Lantern English Review (Very Very Bad Experience!! Please be cautious!!)

[sotida]

Lantern English ---- Don't waste your money!!

https://www.lanternenglish.com/

I hope you will find some useful information from my thread. I registered 2 live classes (Grammar II and Sentence Stretches) and one regular class (Grammar I) for my child. We had very bad experience with the classes. First of all, the teacher only spent 20 mins or so finishing 1 hour long live class. This is not what I paid for. 

At the beginning, we experienced some connection issue, we can not always hear the teacher's voice.

When we sent our concern to them and try to find a solution. They responded to us for the reasons below : 1) They don't have any other issue with other students. 2) Perhaps because we were logged into two classrooms simultaneously. (Does that mean two students can not have the virtual leaning simultaneously in a family???) 3) Because my child was not using headphones. (We have built-in microphone and speaker in our laptop, how this becomes an issue? We never had any issue with other online class. )

Every time when I sent my concerns and try to find solutions, they were just pushing all faults to my side without any solution.

If you have a schedule conflict, sorry, they can not help, that is all your fault. (I understood this. They do not offer any refund. Due to our schedule conflict, we already skipped one our live class, and we only have another live class with their teacher. It turns out that our experience is really bad.)

In their website, they mention the live lesson is one hour long lesson. However my child usually finished the class way before that. One day, the teacher only used 14 mins then finished my child's lesson. Since I paid for 1 hour long lesson, the teacher should not finish the class within 20 mins and actually the teacher did this a lot. I sent my concert to the teacher, the teacher responded

1) My child has no mistakes with previous homework, then it saved 15 mins for the class.

2) Our regular class (Grammar I) already has overlapped contents, that is why she skipped those contents in our Live class!!! (The teacher didn't teach our regular lesson and they are just sending out the materials, why this will affect how she teaches for our live classes?)  And also we paid for 3 classes not just one.

3) Lastly, my child is a bright student who quickly grasps the material. This also allows for shorter teaching time. 

Do you think it is reasonable to reduce the class time to 20 mins for the reasons she responded? I really don't think so. If you really want to teach the students well not just go through the materials, how you can just finish the lesson in 14 mins?? Actually when I review the lesson with my child, my child did have a lot of weak spots which the teacher did not fully covered in the class!

 

When I sent my concern to their director, here is what she responded to me:

"Moving forward, perhaps The Lantern English Co. is not the right fit for your family. Mrs. XXX has expressed that YYY(my child) is great to work with and very bright,  but I'm concerned that our services and policies are not exactly what you're looking for. "

 

That is funny, they are not offering any solution at all, instead, if you have any questions about their program, then you should go and we don't welcome you as our customer!!!  This is the way how they treated their customer. If you don't want to waste your money, just simply walk away!!  Never experienced this rude customer service. 

 

 

 

Edited October 6, 2020 by sotida

[kiwik]

I have had good experiences with the normal courses.  The live ones are new so maybe it is big teething problems.

[ByGrace3]

That does sound frustrating. We are using Lantern English for the first time this year. I have 2 students enrolled in different writing classes and just signed them up for the next session. Like a pp mentioned, the live classes are new so I am not sure about those. . . 

[freesia]

I’ve also had nothing but great experiences with Lantern over the past 3 years. I’m so sorry you aren’t.

[wendyroo]

We have had very good experiences with Lantern English, but only the regular classes, not the new live ones. I know that my kids work through the lessons at wildly different speeds, so I can imagine it is hard in a live class to make the same amount of learning and practice last the same amount of time for diverse kids.

I have had mild annoyances with the classes.  For example, one lesson this past week said, "This week, you should attend a local event or go on a field trip, if at all possible." The whole writing project was centered around an outing to a public place, and I felt that in the middle of a pandemic, this warranted at least a note acknowledging the difficulties this presented and offering possible ideas for modifications. But then I try to remind myself that I am getting what I paid for.  Compared to many other options, Lantern is very reasonably priced.

[kiwik]

On 4/23/2021 at 11:59 PM, Casel Romando said:

I also have a very unspicy experience with Lantern English. I am an immigrant, I was advised to this school, as many adults find it difficult to learn the language using standard textbooks for children. I took a course during quarantine. The result is that it is expensive and the teachers themselves are not interested in work, as it seemed to me. 😪

Since the courses are $60 and aimed at children, a writing not a language one and you appear to have joined to make this comment ...