Short answer
Choose for fit with your specific goal rather than for credentials. Shortlist three tutors whose profiles name the thing you actually want to do, book a trial with each, and judge them on whether they diagnosed your level and proposed a plan - not on whether the conversation was pleasant. Consistency of schedule matters more than any single qualification.
Most people choose a tutor badly on the first attempt, because they optimise for credentials and comfort rather than for fit and plan.
Start with a goal specific enough to fail
"Improve my English" cannot be taught against. These can:
- "Handle a 30-minute client call without rehearsing it first."
- "Get 7.0 in IELTS speaking by March."
- "Understand my partner's family at dinner."
- "Stop freezing when someone asks me an unexpected question at work."
The goal determines the tutor. A superb exam coach is the wrong choice for dinner-table fluency.
Read profiles for specificity
Signals worth something:
- They name a speciality that matches your goal.
- Their introduction video shows them *teaching* - explaining something - rather than only introducing themselves.
- Reviews mention outcomes and method, not just "very nice and patient".
- They describe how a lesson is structured.
Signals worth less than they look: a long list of certificates, a very high or very low price, a large number of total lessons taught.
Use the trial as an assessment, not an audition
Book trials with three tutors, not one. Judge them on:
- Did they diagnose? A good first lesson spends real time finding out what you can already do. If nobody assessed your level, nobody can plan for it.
- Did they propose a plan? You should leave knowing roughly what the next month looks like.
- How much did you talk? In a language lesson you should be speaking most of the time. A tutor who talks more than you do is the wrong tutor, however charming.
- Were you corrected usefully? Not every error, which is demoralising, but the ones that matter, with an explanation you can reuse.
- Did they follow up? Notes or a summary afterwards say a lot about the next six months.
Pleasantness is necessary and not sufficient. Almost every trial lesson is pleasant.
Then optimise for consistency
Once you have chosen, the schedule matters more than the tutor:
- Twice a week beats once. Frequency is the strongest predictor of progress at any price.
- Shorter and more often beats long and rare. Two 30-minute lessons beat one 60-minute lesson for speaking.
- Book a fixed slot. Lessons that are rescheduled each week eventually stop happening.
- Give it six lessons before judging. The first two are always a bit awkward.
When to switch
Switch if after five or six lessons you cannot say what you are working on, you are not speaking most of the time, or you are not being corrected. Switching is normal and costs you a week; staying out of politeness costs months.
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