italki: How was your experience?

General discussion about learning languages
User avatar
tarvos
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2889
Joined: Sun Jul 26, 2015 11:13 am
Location: The Lowlands
Languages: Native: NL, EN
Professional: ES, RU
Speak well: DE, FR, RO, EO, SV
Speak reasonably: IT, ZH, PT, NO, EL, CZ
Need improvement: PO, IS, HE, JP, KO, HU, FI
Passive: AF, DK, LAT
Dabbled in: BRT, ZH (SH), BG, EUS, ZH (CAN), and a whole lot more.
Language Log: http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/fo ... PN=1&TPN=1
x 6093
Contact:

Re: italki: How was your experience?

Postby tarvos » Mon Jan 21, 2019 12:27 pm

Cavesa wrote:
As you are an experienced teacher there, could you share something from the other side, please? Has your experience teaching on italki been different from that in person or through other platforms?


Being physically together in a room means there is more authority involved, especially with children. It allows for a few more things you can do with props and realia, but other than that, there's no major difference.

What are the usual specifics people ask for?
Have you encountered any unusual challenge?


Usually it's passing certain exams, especially citizenship exams in order to become Dutch nationals. Some people need Dutch for their studies or whatever. It's mostly the first one and I've prepared a few people for that. I do have textbooks but I work with them in a more loose manner, as I really focus on conversation (I prefer it).

Is there something people should perhaps ask for more? Or the opposite, anything one definitely shouldn't expect?


People shouldn't expect me to babysit them. You are responsible for your own language learning, I won't beat you with a stick if you fail to do your homework, just sigh in exasperation. People need to take control of their own learning process; coming with particular questions is a sign that people are doing the material set for them, or, even better, that they are exploring the language on their own without me giving them particular guidance

Do you get to read all the feedback by the learners, or just a part of it that gets to your profile page perhaps through some filters? Can you, as a teacher, affect which reviews are being published?


People can post feedback after classes on my wall. It doesn't usually say that much, except that I use some of the good reviews as testimonials if it's a student that's taken more than a few lessons with me.

Does Italki interact with the teachers in any other way than just being the eshop? For example giving overall feedback based on the reviews and kicking some out, or verifying the degrees and other such claims of the teachers?


They verify your degrees and they inform you to the point of removing you from the list if you miss classes. It's happened to me once due to illness and I wasn't allowed to take on any new students until I resolved the issue with administration. I haven't heard of someone being kicked out personally, but I'm sure it happens if you perform horribly, get bad reviews, are not punctual, etc. etc.

I'd love to find a teacher who can help me with pronunciation, but I might as well look for a unicorn.


I always say that pronunciation is a completely different animal and that this has much more to do with the area of speech therapy. You need a teacher that specializes in phonology for this one, and that's a rare combination. I put more emphasis on pronunciation, mostly because it's something I am good at. (Sorry for tooting my own horn, but it's true, I'm notoriously good with accents). I can give you the name of one teacher I used for Spanish (a friend of mine) who can help you with Spanish, but she's the only one that I know of that has specialized in this.
5 x
I hope your world is kind.

Is a girl.

Cavesa
Black Belt - 4th Dan
Posts: 4960
Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2015 9:46 am
Languages: Czech (N), French (C2) English (C1), Italian (C1), Spanish, German (C1)
x 17566

Re: italki: How was your experience?

Postby Cavesa » Mon Jan 21, 2019 12:55 pm

Thanks for an awesome reply!

tarvos wrote:People shouldn't expect me to babysit them. You are responsible for your own language learning, I won't beat you with a stick if you fail to do your homework, just sigh in exasperation. People need to take control of their own learning process; coming with particular questions is a sign that people are doing the material set for them, or, even better, that they are exploring the language on their own without me giving them particular guidance


Yes, please! Could you make more teachers adopt this attitude? I am under the impression you are a minority.

The problem for which I avoided more lessons with that Italian teacher from my list of experiences was being the exact opposite of this. She was obviously surprised I had gotten to the level of basic conversation and being understood despite mistakes without anyone babysitting me. And she was already planning how to deconstruct my system, change my goals and pace, and rebuild my learning process into a traditional strictly teacher organised one fitting her habits and demotivating me from free exploration (as it is exhausting to "live to lives" in language learning, I'd say). To her, the large autonomy between the lessons was not an essential part of learning. To her, it was a threat to the proper learning process as she was imagining it.

The opposite is free speaking practice. Yes, it can be very useful, but there is the risk of it not being challenging enough, not leaving the comfort zone, and not teaching a lot in the given time frame. The Spanish example on my list was possible to end up like this in the long run.

Finding a middle ground between the two is perhaps not easy. Especially as each learner may need a different balance of the two approaches. Actually, I wish I was learning Dutch so that I could try your lessons, could be ideal for me :-)

If you have any means to teach the others how to teach, please help them trust the learners more and be a support structure in exploration of the language, instead of closing the learners in a fence. :-)
1 x

User avatar
tastyonions
Black Belt - 1st Dan
Posts: 1577
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 5:39 pm
Location: Dallas, TX
Languages: EN (N), FR, ES, DE, IT, PT, NL, EL
x 3871

Re: italki: How was your experience?

Postby tastyonions » Mon Jan 21, 2019 1:08 pm

Since I have no very specific goals with my language learning, I'm not very demanding as an italki student. All I need is someone to talk to who shares at least some of my interests and will correct me from time to time. The worst experiences I have had were just teachers not showing up or not knowing how to keep a conversation going.
2 x

Christi
Orange Belt
Posts: 245
Joined: Thu Jan 18, 2018 7:56 pm
Languages: Dutch (N), English (C1), German (B1), Korean (high A2-low B1?)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... php?t=7574
x 330

Re: italki: How was your experience?

Postby Christi » Mon Jan 21, 2019 1:15 pm

languist wrote:I've been teaching for 9 days and already have had 180 lessons booked, 73 of which have been completed.


I've been reading this whole topic with major interest as I've also been thinking about teaching through this platform.

You seem to have got quite a lot of lessons booked in such a short amount of time! Would you mind sharing how you managed to do this? As an outsider it's always seemed mightily difficult to start out as a new online teacher.
Do you offer something that other teachers don't or do you just have a lot of experience elswhere?
1 x
2020 resolution words learned: 472 / 1000
Pages read at end of 2020: 220 / 1500

languist
Orange Belt
Posts: 164
Joined: Tue Jan 09, 2018 8:55 pm
Languages: English (N)
Learning: Mostly, how to procrastinate + French, Spanish, Darija, Russian, Slovak, Circassian, Greek
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=7523
x 368

Re: italki: How was your experience?

Postby languist » Mon Jan 21, 2019 3:05 pm

Thank you all for such thorough and informative responses! I'm going to address them in more detail when I get home later, but for now I just wanted to respond to those comments which were aimed at me personally. First of all, I should specify that I'm a Community Tutor rather than a Professional Teacher.

rdearman wrote:Do you use the same alias on iTalki?

No, I use my real name.

Christi wrote:
languist wrote:I've been teaching for 9 days and already have had 180 lessons booked, 73 of which have been completed.


I've been reading this whole topic with major interest as I've also been thinking about teaching through this platform.

You seem to have got quite a lot of lessons booked in such a short amount of time! Would you mind sharing how you managed to do this? As an outsider it's always seemed mightily difficult to start out as a new online teacher.
Do you offer something that other teachers don't or do you just have a lot of experience elswhere?


Now I've reached 10 days teaching, with 85 lessons completed (in reality, it's more, but it was because some students had to split their lessons in half), with 73 upcoming and another lot wrapped up in 10 active packages. It's crazy!

First of all, I'll say that I had a major advantage in that I'm a native speaker of a language which is globally in high demand (English). My schedule is also very flexible at the moment, so I was able to mark a lot of hours on italki available for teaching.

Also, I had a tactical approach to this. I do not have a lot of teaching experience elsewhere, not at all. I decided to start my prices out low, in order to gain experience and a 'reputation', although they are far from the lowest on the site, and are in a bracket with many other native Community Tutors. But it was important to me that these were accessible prices, so that for the first while, people would have the attitude of "what is there to lose by trying it out?" rather than feeling nervous about parting with too much cash. I'm going to raise my prices, but I'm doing so by a timeline/milestone-hitting approach which I designed before starting. To be honest, I didn't think I would be anywhere near as popular as I have been, so quickly.

I would say that the video/profile is extremely important. I've had many students mention to me directly (and unprompted) that they were very intrigued by my profile or video, and one even messaged that "I felt inspired to learn English again after watching your video". I'm not saying this as some kind of weird flex, but just to say that this is really what the majority of students focus on. I recorded my video in maybe 20 minutes, then spent a day editing it. It was the first time I ever appeared on camera or edited a video, so I couldn't call it professional, but it's maybe "amateur+" haha. Your profile should be something like a CV, in the sense that you should list your experience, skills, and big yourself up without being dishonest. But ultimately, it should be student-focussed. Explain your experience and approach in terms of how that will benefit your students. To be honest, I do this much more in my video than my profile. Perhaps that's the best way to do it.

There are another few things I do which I believe directly contribute to these numbers, but they're quite time-consuming. I reply to every message. Even people looking for language exchanges (which I'm not doing at the moment), or the dreaded "hello". I send a succinct but friendly message letting them know I'm an English teacher and asking if they are interested in booking a lesson. Of course, the majority of these people do not turn into paying customers, but a few of my regular students were 'sold' in this manner. I message new students when they book a lesson with me to thank them, explain my approach, and ask if they want us to focus on anything in particular. I always follow up with material if they've asked me to send them some, and I also message to thank them for booking another lesson. I've already had 50-60 students and 30-40 of them have already re-booked, and the rest said they will but less frequently, like once or twice a month. Some of them I've already seen 5 times!

Another tip is to stay online. I'm 100% certain that the italki algorithm favours teacher profiles which are online. I do get messages when I'm offline, but probably twice as much when online. I advise you to have your italki profile open in another tab and just refresh it every so often to increase your visibility to prospective students.

Be honest with your students. If someone is looking for an intensive regime to bring them from C1 to C2, I advise them to seek out a Professional Teacher. Or at least pay me Professional Teacher rates. But I prefer to help people gain confidence in speaking, do targeted expansion of their vocabulary, prepare them for IELTS/interviews/real life situations, etc. Be confident in your abilities and willing to take on challenges outside of your current experience, but also don't stretch yourself (especially for a low price) to meet a student's needs if they differ greatly from the type of lesson you would like to be teaching. There are many teachers and many students on italki. I believe there's a great match out there for everyone, and there's no point in either the student or teacher settling for an awkward fit.

And finally - teach well! Communicate well with your student to understand what they want and expect to get out of these lessons, and make sure you deliver that, or advise them to look for another teacher. If you're a Community Tutor, I really believe personality is half the battle. Be friendly, warm, interesting - be interested - know how to make a conversation flow, and how to push your students to improve in the area in which they would like to improve. It's tiring but so rewarding! I recommend you try it out, at least for a little bit of extra cash.

hagestolz wrote:OP - correcting texts is a good way to get yourself noticed by potential students, although that doesn't seem to be a problem at the moment!

Good luck in your teaching!

Thank you! Yes, I had a detailed 'plan of attack' in order to turn this italki malarkey into my full-time job, which included a kind of notebook correction campaign - but at the moment, I have the unexpected problem of having too many students!

Axon wrote:Good heavens, nine lessons a day??? I do IELTS prep online part-time and a day with four lessons is a bit of a slog.

Other than the first two days on the site, and Monday, when I either don't teach or only do a few lessons, it works out at 10-12 lessons a day. Yesterday, it was 14! This is because I offer 30, 45, and 60 minute lessons. I usually teach for 9 hours a day - non-stop. But from this week onwards, I'm allowing myself some 30 minute breaks and I'm just going to teach for 8 hours, because let's just say... it wasn't incredibly practical. Although I tend to enjoy the work itself, I'm finding myself extremely exhausted by the end of the day, with burning dry eyes and maybe a headache, as a result of staring at a screen all day. I'm trying to find some solution to this inconvenience! One issue I have with the italki set-up is that the lessons are 60 minutes rather than 50 or 55, as in other professions which use similar systems - for example, therapy or consultation sessions. Italki are currently working on some unattractive beta site, so I got in touch to ask about the inclusion of this feature, allowing teachers to choose whether to offer 60 or 55 minute lessons.

Axon wrote:Anyway I've grown very partial to the types of questions that IELTS asks and I would love to practice and learn how to answer that type of thing in the languages I'm learning. How should I indicate that? Would it be presumptuous to send the tutor a list of sample questions?

No, I think this is extremely helpful! Personally, I message every single student when they book a lesson, even if they haven't contacted me prior to (or after) booking, to thank them, explain the general approach of my lessons (in case they haven't read my profile and are expecting something quite different), and ask them if there is anything in particular we should be focussing on. Knowing exactly what a student wants before the lesson is helpful for both parties, to prepare, and feel confident that the content of the lesson will be valuable.
9 x

User avatar
Fenderman
Yellow Belt
Posts: 70
Joined: Mon Dec 12, 2016 11:04 pm
Location: United States
Languages: English (N), Spanish (False Beginner).
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 38#p220938
x 118

Re: italki: How was your experience?

Postby Fenderman » Mon Jan 21, 2019 3:21 pm

My experience has been very positive in learning Spanish. I do several self-guided courses but if I didn't have my tutor sessions on italki then it would be difficult to get a chance to practice what I'm learning on my own.

I think the key is trying out several tutors and seeing which one you mesh with the best. I'm very lucky in the fact that my tutor will gear my lessons to what I'm interested in on that day. Right now I'm really trying to get my listening and talking skills better so that's what we're focusing on but at other times it's other things.
1 x

User avatar
eido
Blue Belt
Posts: 841
Joined: Tue Jan 30, 2018 8:31 pm
Languages: English (N), Spanish (C1)
x 3181

Re: italki: How was your experience?

Postby eido » Mon Jan 21, 2019 3:52 pm

reineke wrote:The tutor's comment sounded reasonable to me.

Maybe I overthought it. My social skills aren't the best. And, even though people always feel uncomfortable when I say it, I'll say it anyway (because it's my personal truth): I'm not that smart, either.
0 x

User avatar
reineke
Black Belt - 3rd Dan
Posts: 3570
Joined: Wed Jan 06, 2016 7:34 pm
Languages: Fox (C4)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=6979
x 6554

Re: italki: How was your experience?

Postby reineke » Mon Jan 21, 2019 6:21 pm

eido wrote:
reineke wrote:The tutor's comment sounded reasonable to me.

Maybe I overthought it...And, even though people always feel uncomfortable when I say it, I'll say it anyway (because it's my personal truth): I'm not that smart, either.


I would disagree again here. I do feel more comfortable hearing it from PM though.
0 x

languist
Orange Belt
Posts: 164
Joined: Tue Jan 09, 2018 8:55 pm
Languages: English (N)
Learning: Mostly, how to procrastinate + French, Spanish, Darija, Russian, Slovak, Circassian, Greek
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=7523
x 368

Re: italki: How was your experience?

Postby languist » Tue Jan 22, 2019 3:36 am

I know that I didn't make this thread in order to dispense tips on taking italki CT lessons, but seeing as it was touched upon, I thought I'd write a few more which occurred to me. Although I'm very much new to this platform, I do feel able to reflect on what has been useful/successful for me so far, considering the amount of lessons I've been doing. I don't think I have any authority when it comes to talking about how to maintain relationships and build progress with longer term students - but I'm looking forward to this process!

A lot of the criticism here seems to be about teachers/tutors not being adaptable or communicative, and likewise, my advice is really about always being adaptive and communicative. I've had students who expected me to have some kind of detailed, formal syllabus to offer them during the first lesson (which I think is very silly considering everything written in my profile, my video, my messages, and even my price, but oh well), but on the whole people mostly want conversation practice mixed with mini grammar lessons, preparation for specific situations, and a teaching method which I would describe as 'guided' but not 'structured'.

I've established a few habits so far which I feel are useful. A lot of people are shy, and as mentioned in this thread (I think, firstly by rdearman), they don't like to rock the boat too much. So at the end of each lesson, I always go over the ideas for future lessons we have discussed during this one, I ask them if they have any questions about the material we went over today, if they have any questions in general, and then I ask directly: did you find ___ helpful? Would you like to do more or less of this in the future? Is there anything you would like us to focus on more? Do you have any specific requests for our next lesson? And then tell them just to write to me if they happen to think of something, and I'll prepare something for them. Not gonna lie, it's a bit of a juggle to maintain this style of maybe 'individual' teaching for so many people, when I'm so tired, but it's what I advertise, and it's what I want to deliver.

Also, test out a few exercises when the opportunity arises, and find a few 'go-to' activities which are helpful for different levels/styles of learners. It's really helped me feel more confident as a tutor to be able to straight away set up a task for a student who has vaguely asked for 'something' to help them improve, when I already know it's been helpful for past students. Basically, develop an arsenal of tips, exercises, material, roleplays, whatever, which you can adapt to each student as the need arises. This is very different from sending "john_holidays_2017" to every student!!!

I have also started a Google Drive folder dedicated to my italki students. Each one (who has so far needed it) has a folder with their name, and then the documents inside are shareable/editable by anyone with the link. So we can work in realtime on different tasks, or they can write things in there which I can look at just before our lesson (if I have time, lol). So far, I still do corrections and most vocab/grammar explanations via the Skype chat, but after looking at this thread, maybe it's better if I move it all to a google document.

I'm still learning all the time, but so far, adaptability, reliability, and amicability have been a winning combination for me.

EDIT: OMG, a student has booked their 17th lesson with me, all the way up to 3rd March. So crazy and I'm SO grateful for this platform allowing me to finally do the job I love, which will also enable the lifestyle I love (ie. being able to work from anywhere in the world with an internet connection).
5 x

qeadz
Green Belt
Posts: 298
Joined: Thu Jul 21, 2016 11:37 pm
Languages: English (N), Korean (~A2)
x 400

Re: italki: How was your experience?

Postby qeadz » Wed Jan 23, 2019 11:24 pm

I've used iTalki.

I had prep lessons with a number of tutors whom I selected by availability during my preferred hours and not so much by user rating. Most were female and I did want to find at least one male tutor.

While I didnt have a big selection to choose from, I did have a certain dislike for those whose profile pics looked like they could have come from a dating website. It didnt mean I wouldnt try a session with them, but rather that they kind of pushed themselves down the list.

More than half the tutors I have tried have had their own set of materials they want to work through and their own 'course' structure. So even once they accepted that I had been following other material which I had, they still tried really hard to work their material into each hour and turn it into a lesson. I had clearly stated for each that I just wanted to get practice forming sentences and trying to dialog - corrections are more than welcome and I don't mind homework in the sense of working on a particular grammar point which had been giving me trouble. Still I was given worksheets to fill out and that kind of stuff.

I basically rebooked lessons with the teachers who were least forceful in their approach and left the other ones.

I appreciated teachers who would write notes into chat while we talked - they'd also email me a doc with all those notes afterward.

On the overall the experience was positive for me and I plan on doing some more iTalki actually in March as my wife and son will be away and I'll have some time.

Sometimes there are little miscommunications and misunderstandings. I dont mind them but if they happen a lot with one particular teacher then I think maybe its not a good fit. Always worth, as a student and teacher, having a slightly thicker skin than usual. I always had in mind that if it werent for Korean practice, I wouldnt be talking to this person and if it weren't for me paying them they wouldnt be talking to me. Its always good to be on friendly terms but if you don't see them as a friend then its easier to let things go.

For instance I am more than happy to talk about personal life to some degree with teachers. Most are happy to talk about their home situations - I mean they're on the other side of the world so whatever gets said really doesnt matter in the grand scheme of things.

Anyway one teacher was talking about her son and her husband... and I got the impression somehow that her husband was a foreigner. Doesnt matter how I got that impression - just that I did. So I asked her if her husband was a foreigner and her response was such an uncontrolled over-the-top scoff as if the notion that she might marry one is totally absurd. For a brief bit I felt somewhat offended.

Then I remembered it doesn't matter one iota to me. All the conversation is merely because I wanted practice with that kind of vocabulary and she wants to make a bit of income by helping people with the language.

Some things I do like about a couple of teachers - and these apply mostly because I'm at a beginner/intermediate stage... presumably if I were advanced then some wouldnt be desirable:

- if i make a mistake they incorporate the corrected version in their response. ie: "I went trip for Korea last year". "Oh! You went on a trip to Korea last year? ... <more stuff here>"

- they dont leave long silences. As a learner my brain gets really tired and I struggle to make conversation. The teacher can easily help us both out of it by throwing a question into any silence to give me something to latch on to.

- we've prepared a topic for the lesson in advance. One teacher would send through a list of 20-ish words they would plan on using during the next lesson during conversation. The idea being I would study them beforehand and at least have a grounding for some of what would be said.

- they take notes on grammatical structures I seem to be getting wrong and one even sent me the corrected sentences after the lesson.

- they let me know in advance if they're going to be late for a lesson.

- I'd never want to do this kind of thing without video. Facial expressions and eye contact are invaluable. Also being able to see a persons mouth really helps with understanding. I'm no lip-reader but I swear it helps.

Now that I'm going to do a bit more iTalki, I wonder if my old teachers are still active?? I really hope Danny is still there. He was a bit robotic in how he spoke but I appreciated that he was always clear, willing to just have a conversation without pushing any kind of pdf or prepared lesson and was typing notes from start to finish.
5 x


Return to “General Language Discussion”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: themethod and 2 guests