experience with unlimited tutoring services?

[dschneid2010]

Having tried multiple unlimiting tutoring services I can attest to the fact that they are a good option for people who are interested in intensively learning Spanish.

Most of these services are around $100 / month, and a typical class of Spanish that you might be able to find online through other services is probably around $10/hour, give it take. So you'd want to be doing about 10 hours a month in order to "make your money back" so to speak, which, is perhaps more than what a person who is casually learning spanish wants to spend / invest, but is by no means a lot for someone who is trying to significantly improve their Spanish or refresh it.

Plus the fact that they are convenient in that you can pretty much schedule a class whenever, on a whim.

The service I recommend, having tried it, is Spanish+, which is run by Native Spanish speakers from Venezuela.

[reineke]

Hi,

I've noticed several services offering "unlimited" tutoring online and the prices make it tempting to try this for fun or improvement. I would like to just speak and I definitely don't have the time and mood to look for language exchanges, which I am highly unlikely to find at all.

There are several such services offering Spanish lessons, and they trully seem to be unlimited for your fee per month (ok, one has a limit of 8 hours per day). Baselang and Spanishplusweb are the examples I've found. Do you have any experience with them?

For French, which I'd enjoy to speak regularily, to have other contact with it than just medical textbooks, I've found only Rypeapp. It offers five languages, their "unlimited" means either 30min or 60min per day, but the price is not bad with their June sale, and if someone can trully get online everyday to have their lesson.

Do you have any experience with these or others of similar kind? I am more in need of French maintanance and work on my accent and writing corrections.

When it comes to the Spanish ones, I also like the aspect of basically giving more jobs to venezuelan teachers, which I somehow prefer over classical charity. I've read of a similar program for Arabic learners btw, just with the classical pay per lesson structure. So, if you'd like to contribute a little bit to such struggling economies without risking that your money won't arrive to the people or without priving the people from their dignity, this may be one of the ways.

Have you tried any such program?
Do you know how flexible these programs trully are, when it comes to making the lessons based on the student's needs and wishes?
Do you know, whether they can teach advanced students as well? Are they strict enough?
Are the sites reliable? After all, I'd be sending money and my card details to the other side of the planet.

Here's a review by s_allard

https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 38#p100738

[Cavesa]

https://www.reddit.com/r/languagelearni ... s_warning/

I think this post by Draugujir is well worth reading.

First of all, I will only speak about my own experience. In any case I pretend to represent the majority of people working for rype or have any intention of harming anybody's reputation. I just want to share an experience.

I worked for Rype as a teacher for one month and, during this month, I have had a lot of students. The students were, generally, excellent and my classes with them were very enriching. I have enduring friendship with some of them and this is a teacher's dream come true.

Now having said that, I will talk about Rypeapp itself.

First of all, what they CLAIM to be:

-A language learning app for busy people.

-They pick up the best teachers with a "very strict" process of selection.

-You "only" pay 110 dollar per month, during 6 months. During this period you will be able to choose any teacher and language.

-A very large community of over 100.000 students.

-Personalized lessons anywhere, anytime.

-"Every day lessons with the best teachers".

-"You will improve very fast in only 2 weeks".

And now, this is what they REALLY are and what they do:

-Teachers don't need certificates to work and they don't need to be professional. In fact, the majority, at least in Spanish, they are not even real teachers.

-There isn't any process of selection at all. I was interviewed by a guy wearing pyjamas and he just accepted me without even asking about my teaching method or experience. He had a nice cat, though, and he was petting it.

-The pricing is very inconvenient. It would be a nice idea if you paid monthly, but you get tied to 6 months. And obviously you won't be doing everyday practice for 6 months. Basically, it's a trap.

-The community is not large at all. Very few tutors and few students.

-There is no feedback, no support, and no control over what a teacher is teaching to the students, so there is no way to know if they are "personalizing" their lessons to them.

-It's very difficult to find available tutors for Spanish, every day. And since their quality is not guaranteed, probably 6 out of 7 tutors won't be professional.

-There is no way to know if students will improve, because there is no control over the teachers' quality.

Other very bad practices that are VERY worth knowing:

-They only pay 5 dollars per half-an-hour to Spanish teachers.

-Only south-american teachers, since spanish people can't afford this little payment.

-The teacher can cancel and reschedule any time he wants, without prior notice. Same with the student. And you won't get your money back, obviously, since you already paid.

-Support is almost non existent and they respond, sometimes, 1 week later with only one line.

-Teachers only get the money if they can make 100 dollar per month (that is 20 lessons per month for a spanish teacher). If not, they don't get paid that month. Imagine how motivated can a teacher be with these prospects.

-If , as a student, you want to get your money back because you suspect that the service is a trap and a scam, you will still have to pay them A LOT of money, no matter how much you can prove that you didn't get what they advertise to be.

And this is, for now, my diagnose of rypeapp. Again: It's MY experience and I just want you to know the Truth, that's it. And the truth is that they are lying a lot. Now, you can think if they are a scam or not. Make up your own conclusions.

My advice: Stay away from them.

Ex-teacher of Rype.

(If you want to verify that I used to be a teacher there, send me a private message).

[eido]

I'm looking for a good tutoring service. I've tried going through Thumbtack and traditional Google search, but that's a lot to wade through. I couldn't find that Spanish+ site that was mentioned.

Are there any US-based companies that have a good reputation? I wouldn't mind any having their base outside the US, but it might be easier for all involved if I could work with timezones close to mine.