MEI or Preply & co.? What really changes.

The short version

What marketplaces do well

Choice, prices for every budget and total flexibility: you book when you want, with whoever you want. For some conversation practice now and then, or one specific need, that can be exactly right.

Why marketplace lessons so often stop

Most people don't stop for lack of talent. They stop because of the tutor they picked, or because of how the model works. After years spent watching students and tutors, we see the same eight reasons again and again.

1. You choose what you like, not what you need

You pick the tutor who seems nice and promises what you want to hear. It's natural. But then the lessons follow your taste, not your gaps.

Good teaching works the other way round: the tutor draws the language out of you, decides what comes next, and you trust the process. That's how teachers are trained. Cambridge has assessed people learning English as a second language since 1913, and the Cambridge CELTA comes from a teacher-training course born in London in the 1960s. Decades of practice say the same thing: a student who chooses the method rarely chooses the hard part.

2. A good profile is not a teaching qualification

Let's say it plainly: on marketplaces you find excellent professionals, and you find tutors who do real damage. Even at €25–40 an hour, many have never been trained to teach, neither adults nor children. They present themselves well, write a good profile and collect good reviews because they are kind and available. But they pass on wrong rules and, worse, a wrong way of learning the language: everything translated from your first language, and you listening instead of producing the language yourself.

We once heard one of the top-rated tutors on a big platform warn students, in public, against any tutor who doesn't speak their first language, because you have to teach inside the linguistic model of the student's own language. A century of research on how adults learn languages would like a word.

3. Flexibility that turns into gaps

No fixed time, lessons booked when you remember. One week you're busy, the next week your tutor is. The gaps get longer and the plan quietly ends. For most adults, this is the main reason they stop.

4. A tutor who has to say yes

A freelancer needs students, so saying no is hard. Ask for "business English only" and you'll get it, even if you first need the everyday verbs, structures and words that business English is built on. Nobody is in a position to tell you, kindly, that you're wrong.

5. One tutor for every age

On a marketplace the same tutor often teaches children, teenagers and adults, and nothing asks them for training specific to adults. MEI tutors teach adults only: English for work, General English, adults of every age, retired people too.

6. The numbers behind the lesson

Marketplaces usually keep between 15% and 33% of every lesson, before the tutor pays any tax, and on some platforms the first lesson with a new student goes entirely to the platform. Let's be honest: nobody is happy to teach for two thirds of their rate, and after tax what's left is often less than half. So the tutor needs more hours and more students, and has less energy for each one. It isn't a question of goodwill. It's arithmetic.

7. No structure around the lesson

A freelancer alone rarely has what a school has: every lesson and its materials in one place, progress tracked skill by skill, a test every 2 months and someone who reads it, lessons managed and cancelled from an app. Building all that is expensive and slow for one person.

8. A model that doesn't need you to stay

A marketplace earns on every lesson booked, between any student and any tutor. With so much traffic, a student who gives up is soon replaced by a new one. So nothing in the model is built to keep you going for a year. What it sells instead is the feeling of control: filter, choose, switch whenever you like. It feels like freedom. For most people, it's how they end up stopping.

What changes at MEI

MEI is the relationship of a private tutor with the organisation of a school. You don't choose from a catalogue: Marcus matches you after a first call, planning it so your lessons run smoothly. Your MEI tutor is Cambridge CELTA-qualified, has at least 10 years of experience, teaches adults only and is part of our small team, not a freelancer passing through.

• The same tutor, at the same time, every week: your slot, or slots, don't move.
• A plan that your tutor and Marcus check.
• A progress test every 2 months, skill by skill.
• MyMEI: every lesson, its materials, homework and your progress in one place.
• Month by month: no long contract. A simple email at least three days before the end of the month, and you don't continue next month.

We chose this model on purpose. Over the years we have turned down chances to grow rather than compromise how we work, and we have never aimed at the largest number of students. What we care about is that it works and that people stay. If something isn't working, we change it.

When a marketplace is the better choice

If you want a few hours of conversation practice, lessons only when you feel like it, or the lowest price per lesson, a marketplace is a good choice, and we'd tell you so in the first call. If you want English that finally sticks, with someone waiting for you every week, that's what MEI is for.