tutors over in-person tutors for its lower rates, higher flexibility and its ability to surpass geological limitations. Imagine you can talk and practice a new language with native speakers across the globe anytime you want, all while sitting in your room ! Here are some of the most popular websites for finding online English tutors and English lessons.
1.Find Online English Tutors – Italki
Introduction: Italki is one of the largest online language tutoring websites. It has over 5 million students and 10,000 teachers teaching more than 130 languages. You can book customized lessons with the tutors you like and pay at a per lesson basis. It has an intuitive interface design and also comes with great search functions, with filters like price, availability, teacher type, native speaker and the tutor’s home country. You can also view a short video shot by the teachers themselves as well as reviews, teaching style, teaching materials and availability etc. It currently has nearly 3,000 English tutors offering online lessons conducted over Skype, Google Hangouts and Facetime as well as its own video app italki classroom. It also has a rather active forum that you can participate in.
What is special about Italki?
So, what makes Italki special? Italki separates its teachers into two categories, one is professional teachers while the other one is community tutors. Professional teachers are guaranteed to have certifications and professional experience but comes with a higher price, while community tutors are just native speakers or advanced learners who can help you practice speaking with lower prices. You can often find decent community tutors to help you learn if you look hard enough.
Price: $4 – $80/hour, depends on tutors and lessons
Payment options: Visa, Mastercard, Paypal, Alipay, Skrill eWallet and Bank Transfer
Flexibility of lesson plans ★★★★★
You can add any amount of credits to your account. Then you can use your credits to buy either one or multiple lessons. Usually the more you buy, the more discounts you get (depends on the tutor).
User Experience ★★★★✩
Italki has a much better user experience after its redesign, making it more elegant and more intuitive. All the functions you’ll need is on your dashboard and you can learn to navigate pretty easily.
Customer Support ★★★✩✩
There’s only one support center on Italki. If you can’t solve your problems by browsing the faq materials. You’ll need to wait a long time before being contacted by email.
Overall Verdict ★★★★✩
Great interface, good teacher quality and active community makes iTalki a great choice to get an English tutor and start your language learning journey. However, slow customer support and little discount are a few of its downsides.
Pros:
– Largest number of tutors online.
– Have its own discussion community.
– Transparent pricing, great review/ rating mechanism.
Cons:
– Review section is not the easiest to read.
– Didn’t do a great job at localizing the website.
Overall Rating: 7/10
Price: $4 – $80/hour, depends on tutors and lessons
Payment options: Visa, Mastercard, Paypal, Alipay, Skrill eWallet and Bank Transfer
Flexibility of lesson plans ★★★★★
You can add any amount of credits to your account. Then you can use your credits to buy either one or multiple lessons. Usually the more you buy, the more discounts you get (depends on the tutor).
User Experience ★★★★✩
Italki has a much better user experience after its redesign, making it more elegant and more intuitive. All the functions you’ll need is on your dashboard and you can learn to navigate pretty easily.
Customer Support ★★★✩✩
There’s only one support center on Italki. If you can’t solve your problems by browsing the faq materials. You’ll need to wait a long time before being contacted by email.
Overall Verdict ★★★★✩
Great interface, good teacher quality and active community makes iTalki a great choice to get an English tutor and start your language learning journey. However, slow customer support and little discount are a few of its downsides.
Overall Rating: 7/10
2. Best English Tutor Online – AmazingTalker
What is special about AmazingTalker?
Price: $14 – $24/hour, depends on tutors and lessons
Payment options: VISA, Mastercard and JCB
Flexibility of lesson plans ★★★★★
You can buy 1 to 100 lessons according to your needs. AmazingTalker offers discounts for packages of 5, 10, 20 lessons. You can also discuss with your tutors to see if they offer more discounts on buying more than 20 lessons.
User Experience ★★★★✩
The general user experience is really nice on AmazingTalker, easy to look for a new tutor, easy to book your first lesson and easy to navigate through the whole site. However, some users complain about not able to manage their lesson history neatly.
Customer Support ★★★★★
The customer service support is located at the bottom right corner. You can contact the support team if you came upon any problems. The average response time on AmazingTalker is within an hour on weekdays and a few hours on weekends.
Overall Verdict ★★★★★
AmazingTalker is one of the best platforms to find and “be” a tutor. It attracts a lot of high-quality tutors by treating them nicely and generously, which makes it a lot easier to get a good tutor. Coupled with its advanced AI matching system, you are sure to find just the right tutor for yourself.
3. Find an Online English Tutor – Verbling
What is special about Verbling?
Price: $6 – $60/hour, depends on tutors and lessons
Payment options: Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover, Paypal, Alipay, Wechat and many other forms (depends on country)
Flexibility of lesson plans ★★★★✩
Verbling offers 1, 5, 10, 20 and 50 lesson packages. You can get discounts when buying more than 5 lessons at a time, but the amount of discounts also depends on each tutor.
User Experience ★★★★★
Verbling’s user interface is not the most beautiful, but it offers virtual classrooms and vocabulary decks to help your English language learning. We really like it since it’s quite unique among other platforms and very useful.
Customer Support ★★★★★
You can get instant help at the bottom right corner of the page. The Verbling support team usually replies within an hour. You can search for FAQs in the chat box as well.
Overall Verdict ★★★★★
Verbling is a really great website to find online tutors. Not much to complain about and it comes with many thoughtful small features to make learning a whole lot easier. However it does a poor job at marketing so the brand awareness is quite low.
4. Hire Online English Tutors – Preply
What is special about Preply?
Price: $5 – $36/hour, depends on tutors and lessons
Payment options: Visa, Mastercard and PayPal
Flexibility of lesson plans ★★★✩✩
After your first free trial hour, you have to buy at least 5 hours for your next purchase. Preply offers discounts for packages of 10 and 20 hours.
User Experience ★★★✩✩
In general, Preply offers an intuitive user interface. It’s easy to find a teacher, easy to add hours and easy to monitor all your learning progress. However its tutor pages contain quite a lot of information and can sometimes be disorienting.
Customer Support ★★★★★
You can check the customer support at the bottom right corner. FAQs are well organized to help you book lessons with tutors. You can also find instant help by contacting online customer support. Business hours — 6 am – 11 pm on weekdays, 8 am – 6 pm on weekends.
Final verdict: ★★★✩✩
Preply is by all standards a decent platform to find a English tutor. Nice interface, detailed information on tutors and great customer support. However they don’t treat their tutors very well and you can see a lot of them complaining on third-party websites.
Overall Rating: 7/10
Best Sites for Finding In-person English Tutors Locally
While more and more people are opting for online tutors, in-person private lessons still remain a common and popular choice. Looking for a English tutor near your place? There are numerous sites that can match you with a great tutor, and most of them offer location searches, teacher qualifications and students reviews to help you make the best choice. Check out these handy sites we’ve selected.
5. Find English Tutors Near Me – Care.com
6. Tutors.com
7. Heytutor
What is special about HeyTutor?
Price: Inquire for quotes, depends on tutors and lessons
Payment options: Visa, Mastercard
Flexibility of lesson plans ★★★✩✩
You can buy 10, 20 or 30 hours of tutoring. All lessons are pre-paid with a one-time purchase. You can renew your package plan if you need more hours.
User Experience ★★✩✩✩
The general user experience is OK. However, you only get limited information when you are not logged in. You can’t preview tutors and if you want to know more about a tutor, you have to contact the tutor.
Customer Support ★★★✩✩
There’s not much information in the FAQs, but they offer phone customer support. Though not as convenient as online support. You can give a call to solve the problems you meet.
Websites for finding both online and in-person English tutor lessons
8. Wyzants
9. Varsity Tutors
10. University Tutor
There you have it, top 10 websites for finding the perfect English tutor for you both online or in-person. As you may have noticed, online tutoring websites are far easier to use with much more information and reviews about the tutors. They also offer more discounts to new students and you will also have more options when choosing tutors. With that said, it still all goes down to what your preference are and what can help you learn in the best way possible.
Some more free online English classes and learning resources:
Top 15+ Online English classes, for free
Are you preparing for the IELTS exam? Here are some great free resources:
6 Best IELTS Exam Prep Classes & Courses Online
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Let’s make learning English fun and easy!
Alicia Mcgill
Language expert with over 10 years of professional teaching and tutoring experience. Loves surfing, traveling and sharing useful tips and advice on language learning!