Our Review of Wyzant
Tutoring is a highly effective way to learn, and Wyzant features thousands of highly experienced tutors who can help in more than 28 languages. Lessons with any tutor are pay-as-you-go, with no subscriptions or upfront payments required.
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Tutor Selection10
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Flexibility8.5
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Tools & Resources9.5
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Value for Cost10
Wyzant is a tutoring marketplace that aims to make personalized learning easier, affordable, and accessible by connecting students around the globe with expert tutors. There are thousands of expert tutors on Wyzant ready to help you learn new languages, master academic and professional subjects, or even pick up a new hobby
The platform boasts more than 65,000 tutors covering over 300 subjects and more than 12,000 topics. On Wyzant you can find experienced tutors for both online as well as in-person lessons.
Wyzant is different from other tutoring sites, which typically assign tutors to students (instead of helping a student make an informed decision about who to work with) On Wyzant, who you work with is completely up to you.
In this article we’ll focus on learning foreign languages with tutors on Wyzant.
Table of Contents
- How does Wyzant work?
- How much does Wyzant cost?
- What languages can I learn with tutors on Wyzant?
- Where do lessons take place?
- What will you learn with your Wyzant language tutor?
- Our experience with language tutoring on Wyzant
- Why study foreign languages with a tutor instead of just self-study?
- The bottom line – is Wyzant worth your time?
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How does Wyzant work?
To find an expert, qualified language tutor on Wyzant, all you need to do is specify what language you’re interested in, your price range, and the times you’d like to meet. The platform will then give you a list of tutor profiles to browse through based on your unique search criteria.
Tutor profiles on Wyzant include plenty of information about the tutor’s background, education and qualifications, so you can generally get a pretty good overview of their capabilities before you book.
When it comes to choosing the right fit for a tutor, we prefer to browse a handful of different profiles and choose someone with the right experience. On Wyzant, that was easy. In contrast, other platforms like Varsity Tutors simply assign you a tutor.
We were able to easily find a highly-qualified Russian tutor on Wyzant with a Masters’ degree in teaching Russian, as well as over 20 years of experience.
When you’re ready to get started, just click the “Message” button and fill out a short form to let your tutor know your availability. You can also include a few lines of text with relevant details about your needs, such as your current proficiency level or any specific topics you’d like to cover during your language lessons. Tutors will generally get back to you within a few hours to schedule a lesson.
How much does Wyzant cost?
On Wyzant there is no paying in advance, no expensive subscriptions, and no monthly fees. Lessons on the platform with any tutor are pay-as-you-go. Tutors on Wyzant are all independent, which means they set their own rates. Lessons can cost anywhere from $10 per hour to upwards of $150 per hour, depending on the subject and a tutor’s level of experience.
If you want to learn to code in Python from a San Francisco tech genius, for example, you’ll likely pay a lot more than you would for elementary Spanish lessons from a grad student.
On average, Wyzant’s online world language tutors charged between $20 and $50 per hour for lessons at the time this article was published. We paid a rate near the higher end, which got us a tutor who was experienced, qualified, and effective – she’s a professional teacher at a language institute in Washington D.C. and regularly teaches Russian to government employees. As you might expect, our lessons on Wyzant ended up being significantly more fruitful than lessons we had taken on other tutoring platforms.
Some platforms require you to purchase subscriptions or lesson packs, which can be inconvenient and expensive. Wyzant lets you book lessons you need, with the right tutors, with no commitments or conditions. And because finding your perfect language tutor shouldn’t be a hassle, their Good Fit Guarantee goes a step further: love your first hour with a new tutor, or Wyzant will cover the cost.
What languages can I learn with tutors on Wyzant?
Wyzant lists tutors experienced in teaching 28 world languages, including:
Arabic
Bulgarian
Chinese
Czech
Dutch
English
ESL/ESOL
Farsi
French
German
Greek
Hebrew
Hindi
Hungarian
Indonesian
Italian
Japanese
Korean
Latin
Polish
Portuguese
Romanian
Russian
Spanish
Thai
Turkish
Urdu
Vietnamese
There are also tutors who provide customized lessons in specialized languages and language proficiency tests like Braille, IELTS, sign language, TOEFL, and the USCIS.
Where do lessons take place?
Once you’ve booked some time with a tutor, you can view your upcoming lessons from the Dashboard. If you’re doing lessons in person you’ll work with your tutor to organize a place and time, but we find it’s much more convenient to do them online.
Wyzant’s online learning tool makes it really easy to connect with your tutor – all you have to do is click a button to join the virtual classroom and begin learning.
What will you learn with your Wyzant language tutor?
The material you cover in your Wyzant lessons will largely depend on your personal learning goals as well as your tutor’s experience and teaching style. Tutors on Wyzant work as independent contractors and aren’t given any type of official curriculum, so each one has their own materials and resources.
You’ll want to discuss your goals with your tutor before or during your first lesson so they know how best to help you. You should give them as much detail as you can, such as the amount of time you’ve been learning, what apps or programs you use and what you want to achieve through your lessons.
We told our new Russian tutor that we have intermediate-level proficiency and wanted to begin by working on Russian “verb aspects” (a particularly difficult grammatical concept in the Russian language). Our tutor had plenty of material on the subject, so we worked through some activities then she gave us a practice assignment to complete before the next class.
There are thousands upon thousands of tutors available on Wyzant, meaning you can find someone to help you achieve your goals no matter what they are. You’ll just want to be as specific as you can so that your tutor knows how best to help you.
Our experience with language tutoring on Wyzant
We used Wyzant to find a tutor for intermediate-level Russian. It was easy to book sessions and the online classroom made learning very convenient. Wyzant tutors are generally very qualified and capable, so you’ll get a lot out of your sessions.
Wyzant lists high-quality independent tutors
Wyzant has a vetting process to help ensure that high quality tutors end up on the platform. Tutors are required to provide information detailing their education and professional experience, write personal statements about their previous tutoring and teaching experience, and take proficiency quizzes in subjects in order to be approved to tutor on the platform.
If you’d like, you can request additional information directly from a prospective tutor, such as professional references, a resume, or a more detailed description of their previous experience. Wyzant also has a feature that allows you to pay for a background check on a potential tutor if you’d prefer an extra level of security. You can also search for tutors that have background checks on file already.
Wyzant tutors are U.S. based, so scheduling is easier
One of the big challenges of finding an online foreign language tutor is dealing with time zone differences. If you’re studying an Asian language like Japanese or Chinese, for example, you may have to navigate a tough time difference depending on where you live. When we were learning Mandarin with a Beijing-based tutor, we regularly dealt with scheduling conflicts due to the 15-hour time difference between Beijing and San Francisco.
Almost all of the tutors on Wyzant are based in the U.S., meaning it’s considerably easier to find lesson times that fit your schedule. Our current tutor is based in Washington DC, so there’s only a three-hour time difference.
Learning Russian online with Wyzant
We’ve been studying Russian for a bit more than two years and are somewhere around intermediate level proficiency. We have a basic grasp of most of the grammatical concepts but we need more practice in order to be able to construct sentences fluently and accurately.
We searched through Wyzant’s Russian tutors and found a tutor with a linguistics degree, as well as over 20 years’ experience tutoring. If you’ve used other platforms to find language tutors you might have noticed it can be a bit difficult to find experienced, qualified people. Many tutoring sites these days have low application requirements in order to maximize the number of tutors available on their platforms, the result being lower quality options available to learners.
Wyzant language tutors are generally educated and capable, so you can tell them your needs and they will be able to craft a lesson plan for you. We told our Russian tutor we wanted to work on “verb aspects” (a complicated part of Russian grammar). In the first lesson, our tutor spoke with us for about 15 minutes to gauge our proficiency in the language, then spent the rest of the class teaching us the grammar topic we requested. She had a handful of activities from a Russian textbook and then provided us with a six-page homework assignment to complete before the next class.
The homework assignment was a bit complex but we were able to work through it without too many issues. During the next class we went over the assignment together, correcting any mistakes.
An added bonus is that Wyzant’s online classroom space is perfectly suited for co-editing documents, writing notes and screen sharing.
Wyzant’s online Whiteboard makes online classes feel seamless
As we covered in earlier sections, Wyzant offers a free online learning tool for meeting virtually in real-time with tutors, taking notes, and sharing files.
The Whiteboard feature is a lot like a Google Doc, allowing you to type or draw on a document together with your tutor during your lesson. When we don’t know how to say a word or phrase, for example, our Russian tutor types it onto the Whiteboard so we can memorize it later. At the end of each lesson, we copy all the Whiteboard notes onto a Google Sheet so that we can turn them into Anki flashcards and memorize them (see our Anki guide below for tips).
Why study foreign languages with a tutor instead of just self-study?
The proliferation of language learning apps and online language resources has led to a sharp increase in the number of people learning languages on their own. “Self-study,” as it’s often referred to in language learning communities, has become the preferred learning method for many busy adults seeking a customized learning experience.
If you’re learning a language on your own using apps, books or online resources, you have the benefit of complete control over your learning – you aren’t limited to the pace of an entire classroom or the different ability levels of other students. The main drawback, however, is that self-study takes a lot of discipline. You’re responsible for finding study materials and setting aside time every day to study. One of the hardest parts of acquiring a second language is building durable, long-term study habits; it’s so easy to fall off the language learning wagon and forget to study for weeks or months.
Working with a tutor is one of the most effective ways to start building durable study habits. If you have a lesson booked every week on Wednesday morning, for example, you’re a lot more likely to set aside some study time on Monday and Tuesday in order to prepare. Plus, a homework assignment that’s due the next session might be the extra push you need to hit the books before you go to bed.
We always recommend learners organize their study time with the help of a language learning study planner to keep track of study activities, time and goals. Here’s an example of our most recent study planner for Russian:
You can download our template to make your own language study planner by clicking the image below.
The bottom line – is Wyzant worth your time?
Can you learn a language online with a Wyzant tutor? Are the lessons worth the time and money? The short answer is: yes, one hundred percent! But like with most language learning strategies, it depends on how much time and effort you are willing to invest.
Using a tutor on Wyzant will help you make significant progress in your target language, but only if you put in the work outside of the classroom to learn and review your lesson material.
Wyzant features thousands of highly experience independent tutors who can help you with basically any language you want to learn. Unlike other tutoring platforms, Wyzant doesn’t require you to purchase any type of subscription; you choose the rate you’re comfortable with and pay only for the lessons you’ve had, with no extra requirements.
Regular speaking practice is one of the most reliable ways to improve your proficiency in a foreign language. If you don’t live overseas or have access to native speakers to practice with, online tutoring makes for an infallible substitute. If you’re new to the idea of taking lessons with a tutor over video call, we recommend you visit Wyzant and take a look at the tutors available for your target language. No matter your experience or proficiency level, you’re sure to find a tutor to match your needs and help you achieve your learning goals.
Disclaimer: Wyzant is a property of IXL Learning, Inc.