Last spring a message arrived in my Telegram from an account with no photo, no username, no name — just a question about my schedule. Two weeks later I was teaching that person twice a week, and to this day I couldn't tell you who they are even if I wanted to. That's what discreet English lessons under NDA for public figures look like in practice: the paperwork comes first, the introductions come second, and sometimes the introductions never come at all.
The NDA comes before your name
I sign the non-disclosure agreement before the first lesson — and before you tell me anything about yourself. The order matters. I send the template in advance, your lawyer marks it up if they like, we both sign, and only then do we discuss who you are and why you need English. Doing it the other way round is putting the cart before the horse: by the time the ink dries, the sensitive part has already been said out loud.
The agreement locks down three things. The fact of our cooperation — I have no right to say you study with me. The content — topics, mistakes, materials, progress. And your personal data, meaning anything that could identify you. I don't publish student names or use them in marketing anyway, but a signature turns my habit into your legal guarantee. Breaking it isn't an awkward moment; it's liability.
Discreet English lessons under NDA: what happens on screen
NDA clients study with me one-on-one only. I do teach pairs and mini-groups, but confidentiality and a third participant don't mix, so that format is off the table here. We meet online on a Miro board: vocabulary, corrections and homework live there as a visual record, and exactly two people have access to it — you and I. Video and audio are never recorded. Nothing to leak, nothing to find on a stolen laptop.
And here's a position some colleagues will argue with: I think lesson recordings are overrated for everyone, famous or not. Students almost never rewatch them, yet the files sit on somebody's cloud server forever. A board you can scroll through in thirty seconds beats an hour of footage you'll never open. For a public person, that footage is also a risk with your face on it.
A student of mine once prepared for a round of press interviews in English. We rehearsed the questions she feared most right on the board — hostile phrasings included — and she walked in knowing there was no tape of her rehearsal mistakes anywhere. That mattered to her more than the grammar did.
The market nobody advertises
There's a whole industry built on this logic. Tutors International, a British agency placing private tutors with wealthy families since 1999, requires NDAs and background checks from its teachers; rates in that segment reach $1,000 an hour. Sofía Vergara has said she studied English three hours a day with a private teacher. Hollywood actors keep dialect coaches on call. And the International Coaching Federation found that 96% of executives name confidentiality as a top factor in whether coaching works at all. Language teaching is coaching with vocabulary attached — the same rule applies.
So no, asking for discretion isn't diva behaviour. It's standard practice at the top of the market.
If you'd rather stay a codename
You can write to me on Telegram from an anonymous account, or have an assistant do it for you. The contract and the payment can go through a representative, so your name never has to appear in my paperwork at all. The first lesson is a free trial — and the NDA is already in force before it starts, so you can speak freely from minute one. Some clients reveal who they are after a month. Some never do.
Common CEFR estimates put roughly 200 guided hours between one level and the next. Discretion doesn't change that arithmetic — it just controls who knows you're putting the hours in.