ITalki student reviews and actual experiences don't really match
I have been recently trying to find a tutor for my TCF preparation, and my experience has been really disappointing so far. For some context, I have been studying French at the Alliance Francais for over a year and I met so many experience with incredible teachers, so maybe my bar is a bit high as well. I turned to Italki because it is more flexible, and I was hoping to find someone more exam-focused.
At first, I tried someone with a lot of student reviews. While she was helpful at first by making me familiar with the exam template, there were multiple red flags that were hard to ignore, such as giving me entirely AI-generated exercises, getting defnsive when I pointed out there was something wrong with the materials she gave me, and had no consistency in week-to-week teaching (e.g., saying she would correct something offline and never did), and most abusrdly, suggesting I had a reading disorder after knowing me for just a month. I do struggle with pronunciation sometimes, but I think that's not professional to just throw this concept out there randomly...
Recently, I also just tried someone with great reviews, and during the first lesson, I asked her about her lesson plan, and she immediately got defensive, emphasizing that she had 7 years of experience teaching, and this was how it worked. I had to explain that that's something I asked every teacher during the first lesson...
At this point, I am not sure if I am the problem or not, because I am seeing so, so many positive reviews under those teachers. Those are not short sentences -but long, extensive praises! Actually, I realized I seemed to have a better experience with community tutors for conversational practice, who charge less and also seem to less rude...
I am just curious to know if that's a common experience or if that's only me.
BTW If you have a great TCF tutor, feel free to suggest!