We don’t offer trial lessons.
Commitment comes first
I believe learning a language takes time and commitment. Over the last ten years, I have taught French to hundreds of people, and those who succeeded were almost invariably those who committed from day one.
It is difficult to know whether they committed because they had paid, or paid because they were committed. Either way, something about that decision seems to work.
Trial lessons start from a very different place.
They ask a single lesson to provide enough reassurance to justify the commitment that follows. There is an expectation that, within an hour, you should know whether the tutor is right, whether the method works and whether the investment will be worthwhile.
What one hour cannot prove
In my experience, an hour cannot tell you any of those things.
Learning French is a long process. Some lessons will be fascinating. Others will be difficult. Sometimes you will leave feeling that you have made enormous progress. At other times, you may feel that you have made none at all.
What matters is what happens over time.
We don't expect to trial everything before committing to it.
You don't attend university for a week before deciding whether the degree is worth pursuing. You don't expect the first lecture to prove the value of the years that follow.
You choose based on the institution, the programme, the people teaching it and what is expected of you. And then you give it time.
I think learning a language deserves some of the same patience.
A programme, not a taster
This applies to group classes too. We are sometimes asked whether it is possible to attend a taster session before enrolling. It isn't.
A single class cannot tell you what twelve weeks of learning with the same teacher, the same group and a structured curriculum will feel like. And inserting someone temporarily into an existing group changes the experience for everyone else.
A group class is not an event to sample. It is a programme to join.
Clarity before you begin
So we prefer to be clear before you start.
We explain how we teach, what we expect from our students, how our programmes work and what they cost. We show you the books we use and introduce you to the tutors who teach with us. There should be very little mystery about what you are committing to.
Then the decision is yours.
But once you make it, we believe you should commit to giving the process the time it requires.
A professional relationship
This is why we don't offer trial lessons.
Not paid ones.
And certainly not free ones.
Asking a professional tutor to work for free has never seemed to me like a particularly good way to begin a professional relationship.
Unfortunately, our industry has normalised it. Some platforms even encourage students to try several tutors before choosing one, turning experienced professionals into a selection of free samples.
I don't think that is particularly respectful of the tutor, nor do I think it is a particularly good way to begin learning.
