Once you’ve decided that private lessons are the way to go, a harder question lands: which tutor? The market is enormous and the profiles all blur into one — everyone is “friendly,” “experienced” and “passionate about languages.” Price tells you almost nothing, a warm first message tells you even less, and the wrong choice quietly costs you months. So before you book anyone, run them through this ten-point checklist. It’s the same set of questions I’d use myself, and it separates the tutor who’ll actually move your English from the one who’ll just keep you pleasant company for an hour a week.
Start with your goal, not their profile
1. Get specific about what you’re buying lessons for. “I want to improve” is not a goal a tutor can build around. “I need to pass IELTS at 7.0 by March,” “I freeze in English meetings,” or “I’m moving to Manchester in the autumn” are. The clearer you are, the easier it is to judge whether someone fits — and the faster your money starts working.
2. Match the tutor to that goal, not to a five-star average. A brilliant exam coach may be the wrong choice for conversational confidence, and vice versa. Read past the star rating and look for evidence they’ve done your job before. A tutor who lights up when you describe your goal is worth more than one with a longer CV and a blank look.
Look hard at the tutor
3. Check for real qualifications and training. A recognised teaching certificate — CELTA, Trinity CertTESOL, a DELTA or a PGCE — means someone has actually been taught how to teach, not just how to speak English. Being a native speaker is not a qualification. Plenty of fluent people have no idea why “I have been” is right and “I am being” is wrong, which is exactly the sort of thing you’re paying to have explained.
4. Ask about experience with learners like you. Your level, your first language and your goal all change how a lesson should run. A tutor who has taught dozens of Spanish speakers to B2, or coached nervous professionals through presentations, already knows your likely mistakes before you make them. That head start is half of what you’re buying.
5. Make sure they teach, not just chat. Conversation practice has its place, but an hour of pleasant talking with no correction and no plan is a language exchange, not a lesson — and you shouldn’t pay tutor rates for it. A good tutor listens, catches the errors that matter, and turns them into something you can work on. This is the whole point of one-to-one English lessons online: the entire hour is aimed at your English, not the average of a room.
Ask how they actually run a lesson
6. Look for a plan, not improvisation. Ask what your first month would look like. A professional can sketch a rough arc — where you’ll start, what they’ll check, how they’ll know you’re progressing. If the answer is a vague “we’ll just see how it goes,” expect a lot of hours that feel nice and go nowhere.
7. Find out how they give feedback. The magic of private tuition is correction that lands on your English in real time. Ask whether you’ll get notes, a record of new vocabulary, or anything to review afterwards. A lesson you can’t revisit is half wasted the moment you close the laptop.
8. Check the materials are made for you. A tutor recycling the same generic worksheet for every student isn’t tailoring anything. The best ones bring in the email you actually need to send, the article from your field, the interview questions you’re dreading — because real language lives in things you genuinely care about.
Then the practical checks
9. Test reliability and scheduling before you commit long-term. Progress comes from a steady weekly rhythm, so a tutor who cancels often or juggles time zones badly will quietly undo your momentum. Confirm how rescheduling works, what happens if you miss a session, and whether the slot you want is genuinely theirs to keep.
10. Take a trial lesson — and judge it honestly. Almost everything above becomes obvious in one real session. Did they listen more than they talked? Did you leave knowing something you didn’t before? Did a correction actually stick? Price matters, but the cheapest tutor who bores you into quitting is the expensive one. Trust the trial over the profile every time.
Run a shortlist through those ten points and the right choice usually stands out on its own. If you’d rather skip the guesswork, the live online courses at Kensington English pair you with London-based native teachers who are trained, planned and shaped around your goals from the first lesson. Book a trial, bring something real to work on, and see how much the right tutor can move you.
