Language school AI chatbot for level tests, start dates and international enquiries

Your admissions inbox at 8am usually looks the same. A student in São Paulo wrote at 1am UK time asking whether General English starts every Monday. A father in Riyadh sent a WhatsApp at 5am about the junior summer course for his 14-year-old. Someone in Osaka filled in the contact form asking for an IELTS course and a homestay near the school. By the time your team replies, two of them have already heard back from a school in Dublin or Malta. A language school AI chatbot answers those messages when they arrive, in the student's evening rather than yours. It explains your courses, books a placement test, and passes the questions only staff should answer, such as visa letters, to your admissions team.

This page is for small and mid-sized language schools: an accredited English school in a coastal town with a few hundred students a year, a city-centre school running General English, IELTS and Cambridge exam classes, a summer junior centre, or a community language school teaching Spanish, French or Japanese to local adults in the evenings. It explains what Klugon's assistant can do for that kind of school, which conversations it must leave alone, how to set it up, and what it costs.

Why a language school AI chatbot fits international admissions

Most local businesses have a time problem: the phone rings while they're busy. A language school has that, and a geography problem on top. Your future students live in other time zones, write in other languages and contact you on the apps they use at home. A Brazilian student will WhatsApp. A Saudi family may ring. A Japanese student will often prefer email or the website form, and an Italian parent may message your Instagram after seeing a summer school reel.

Your admissions team works UK office hours. That means a large share of first enquiries arrive while nobody is at a desk, and the reply goes out eight or twelve hours later. Agents and competing schools reply faster. An assistant that answers within the same conversation, accurately, in a language the student is comfortable with, keeps the enquiry warm until a person picks it up.

The calls and messages a language school gets

A language school's enquiries fall into a fairly stable set. Knowing them makes it much easier to decide what to automate and what to keep.

Course and level questions

• "I'm B1. Which course should I take?"
• "What's the difference between General English and Intensive English?"
• "How many lessons a week is the standard course?"
• "Do you have IELTS preparation? When is the next exam course?"
• "Is there a Cambridge B2 First course, and when does it finish relative to the exam date?"
• "Can I do one-to-one lessons alongside the group course?"

Level tests

Most schools ask students to take a placement test before they arrive, or on the first morning. The test is usually online, with a short speaking check by video or phone. Students ask how to take it, how long it lasts, whether they can retake it, and what happens if their level comes out lower than they thought. For community schools teaching local adults, the level check is often a short in-person or video chat with a teacher, booked in advance.

Start dates

The most common question of all. Rolling-enrolment courses usually start any Monday; beginners, exam courses and some intensive programmes start on fixed dates. Students also ask about public holidays (no lessons on bank holidays, and how that affects a four-week booking), the latest Monday they can start and still finish before an exam, and whether a course can start mid-week.

Accommodation and arrival

Homestay, residence, shared flats, airport transfers, and every detail of each: meals included, distance from school, single or twin room, dietary needs, arrival and departure days, what happens with a late-night flight into Gatwick.

Prices and payment

Course fees by week, discounts for longer stays, registration and materials fees, accommodation placement fees, refund and cancellation policy, and what happens if a visa is refused.

Visas

Some of the most important questions you get, and the ones an AI should answer least. More on these below.

Juniors and families

Parents of under-18s ask about supervision, excursions, the ratio of staff to students, unaccompanied minor flights, and nationality mix. These are high-value enquiries and often need a human conversation before booking.

Agents

Education agents ask about commission, availability and group bookings. Most schools want those routed straight to a person.

When the enquiries arrive

Rather than a lunchtime peak, a language school sees enquiries spread across the day and night, shifting with the markets you recruit from:

• UK night (11pm to 6am): East Asia's working day and Latin America's evening. Messages, rarely calls.
• UK morning: the Gulf and continental Europe, with more calls.
• UK afternoon and evening: Europe again after work, plus local adults booking evening classes.
• Weekends: families researching summer courses together.

Klugon's analytics show your own busiest hours and weekdays, so after a month you'll know your real pattern rather than a guess.

The language school year

• January: New Year starts. Adults who have resolved to "finally get to B2" book evening classes; international students arrive for winter terms.
• February to April: junior summer bookings open, and parents start asking about July and August places. Exam-preparation courses fill for the summer exam dates.
• Ramadan and Eid: some schools see Gulf students shift dates around them. Your start-date information needs to be clear.
• June to August: the junior summer peak. Large group bookings, constant parent messages and arrivals every weekend.
• September: academic-year students and gap-year students arrive; local evening classes start their autumn term.
• October to December: quieter for international students; a good time to fix your FAQ.

What a language school AI chatbot handles

Klugon's assistant works on your website chat, WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger and the phone. Everything below works on all of them, unless noted.

Booking placement tests and level checks

Klugon has a built-in booking calendar. You set the services, how long each takes and which teachers can deliver it, and the assistant offers only slots where that teacher is free.

For a language school, services might be:

• Speaking level check (video): 15 minutes, with any of four teachers, weekdays 9am to 5pm UK time.
• Evening class placement chat: 20 minutes, Monday to Thursday 5pm to 7pm, for local adults.
• Junior parent consultation: 20 minutes with the junior programme manager.
• Accommodation consultation: 15 minutes with the accommodation officer.

The calendar runs on your opening hours and your timezone. That matters when a student in Tokyo books: tell the assistant to state times in UK time and, if you want, to give the equivalent in the student's time. Set a minimum notice period, a buffer between checks, and how far ahead bookings are allowed. Closed dates and bank holidays can be blocked.

If your written placement test is an online link, add it to the assistant's links library and it will share the link in chat, along with your instructions.

When a booking is made, the student gets a reference in the same conversation. Klugon doesn't send follow-up confirmation emails, reminders or calendar invites. If you need the student to receive the video-call link, put it in the service description so the assistant can share it in the conversation, or send it yourself.

Course start dates and calendars

Upload your course calendar as a document or paste it as text: start dates for beginners and exam courses, Mondays you're closed, the dates of the summer junior programme, the last start date for each exam course. The assistant answers from it. A student who asks "Can I start General English on 2 March for six weeks?" gets a direct answer, and one who asks about a date you're closed gets told the nearest start.

Keep this document current. The assistant only knows what you've given it, and an out-of-date calendar is the fastest way to give a wrong answer.

Prices, accommodation and arrival

The same approach works for fees, homestay rules and airport transfers. Most schools upload:

• the price list by course and number of weeks
• accommodation types, what's included and how far each is from school
• airport transfer prices and which airports you cover
• the cancellation and refund policy, including what happens on visa refusal
• what's included in junior programmes and the supervision ratio

The assistant can also scan your website's homepage and up to seven key pages, which is a quick start. For detailed price lists, an uploaded PDF or pasted text is more reliable.

Taking the enquiry when the student isn't ready

Many students aren't ready to book on the first message. The assistant captures them as leads: name, nationality, current level, course of interest, preferred start date and contact details. Leads appear on your leads page with a status (new, contacted, converted, lost), and new leads can be posted to Slack or sent through Zapier to your CRM or student management system. If you use HubSpot, Zoho, Salesforce or Pipedrive, the assistant can send leads there too, after setup, on the Business tier or above.

Answering in the student's language

On the phone, Klugon's assistant can speak English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Japanese or Arabic. You choose the language per assistant, and you write the greeting yourself, because the default greeting is in English.

That list happens to cover several of the markets UK English schools recruit from most: Brazil, Spain, Italy, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Japan and the Gulf. It does not include Chinese, Korean, Turkish, Polish, Thai or Vietnamese on the phone. If those are big markets for you, plan for written channels and staff.

Because each assistant has one phone language, a school with two strong markets can set up separate assistants (Klugon doesn't limit the number) with separate numbers, for example an Arabic-language line advertised to Gulf families and an English line for everyone else. The Business tier allows three numbers.

For chat and messaging, test the languages your students actually write in before you rely on the assistant for them, and tell your team which ones you've checked. The guide to multilingual phone answering covers how to plan this, and the AI voice agent feature page has more on how calls work.

What it must hand to your admissions team

Some questions should never be answered by an assistant at a language school, because a wrong answer can cost a student a visa, a place or their safety.

Visas and visa letters

This is the clearest line. The assistant should not:

• tell a student which visa they need
• say whether they'll get one
• issue, promise or draft a visa letter, letter of acceptance or any document for immigration
• comment on refusals or appeals

What it can do is explain, from your own written policy, that visa letters are issued by your admissions team after a booking and payment of a deposit (if that's your policy), and what information the team will need. Then it flags the conversation for a person.

For context, UK visa routes depend largely on course length. The government's Study English in the UK page says the Short-term study visa covers English courses longer than 6 months and up to 11 months at an accredited institution; shorter courses usually fall under the visitor route, and longer ones need a Student visa with a licensed sponsor. The rules change, and the decision belongs to UK Visas and Immigration. Your admissions team, not your assistant, should be the one explaining them to a student.

Under-18s and safeguarding

Junior programmes come with safeguarding obligations. If you're accredited, the British Council's Accreditation UK scheme inspects safeguarding of under-18s as one of its areas. The assistant can describe your supervision arrangements from your documents, but anything that suggests a child is at risk, or any question about a specific child's medical needs, unaccompanied travel or a custody situation goes to the person responsible for junior welfare.

Medical and dietary needs

The assistant can say whether homestays can cater for vegetarian or halal diets if your documents say so. Allergies, medication and disability need a person to confirm with the host family or residence before anything is promised.

Refunds, complaints and disputes

Fee disputes, complaints about a host family or a teacher, and refund requests after a visa refusal all go to staff.

Agents and group bookings

Commission rates, agent contracts and group quotes go to whoever manages agents.

How hand-over works

Klugon can't transfer a call to a person. When the assistant hands over, it flags the conversation as needing a person in your inbox and sends a notification to Slack or through Zapier. It tells the student that the admissions team will reply and takes the details they'll need.

The AI isn't paused after a hand-over and will keep answering if the student keeps writing. Your team can reply from the Klugon inbox on WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger and Telegram, within Meta's 24-hour messaging window on the Meta channels. For website chat and phone calls, reply by email or phone from your own systems.

Sample conversations

These are samples to show how the assistant behaves. The school, the students and all details are made up.

Sample phone call in Portuguese: a Brazilian student

A sample call. The business, Quayside English, is made up. The call took place in Portuguese and is shown here in English.

The assistant answered the course and price questions, booked the speaking check, gave the time in both time zones, and stopped at the visa question.

Sample WhatsApp: a visa letter request

A sample WhatsApp conversation. The business is made up.

The admissions officer sees a Slack notification in the morning, opens the conversation in the Klugon inbox and replies on WhatsApp. The assistant made no promise about when the letter would arrive.

Sample website chat: a junior summer school parent

A sample website chat. The business is made up.

Setting up the assistant for a language school

A setup checklist for language schools

1. List your services: speaking checks, evening class placement chats, junior parent consultations, accommodation consultations. Give each a length and the staff who deliver it.
2. Set your opening hours and timezone, slot interval, buffer, minimum notice and how far ahead students can book.
3. Upload your course calendar, price list, accommodation guide, junior programme information, and cancellation and refund policy.
4. Add your placement test link and any course brochures to the links library.
5. Write your hand-over rules: visas and visa letters, under-18 welfare, medical needs, refunds, complaints, agents.
6. Choose phone languages and write a greeting in each, saying the caller is speaking to an AI assistant.
7. Connect Slack or Zapier so admissions sees hand-overs and new leads.
8. Paste the chat widget script tag into your website. It works on any site.
9. Connect WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger through Meta. Allow time for Meta's app review on Instagram.
10. Test in every language you advertise with the questions students actually ask.

Your existing phone number

Keep it. Klugon gives you a dedicated number, and you forward your existing school number to it through your phone provider. Many schools forward only unanswered and out-of-hours calls at first. The phone number can only be added after the 7-day trial; during the trial you test voice from the browser.

Working alongside your student management system

Language schools often use a dedicated school management or student records system for bookings, invoices and visa documents. Klugon doesn't connect to those systems directly. A sensible split:

• Klugon answers enquiries, books level checks and consultations, and captures leads.
• Your existing system holds confirmed course bookings, invoices and documents.
• Leads move across by CSV export, Zapier, or a CRM such as HubSpot.

If your teachers' availability for speaking checks lives in Google Calendar, Outlook or Apple Calendar, Klugon can be set up to check and add events there on the Business tier or above. It's not automatic two-way sync, so most schools let Klugon's own calendar be the source for these slots.

What it costs

Klugon prices in US dollars, with three separate products:

Yearly billing takes 20% off. Phone numbers are $9 a month each, and a connected WhatsApp number is $19 a month. The free trial is 7 days and needs a card. See the pricing page for the full details.

A worked example for an accredited English school

Assumptions, to replace with your own:

• The school gets 120 enquiries a month by website chat and WhatsApp, and around 60 calls.
• About a third arrive outside office hours.
• Faster replies convert 2 extra students a month.
• An average booking is 6 weeks of General English at £270 a week, so £1,620 of tuition, before accommodation.

Two extra students a month is £3,240 of tuition. The website chatbot on Business ($149), the social agent on Starter with WhatsApp ($79 plus $19) and the voice agent on Starter with a forwarded number ($99 plus $9) come to $355 a month. Watch the social Starter allowance of 300 conversations: in the junior summer peak you may need the Business tier.

For a community school teaching evening Spanish to 80 local adults, the numbers are smaller. The website chatbot on Starter at $49 a month, answering "which level am I?" and "when does the next beginners' course start?", may be all you need.

Against more admissions staff

An extra admissions assistant covering early mornings or evenings costs at least the National Living Wage of £12.71 an hour for workers aged 21 and over from April 2026, plus employer costs, and still won't cover the UK night. A person brings things the assistant doesn't: judgement on visas, relationships with agents, and the ability to reassure a nervous parent. The assistant's job is to keep the enquiry alive until that person is at their desk.

Against an outsourced call centre

A call centre takes messages and works a script, usually in English. It won't book a speaking check into a teacher's calendar or answer in Japanese at 3am. The comparison of AI answering and call centres sets out where each makes sense.

Data protection for international students

Language schools hold personal data from students all over the world, often including passport details and, for juniors, children's data. A few principles for the assistant:

• Collect only what the enquiry needs. Name, contact details, level and course dates are enough. Passport numbers and visa documents should go through your admissions process, not the chat.
• Tell students. Your privacy notice should say that enquiries may be answered by an AI assistant.
• Treat health and dietary data carefully. Allergy and medical information is special category data under UK GDPR. The ICO's advice for small organisations is a practical starting point.

Klugon is run by a German company under the GDPR, and transfers to its sub-processors are covered by standard contractual clauses, as listed in its privacy policy. You can export conversations and leads as CSV, delete records, and request full deletion by email. Calls are not recorded.

How it compares with booking forms and agent portals

Most language schools take bookings through a web form, an online booking engine or agents. Those work well for students who already know what they want. They don't answer the student who isn't sure of their level, wants to know whether the homestay is near the beach, or writes in Portuguese at midnight.

Use the assistant in front of your booking engine, not instead of it. If you're new to the idea, the guide to what an AI receptionist is covers the basics.

Measuring whether it's working

• Replies outside office hours. The analytics page shows conversations by hour. Count how many were answered before your team arrived.
• Speaking checks booked. Compare this month with last.
• Channel split. See whether WhatsApp, Instagram or website chat is bringing students in, and from when.
• Questions without a good answer. The insights page lists them. If it's "do you have a course for nurses?", add an answer.
• Hand-overs waiting. The insights to-do list shows conversations waiting for a person. Visa questions shouldn't sit there for long.

Frequently asked questions

Can the chatbot issue visa letters or letters of acceptance?

No. Set it up to explain your process and hand the request to your admissions team, who check the booking and prepare the letter.

Which languages can it speak on the phone?

English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Japanese and Arabic. You pick one language per assistant and write the greeting in that language.

Can it book the online placement test?

If the test is an online link, the assistant shares the link and your instructions. If you run a speaking check with a teacher, it books that into Klugon's calendar with a teacher who's free.

Does it show times in the student's time zone?

The calendar runs in your school's time zone. You can instruct the assistant to state UK time and give the student's local equivalent, as in the sample above. Check it does so correctly in testing.

Can students pay their deposit through the chatbot?

Don't plan on it. Klugon doesn't take booking deposits, and taking course payments in chat isn't something we recommend using today. Keep payments in your booking engine or invoicing.

Will it send students a booking confirmation and pre-arrival information?

No. The student gets a booking reference in the conversation. Pre-arrival emails, invoices and reminders stay with your existing system.

Can our team reply to students from the same inbox?

Yes, on WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger and Telegram, within Meta's 24-hour window on the Meta channels. Website chat and phone conversations can't be replied to from the inbox.

Can it handle junior summer school bookings?

It can answer questions about the programme and book a consultation with your junior manager. Any welfare, medical or travel question about a specific child is handed to a person.

Is it accredited or approved by UKVI?

No. Klugon is software and holds no accreditation. Your school's accreditation and sponsor status are what count.

Where to start

Start with the channel your students already use most, often website chat or WhatsApp, and add the phone once the trial is over. Klugon's AI receptionist for small business handles the front-door work while your admissions team keeps the decisions. For related schools, see the pages for tutoring centres, dance and music schools and gyms and fitness studios, or return to the gyms and studios hub.