Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Everyone has questions. Here's where you can find the answers to the most frequently asked questions about iTutorEnglish by subject. If your answer is not found here, please reach out to us and we will do our best to give you an answer quickly. If there is a question and answer you feel should be in this list, please let us know- we are always improving and would welcome your comments and suggestions!
Tutors
Who are your tutors?
Our tutors are highly qualified teaching professionals with years of teaching experience in person and with students online. Although their qualifications may vary somewhat, each tutor is thoroughly screened and hand-selected to join the iTutorEnglish team after a rigorous selection process.
Are your tutors native English speakers?
Yes! Our tutors are native English speakers born and raised in the United States. We only have native English speakers as tutors.
Where are your tutors based? Where do they live?
Currently, all our tutors are based in the United States. We do not, however, restrict where our tutors may choose to reside. Tutors that are verified and selected to be part of our tutor team may live in any country they choose.
What is the education level of your tutors?
All of our tutors have at least a college degree from accredited colleges in the United States. Our tutors are well qualified, and often their degree focuses on Education, Early Childhood Education, or Principals and Methods of Language Education.
Do your tutors have TESOL certificates?
Yes! All our tutors have TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) certifications. Many of our tutors have several TESOL certifications from different institutions.
Do your tutors have other teaching qualifications?
Yes! Our tutors have undergone rigorous training through the Canadian Institute of English (CIE) and demonstrated over 40 different brain-based, scientifically-backed teaching techniques specifically for teaching English as a second language. Many of these techniques represent the latest and best techniques for language instruction available today.
Are your tutors licensed teachers?
Due to the complexities of acquiring teaching licenses on an international scale and with so many different requirements set by every country, state, county, village, municipality, and geographic area, it would be impractical to be "licensed" in your area. For legal and other municipality requirement reasons, we cannot and do not make any claim of being "licensed" teachers or tutors.
(At this time, there is no official international teaching certification available for the 200+ different countries we serve.)
Do you check the background of your tutors?
Yes! All tutors at iTutorEnglish must undergo a thorough background check with Sterling before they are allowed to open their schedule for students. Our tutors are also interviewed and thoroughly checked by management to ensure the highest level of moral integrity possible.
How much experience do your tutors have?
Our tutors have many years of experience. Although the exact amount varies with each tutor, our tutors average over 10 years of teaching experience. Our tutors have cumulatively taught over 5,000 different students English.
Curriculum
Do you use the same curriculum for every student?
We use the curriculum we feel will best help the student's individual needs. We select materials uniquely for each Session. We do not use the same material for every student. We recognize each student has unique learning needs and should be treated according to what they respond to best.
Where do you get your curriculum?
Material has been carefully curated by the iTutorEnglish team from many resources to address the majority of needs for English students of all levels. However, since no curriculum can address the individual needs of all students, we encourage our tutors to personalize the lesson by selecting material they feel would best suit the needs of the student. Each lesson plan can include material from a wide variety of resources, collections, and owned or rented educational materials, at the discretion of each tutor.
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Does iTutorEnglish make or use their own curriculum?
Yes! Some lessons use material we have developed from years of experience and at great cost of time and effort. As part of the Terms for your lessons, you agree not to disclose or share iTutorEnglish materials to others. Please take this seriously- we work hard to develop high-quality teaching materials for your use in lessons with iTutorEnglish only. You will not find our own iTutorEnglish teaching materials anywhere else in the world.
What do the teaching materials look like? What type are they?
Our teaching materials may include slides, videos, games, music, singing songs together, and any other format of material we feel is beneficial for our students. Adult classes often feature current events, news articles, how-to instructions, and other similar matters and formats. We do not limit ourselves from any format of material that could benefit our students.
May I request a certain material or lesson format?
Yes. If requesting your lessons be focused on some type of teaching material, you must provide us a copy of the material. Depending on the nature of the material, we may have to request permission to use it in class from the publisher.
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We are happy to make your lessons exactly what you want them to be! Just ask if you have something in mind and we will do the best we reasonably can to accommodate your request.
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Do you know of an excellent teaching resource? Let us know about it! We are always excited with opportunities to improve our material for the classroom.
Do you offer group classes?
We make arrangements for group classes upon request. You may make a request for a group class once you login to your account. Please include how many students want to attend the group class and what time works best for everyone. Group classes have lower fees per student. The average fee is $16 or $18 per student. This a great way to reduce the cost of Sessions- get a group together!
Each student must sign up to be a member of iTutorEnglish. Each student will receive an invite through email to the live video Session. There must be 2 or more students for a group session. With more students the cost per student is reduced.
Policies
What if there are few openings in the Tutor booking calendar?
Our tutors are in high demand! That is why there may be few openings in their schedules- they are probably already booked by other students! For this reason, if you see an opening, it may be best to book the tutor quickly! Openings for lessons do not last long.
Can you open other times for classes?
Possibly. If you have a specific request for a time not currently on our schedules, please ask and we will see if we can accommodate your request. We make no guarantees for opening up additional lesson slots, as our tutors are already very busy, but we can check with our tutors and see if they have the availability at the time and day of the week requested.
How many times should I book a tutor each week?
For real progress in English, we suggest having lessons at least 2 times every week.
There are real neurological reasons to have 2 lessons every week, and our program is based on having at least 2 lessons weekly because we want our students to make real progress.
If you do not book 2 lessons every week, your package may expire before you can use all the lessons you have purchased.
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After teaching thousands of students, all our tutors recommend the same thing. "Have at least 2 lessons weekly to make meaningful progress in English."
Having only 1 lesson each week is not recommended to make progress in English, but may be used to get some practice.
Trial Class
What should I expect in the trial class?
During the trial class, your Tutor will get to know you, the student, and take time to evaluate your English ability. This is not a test. It will be done through conversation and activities. Your tutor is very experienced and will make observations of your English level and on the areas of English you can improve on. During or after your trial Session, your Tutor will make a personal plan for what you want and need to improve your English. Then they will e-mail you and suggest the next steps to make the most meaningful progress in English. During the Trial Session, you get a chance to see what your English Sessions will be like.
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Please download Zoom from our Resources page and get familiar with Zoom before your Trial Class.
Why not just make the trial class free?
iTutorEnglish helps people around the world to learn English. International regulations require that we verify you are an adult giving consent for a child to have a lesson.
In 2013 the FTC announced new rules for COPPA (The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act) requiring direct parental consent for obtaining any information from children. Having online lessons and direct interaction with children indicates we must comply with this federally mandated requirement.
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COPPA is similar to the GDPR in European countries.
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iTutorEnglish is a COPPA compliant company. We are required by the Federal Law of the United States to verify direct parental consent to offer Services to a child. (See 16 C.F.R. § 312.5(c).
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Additionally, Section I Point 4 outlines how to verify parental consent. It says:
"Requiring the parent, in connection with a monetary transaction, to use a credit card, debit card, or other online payment system that provides notification of each discrete transaction to the primary account holder"
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Although this is a difficulty for everyone, we are happy to help protect children online and also to obey the law.
What if I am an adult?
Because children may access our website, making a payment is the best way to legally verify you are an adult before we collect your information for your trial class.
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iTutorEnglish does not have access to or retain payment or credit card information. Our payment processors are Stripe and PayPal.
I've never heard of this before with other English teaching companies. Why do you require this?
Many companies are not COPPA compliant and may be far behind at protecting children online. Or it may be that other companies are not based in the USA, and so are not required to follow COPPA regulations. Companies based in other countries are often required to follow other, similar regulations. The GDPR in European countries is an example of similar regulation called by a different name. They are similar in purpose.
Eventually all online teaching companies and many other sectors of business will have to be compliant with COPPA.
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We care deeply about children at iTutorEnglish, and we are happy to be at the forefront of protecting children online.
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You can read more about COPPA here: Complying with COPPA: Frequently Asked Questions | Federal Trade Commission (ftc.gov)
Where can I find additional tips on how to keep safe online and protect my privacy?
You can find various tips on privacy and security here: https://consumer.ftc.gov/identity-theft-and-online-security/online-privacy-and-security
Technical Requirements
What videoconference platform do you use?
We currently use Zoom to conduct lessons. Zoom is free, it's easy to install and use, and it allows us a lot of features that are helpful for learning.
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You can download Zoom here. It's free:
https://zoom.us/signup#/signup
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We recommend you install Zoom and practice using it before our Session to ensure a smooth and enjoyable classroom experience.
What internet speed should I have?
Currently, we request you to have at least 4 Mbps up, and 4 Mbps down with latency (ping) of 150ms or less. Faster internet is better.
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If your speed is less than 4MBPS up/down, we can still try to have Sessions, but certain features (such as teaching videos or high-resolution camera quality) may not work. Network speed less than 2 Mbps up/down is too low for our services.
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You may check your internet speed and latency here:
(Checking from a desktop computer may be best.)
How fast should my internet latency, or "Ping" be?
Latency or "Ping" is the time it takes a small dataset to travel through your network to a server, then return. We request a latency of less than 150 milliseconds. If your latency is higher, we may still be able to have Sessions, but there may be a delay between speaking and hearing.
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You may check your internet speed and latency ("Ping") here:
(Checking from a desktop computer may be best.)
Payments
Do you handle my credit card information?
No. To enhance your security, we do not handle your credit card information. Instead, we use payment processors. Our payment processors are PayPal and Stripe. These payment processors are reputable and have the resources to handle payments from most countries of the world in various ways currencies. We do not have access to your credit card information.
Do your payment processors accept different currencies?
Yes. If you want to pay in a different currency, our payment processors accept various currencies. Please note that we accept the value of our services based on USD, not on other currencies.
How do I use your payment processors?
This happens naturally in the checkout process. You may choose either PayPal or Stripe when purchasing a service. If you do not have an account with our payment processors, you may need to create one. By doing so, you agree to their terms of service and privacy policies.
I purchased the wrong package.
What do I do?
If you purchased the wrong package, you may contact us through e-mail so we can help resolve the problem.
Do you accept refunds?
We encourage you to try our services through our Trial Class. By having a trial class, you can see if iTutorEnglish is right for you.
This will help prevent any need for refunds. We treat each situation on a case-by-case basis. The satisfaction of our customers is very important to us.
Booking or Scheduling a Session
How can I schedule a class?
1) Select what type of class you want from the "Book Now" page.
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2) Follow the onscreen directions below the booking calendar. (Select the "Tutor", "Date", "Time", then press "Next".
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3) Fill the form.
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4) Select payment processor.
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5) Review and book the class.
Can I change, reschedule, or cancel a Session?
Yes!
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Please login to your account. From your user account, you can change, reschedule, or cancel your Session. It's easy!
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If you reschedule, change, or cancel your Sesson at least 24 hours in advance, you will not lose your session credit. You can make another Session appointment at any open availability on the booking calendar.
Can I book Sessions for an adult or myself?
Yes! We have helped many adults to learn English too. You will notice that our techniques change a lot when we help you learn English. We do not use the same materials or techniques to help adults as we do children. We will focus on what is most important to you, and include teaching materials that will help you personally.
Can I request a different time for my Sessions?
Yes. Please login to your account and contact us. Alternatively, you can contact us by email to make your request.