How Companies Can Avoid Wasting Budget on an English Language Provider — and Boost Business Results

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Vitaliy Vasiliev — CEO Yappi Groupя

Iryna Lyalenko — Senior Manager, Head of Sales Yappi Corporate

At Yappi Corporate, we’ve been teaching English to companies for 18 years. One of our key insights? Corporate training isn’t just about language skills. It’s also about team cohesion, setting new shared goals, exchanging experiences, humor, and inside memes. Training becomes part of the corporate culture that unites. And if it’s well-organized, it also becomes a powerful tool for employee and company growth.

How a provider can simplify HR’s life when organizing training

✓ Digital ecosystem for HR and employees

Today, a learning platform is a must-have for every provider. A standard LMS system includes data on student attendance and progress, schedules, and links to online lessons or in-person class timetables.

When a provider develops its platform into a full-fledged ecosystem, it significantly simplifies your training organization. In this case, as a client, you can access:

• each student’s attendance percentage;

• reasons for a student’s absence;

• data on lesson cancellations by the provider + the ability to cancel lessons;

• results of all employees’ entry tests;

• the percentage of lessons completed and material mastered by the student;

• the course program and expected outcomes;

• feedback on learning from both students and teachers;

• resumes of teachers working with your employees;

• access to group chats with teachers;

• detailed financial reports downloadable in PDF.

✓ Effective foreign language learning methodologies

The quality of material retention and, accordingly, learning effectiveness depend on the methodologies used to design the course. Key modern approaches — such as spaced repetition and the flipped classroom — are based on the research and experiments of H. Ebbinghaus (who developed the forgetting curve and explained how the brain best retains information) and B. Carey’s theory of disuse (which states that knowledge fades without practice).

Integrating these methodologies into the course:

• allows rational use of class time;

• activates learned material in speech, improving retention;

• accelerates progress through systematic practice, real-world application, and teacher feedback.

Regular interim tests and student progress monitoring demonstrate employee progress in real time without requiring additional oversight from HR or management.

✓ Working toward a specific result

When discussing our approach, we don’t sell English by the lesson — we work to achieve a specific result per course (i.e., mastering one level of English).

On our end, we guarantee seamless operation and ongoing advancement of the learning platform, continuously refine teaching methodologies, enhance material relevance and practical value, invest in educational technology integration, and support professional development for both instructors and our entire team. Yet these efforts represent only 40% of what makes a training initiative successful.

The rest depends on the student, specifically:

• attendance and regularity;

• engagement and participation in lessons;

• preparation, homework completion, and additional practice in speaking clubs/trainings;

• motivation, influenced by factors like salary/position dependence on English proficiency or employee co-payment for training.

Why providers don’t always meet expectations

Some companies come to Yappi Corporate after unsatisfactory experiences with other providers. They share their failed cases and pain points, which we analyze to find solutions to common problems. For example:

• a company pays for English training for 70 employees, but only 30 remain by the semester’s end;

• employees stagnate at B1-B2 levels for months or years.

The result? Employees waste time, HR and leadership lose credibility, and the company wastes its budget (doubly so if switching providers and restarting).

From HR experience, employees drop out due to:

• Irrelevant materials;

• Inconvenient schedules (not all providers offer flexible time slots);

• Dissatisfaction with teachers;

• Ineffective or nonexistent learning platforms (no interactivity).

Why does a carefully chosen provider fail to deliver effective, engaging training? After analyzing mistakes (ours and others’) and studying client challenges, we’ve concluded:

✓ Prioritize quality over stated price

Focusing 100% on price and 0% on quality risks getting a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Tender bids should be proportional:

Imagine wanting to replace a teacher mid-semester and being told it’s impossible. Or the teacher gets sick/quits, and students must wait months due to lack of substitutes. Or requesting program adjustments to retain employees, only to hear, "Stick with it till the semester ends."

A case in point: A large pharmaceutical company signed with Yappi Corporate after a failed semester with a cheaper, "reputable" provider. When their needs went unmet, employees refused to continue, wasting 4-5 months of potential English monetization.

If your goal is to profit from employees’ language skills, quality must guide your choice.

✓ Expand provider selection criteria in your tender table

When preparing the tender table, it’s crucial not only to account for all the company’s needs but also to articulate your requirements in detail. This ensures you can thoroughly research and accurately evaluate provider proposals.

The rationale for narrowing down criteria in the tender table is understandable: instead of unsolicited marketing from providers, you receive a clear list of services and tools they offer. But here’s what actually happens. Under a loosely defined criterion like "availability of a learning platform," providers who genuinely offer an interactive platform with digital textbooks may check the box — but so will those who:

• purchased access to an LMS and uploaded scraped PDFs of British textbooks (often without copyright holders’ consent);

• simply offer Zoom classes paired with the aforementioned PDFs, marketing this as a "platform";

• even label a basic Google Drive filled with internet-sourced materials as a "platform."

By treating all providers as equal and selecting the lowest-cost proposal, a company may end up with:

• no competent teachers;

• no option to replace or reassign instructors;

• zero interactivity or digital learning tools;

• no systematic material development tailored to the client’s needs;

• inflexible scheduling and rigid teaching approaches;

• and ultimately, no visible results or employee motivation to learn.

How to properly evaluate a provider: selection criteria

Real example: A client chose a cheaper provider over Yappi Corporate without verifying tender claims. Expectations? Cost savings and modern interactive platform lessons. Reality?

• no learning platform;

• stitched-together PDF textbooks;

• inflexible schedules due to teacher shortages;

• teachers canceling lessons (breaching contracts);

• no coordinator dashboard or student progress tracking;

• no personal manager or client support.

Sometimes, even after several lessons, it’s hard to assess a provider fully. But pre-contract research is possible. Detail your tender table. If it looks like this:

At first glance, this table appears to cover the essential questions, but in reality, it fails to provide any real understanding of what services you'll actually receive or their quality.

Gather input from all departments and staff involved in training decisions about the criteria they'll use to evaluate providers. Dedicate time to developing the fundamental requirements that we'll now examine in detail.

✓ Provider’s specialization, curriculum, and textbooks

Selecting a school that specializes exclusively in corporate English significantly increases your chances of working with competent instructors and optimized programs. While most providers now include corporate courses in their offerings, many lack the specialized experience and materials required for effective business language training.

A dedicated corporate language provider can:

• customize both curriculum and materials to your specific needs;

• demonstrate adaptability through flexible group and individual training options;

• provide authentic testimonials from current corporate clients.

When it comes to textbooks, you can request confirmation that they are written according to international standards and correspond to the knowledge level of your employees. If a school uses textbooks from major publishers such as Cambridge, Longman, etc., find out two important things:

• whether the school is a certified center of the mentioned publisher;

• whether the provider has a team responsible for developing and adapting learning materials, including the integration of professional vocabulary.

The global idealization of British textbooks is undeniable. They dominate the market but often lag in localization and digitalization. The school should provide proof that their materials are up-to-date, locally adapted, and gathered on a single platform. Thanks to the work of a content management department, your lessons won’t focus on using a fax machine in the office or how Nokia is conquering the world, but rather on the latest developments in the world of artificial intelligence.

By the way, in the peak era of AI, it’s also worth checking whether the provider works with AI and how exactly — whether they optimize technical processes, use AI for content creation, or integrate it into their learning platform via API.

✓ Implementation of technological solutions for effective learning

A provider that is genuinely interested in their clients’ success invests in the technological component of their services. Interactive tools enhance learning effectiveness by increasing engagement, personalizing materials and tasks, and offering the ability to practice even without a teacher or group.

Based on our own digital ecosystem, we can highlight the following most effective tools:

• flashcards with spaced repetition algorithms that help students learn vocabulary and grammar without rote memorization;

• an AI-powered pronunciation trainer that analyzes a student’s speech and provides precise feedback on pronunciation and intonation;

• a wide range of interactive exercises for different language proficiency levels aimed at developing various language skills;

• simulations of real-life communicative situations that accelerate adaptation to a foreign-language environment.

Don’t miss the opportunity to attend a demo lesson and personally test all the features of the proposed platform.

✓ Teachers

In a typical foreign language teacher vacancy on recruitment websites, you will see the desired English level from B2 and a willingness to hire a student. However, in a tender, the requirements should go beyond just a higher education degree and a certificate of language proficiency. Consider the following:

• at least two years of teaching experience with adults;

• experience in corporate, specialized, or business English;

• possession of a DELTA, CELTA, TEFL, or TESOL certificate;

• qualifications obtained in the last three years, not only in teaching, because your students are looking for not only a teacher but also an interesting conversational partner;

• a list of companies the teacher has worked with.

Remember that a translator or philologist is not necessarily a qualified teacher. Pay attention to how the teacher’s qualifications and experience align with your requirements. Upon your request, the provider should provide their criteria for evaluating the expertise of teachers.

✓ Employer brand and corporate culture

A reliable provider not only sets high requirements for teachers but also offers appropriate working conditions, which you can check on job websites:

• a ready lesson plan and provision of teaching materials;

• professional development within the company (a training center for teachers);

• a certain degree of freedom in planning lessons with the opportunity to influence the learning process;

• financial and non-financial motivation, such as the ability to choose a schedule and work on interesting projects.

An English school should operate as a single organism. The client should have support from a manager, the teacher should have methodological support, and there should be departments for content development and HR, while the online platform should be supported by technical assistance. When everything works in sync, the teacher is fully prepared for their job.

It’s a good sign if the provider can talk about their R&D team and its work on lessons. Another advantage is when teachers can influence the process of creating programs and lessons by providing feedback on the lessons they’ve taught. Check the provider’s career page and find out how they’re doing with corporate culture. Some schools hire teachers for numbers and, regardless of their qualifications and experience, treat them simply as talking heads.

To find out what colleagues and teachers say about the working conditions, check the provider on DOU or forums. As one candidate honestly said during an interview, if the teacher is dissatisfied with these conditions, they will not perform their job effectively.

What else you need to know about the provider before starting the training

If the provider is slow to get in touch with you, fills out the tender documentation poorly or partially, leading to unnecessary clarifications, this might indicate that the training process will also be problematic.

On the other hand, the stability of a company is demonstrated by the following indicators:

• the average duration of contracts with the provider and teacher cooperation;

• recommendation letters with specifics about the collaboration, provided by current employees;

• availability of an annual school evaluation system among HR specialists, students, and teachers;

• the registered legal entity matches the provider delivering the services;

• provider’s activity in the media and social networks.

Additionally, you can ask the provider for the contacts of three HR specialists from companies listed on the school’s website, who are currently studying or have studied there previously. Get live feedback about the training, communication, the school’s response to challenges, etc. You know about HR groups without us. However, pay attention to whether the HR of the English school is recommending you to study at their own school.

That’s a lot of information — but how do you fit all these criteria into a tender? Send an email to [email protected] with the subject line "Tender Table" — we will provide you with a detailed sample table that has been tested in practice and based on years of experience. You can freely use and adapt it to your specific needs.