Rules and Disclaimer
At Alpaca Academy, we strive to provide the best online English learning experience possible.
We understand the importance of learning English in a safe and secure environment, so we have set up some rules and disclaimer in place to ensure that our users have the best experience possible. To make sure you are fully informed, please read these rules and disclaimer carefully before signing up, booking and making payment. Thank you for choosing Alpaca Academy.
If you have questions about our rules and disclaimer, please contact us. We'll be happy to answer any questions you might have.
Booking Rules
1. Please sign up as a site member or contact us directly about purchasing lesson tickets. Please answer questions of the basic information of the student truthfully and as accurately as possible - due to the limited resources we have, such as tutors and materials, we can only accept a few people. We apologise for that.
2. To ensure that our students get the most out of their learning experience, we ask that each student fill in their details accurately when signing up, and not share their account with others. Furthermore, our tutors are not experienced in teaching children under 12 years old so if you wish to apply for your children, please fill out their details. We will evaluate whether our tutor is suitable to accept the student or not. If we cannot accept your children, we are very sorry.
3. After signing up, you can choose from a range of plans to activate your membership. We also provide a booking ID for future reference. If you book through our booking forms instead of on Facebook, please make sure to specify your time zone (country), booking time, nickname, and booking ID as instructed.
Lesson Rules
1. We believe that everyone should be able to learn English in a safe and non-judgmental environment, so we do not mind if vulgar words are used during the lesson. However, we will not tolerate any swearing or cursing directly at our tutor. If this happens, the lesson will be stopped and the student will still be charged. If our tutor accidentally uses foul language and you do not like it, please remind our tutor and contact us. We will investigate and take proper actions.
2. We are committed to providing a safe and secure learning environment for our students. We have strict policies in place, ensuring our students and teachers avoid any uncomfortable situations. We ensure our tutor do not ask students any questions that make them uncomfortable and we politely ask our students not to ask our tutor personal questions such as relationship status income, residential details etc. If this happens, our tutor has the right to end the lesson and you will still be charge.
3. We provide an open exchange of ideas and opinions while respecting the boundaries of our tutors and students. Sensitive and controversial topics and subjects such as politics and religions should be avoided but they are not forbidden. Please do not push the tutor to change their opinions or to agree with you. In this case, please change the topic. If the student still tries to push their ideology on the tutor, the tutor has the right the end the lesson earlier and you will still be charged. If the tutor tries to force you to change your opinion, please contact us. We will investigate and act upon it.
4. We believe in providing the best one-on-one tutoring experience, and for that reason, each of our lessons are 25 minutes long, with one minute of buffering time after the 25 minutes is up. Additionally, only one student can join a lesson. If our tutor finds out that there are more than one student, they will issue a warning and if it continues, you will be charged twice. If the student does not show up to the lesson, it will be ended automatically after 10 minutes. The length will not be extended if you are late for the lesson. If the lesson is cancelled due to the no-show situation described above, the student will still be charged. The lesson will also be ended if the tutor fails to show up 5 minutes after the lesson starts. The lesson ticket will be returned to the student.
5. At Lesson, we understand that students want to make the most of their learning time. That's why we offer the convenience of booking multiple lessons in a row. With this service, two 25-minute lessons will be merged into one 50-minute lesson, making it easier for students to get the most out of their English learning experience. We apologise for not being able to offer two 25-minute lessons with a five-minute break in between, however, we are committed to delivering the very best English learning experience.
6. We take our students’ and tutor's privacy and security very seriously. We have strict rules in place to ensure that all content remains confidential. We respectfully ask our students to take extra care to not record or share lessons without the tutor's permission. Even with the tutor's consent, the recordings should not be shared with others. We reserve the right to take legal actions if we find out the recordings are shared in any ways.
7. Please note that our tutor is not a professional translator, and we forbid our tutor from checking homework or any important and legal documents. However, the tutor will do their best to help you understand the materials you are studying for your leisure reading and studying.
8. The lessons will all be conducted in English, with a second language as a way to assist our students to understand the conversation or materials better. The tutors will only teach English. Lessons of/in other languages are available at a different price. Please contact us to find out more.
9. Our lessons are conducted in a safe and comfortable environment, and we expect our students to respect our tutors and follow our guidelines. Any behaviour that makes our tutor uncomfortable is prohibited, such as dressing inappropriately or inappropriate languages. We will kindly ask you to stop and if this continues, the lesson will be ended immediately, and your membership will be terminated with the rest of the tickets refunded. A $30 processing fee will be charged and directly deducted from the refund in this case.
Cancellation Policies
1. We understand that life can be unpredictable, so if a student wishes to reschedule a lesson, we kindly ask that they do so at least 1.5 hours before the lesson starts in order to give our tutor enough time and to protect other students' right to book a lesson as well, especially during popular hours. This ensures that everyone has a fair chance to book lessons and get the most out of their English language learning journey.
It is important to remember that our lessons cannot be rescheduled if they start in less than 1.5 hours. In this case, if a student cannot show up, you will still be charged. In the case of a tutor having an emergency, we will send you a message/ email to provide you with the best solution. We will work with you to reschedule the lesson or still conduct the lesson in a less ideal environment on the tutor's end. We apologise in advance if this happens and we will let you know if your lesson is cancelled by the tutor as early as we can.
2. Our platform provides flexible tutoring sessions designed to help you master the essentials of English, and if you wish to terminate your membership before using up the lesson tickets you have purchased, you will still be charged for the full month - so please consider your own schedule before making payments. We apologise for the inconvenience this might cause.
3. Tickets bought are only valid for a month, so make sure you use them up before they expire - no refunds will be made for expired tickets! If there are more than five tickets left, only one will be extended for one more week, and the rest are not refundable.
4. We take the wellbeing of our tutors and students seriously and have implemented strict policies when it comes to inappropriate behaviour. If any student is found to be in breach of ou rules (especially hostile behaviour towards our tutor), we have the right to terminate their membership. We will only refund half of the tuition fees with a $30 processing fee being deducted directly from the amount refunded. .
Disclaimer
Please note that our tutor has never study abroad, and is not a native speaker. The main goals of Alpaca Academy is to help students start speaking English and overcome the fear they might have. It's a platform for talking in English. Alpaca Academy does not guarantee any results with us, especially passing English skills tests such as IELTS and TOEFL. For school students, the tutor can and will answer the questions you might have in terms of your school English subject but this is not a good place for checking your English homework and we do not promise your school grades will improve if you learn with Alpaca Academy.
