Italki- A worthy investment or a waste of money?

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Saim
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Re: Italki- A worthy investment or a waste of money?

Postby Saim » Sat Nov 26, 2022 11:56 am

I'd agree that constant correction can interfere with the goal of practicing fluency and automaticity. Correction has to be done well for it to be of any use.

One way of getting around this is by giving the corrections at the end of the session, preferably in written form so the student can look over them at their own leisure.

Another way, which I like more, is that of one of my German tutors: he corrects me during the session, but then quizzes me on the corrections later on. It's framed as a translation exercise, where he gives me the English sentence and has me produce the correct German.
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Re: Italki- A worthy investment or a waste of money?

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Sat Nov 26, 2022 3:35 pm

Saim wrote:I'd agree that constant correction can interfere with the goal of practicing fluency and automaticity. Correction has to be done well for it to be of any use.

One way of getting around this is by giving the corrections at the end of the session, preferably in written form so the student can look over them at their own leisure.

Another way, which I like more, is that of one of my German tutors: he corrects me during the session, but then quizzes me on the corrections later on. It's framed as a translation exercise, where he gives me the English sentence and has me produce the correct German.


Ten years ago, in a galaxy far, far away (←HTLAL):
jeff_lindqvist wrote:We had these group discussions on Skype where the conversation leader (i.e. teacher) corrected every tiny mistake during the conversation. Luckily I made no big mistakes (if any), but it was very time-consuming and distracting. He could as well have given the students an electric shock after each mistake, then they'd really learn.

I don't even know if anybody but me found it annoying, maybe that's what everyone expected (as in "Please correct us whenever we make a mistake, it's the ONLY way we can improve!").

How do you handle corrections in speech?

By the way, when I first saw this topic, I mis-read it as "Italian - A worthy investment or a waste of money?". :D
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Re: Italki- A worthy investment or a waste of money?

Postby s_allard » Sat Nov 26, 2022 4:35 pm

I know that this is a bit off-topic but I couldn’t help myself. I have found most online conversation group meetings totally useless for one big reason. It may be just me but I really dislike hearing other users’ mistakes, as the others must dislike hearing my mistakes. Not only do the mistakes grate my ear, they confuse me and make me begin to doubt my own knowledge. I think group conversations are best reserved for very proficient speakers under the guidance of a skillful facilitator.
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Re: Italki- A worthy investment or a waste of money?

Postby Pikaia » Sun Nov 27, 2022 12:23 am

s_allard wrote:I know that this is a bit off-topic but I couldn’t help myself. I have found most online conversation group meetings totally useless for one big reason. It may be just me but I really dislike hearing other users’ mistakes, as the others must dislike hearing my mistakes. Not only do the mistakes grate my ear, they confuse me and make me begin to doubt my own knowledge. I think group conversations are best reserved for very proficient speakers under the guidance of a skillful facilitator.

Yup, this is why I've sworn off online classes for adult learners. Every online teacher I've had in the last two years loves to throw students into breakout rooms in twos or threes several times during each class, accounting for maybe half of the total class time. The time spent in breakout is semi-arbitrary, either too short or way too long for the assigned task, and it makes me feel responsible for my classmates' learning experience. I hate it, regardless of whether I'm the stronger or weaker student in the breakout room. The instructor may briefly "pop in" to the room to observe, which I find jarring and just as annoying as listening to my classmates' errors.
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Re: Italki- A worthy investment or a waste of money?

Postby leosmith » Sun Nov 27, 2022 9:27 am

Pikaia wrote:Yup, this is why I've sworn off online classes for adult learners.
Even one-on-one classes?
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Re: Italki- A worthy investment or a waste of money?

Postby Pikaia » Sun Nov 27, 2022 12:45 pm

leosmith wrote:
Pikaia wrote:Yup, this is why I've sworn off online classes for adult learners.
Even one-on-one classes?

Where I am, the term classes is used to refer to group activities. One teacher, one learner situations are typically called tutoring, private lessons, or private instruction.
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Re: Italki- A worthy investment or a waste of money?

Postby tiia » Sun Nov 27, 2022 1:35 pm

Pikaia wrote:
s_allard wrote:I know that this is a bit off-topic but I couldn’t help myself. I have found most online conversation group meetings totally useless for one big reason. It may be just me but I really dislike hearing other users’ mistakes, as the others must dislike hearing my mistakes. Not only do the mistakes grate my ear, they confuse me and make me begin to doubt my own knowledge. I think group conversations are best reserved for very proficient speakers under the guidance of a skillful facilitator.

Yup, this is why I've sworn off online classes for adult learners. Every online teacher I've had in the last two years loves to throw students into breakout rooms in twos or threes several times during each class, accounting for maybe half of the total class time. The time spent in breakout is semi-arbitrary, either too short or way too long for the assigned task, and it makes me feel responsible for my classmates' learning experience. I hate it, regardless of whether I'm the stronger or weaker student in the breakout room. The instructor may briefly "pop in" to the room to observe, which I find jarring and just as annoying as listening to my classmates' errors.

I don't know at what level you were, nor how your classes in particular went. However, my own experiences are a bit different. It depends definitely on the teacher, but the last only Swedish class that I had, was actually really great. And it was like what you described: a conversation class and lots of times in breakout rooms with the teacher popping in. But there were always just 2-3 groups (2-3 students per group), so it was actually not that rare, that the teacher was there. The time spent for the tasks was usually quite ok.
The teacher also mentioned that she held the class in person before (and I did participate in such a class later on as well). She had observed that the learners were interacting online even more than in class, probably because they were less distracted by the other groups. And also, that it was easier to mix the groups rather randomly, while in class students talked more to those sitting closer to them.

But indeed, the kind of teacher there is can make a ton of a difference. One shouldn't forget that.

Honestly the whole "I don't want to hear mistakes that other students make" sounds to me like someone shouldn't go to group classes in the first place. Because in a group setting one will interact with other students and they are there to learn, too!

Personally I have a different mindset: I can learn from mistakes others make. If they make some mistakes and those will be corrected, I don't have to do them myself. I like getting input from others. Yes, the level of the students should not be too different to make this work.
In fact I dislike that in the advanced levels in Finnish, most of the courses - at least for writing - are more and more guided self-learning courses, where one would probably miss out on the whole interaction with other learners, making everything far too self-centered. And I have the same feeling about one-on-one online conversations, although I have no personal experience with those. I may never learn how to speak about certain topics that don't affect me, if it wouldn't be for a class mate to whom the topic may be relevant.
At the lower levels talking to another learner releases stress, that I have to make everything perfect. The learner is equal, the teacher isn't. If in doubt, the teacher can still be asked. It is so, that by explaining something to others, one is also improving oneself. So it is not necessarily a bad thing having to explain something to your fellow learner.
For me the interaction with other people, the exchange of ideas is one of the main factors of motivation to learn a language and keep going.
This is why I struggle a lot to do writing excercises for the sake of practising - Why should I write anything more complex, if no one is going to read it anyway? Or if the only person reading it, will just tell me how many grammatical mistakes I made?
Languages after all are a tool to communicate and express your thoughts. (It's totally fine, if you only want to read or watch movies, but then you probably don't need writing/speaking excercises anyway.)
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Re: Italki- A worthy investment or a waste of money?

Postby Pikaia » Sun Nov 27, 2022 8:30 pm

tiia wrote:Honestly the whole "I don't want to hear mistakes that other students make" sounds to me like someone shouldn't go to group classes in the first place. Because in a group setting one will interact with other students and they are there to learn, too!


Well, yes, hence my swearing off of them. But this is not snobbery.

When students are either allowed to place themselves, or are passed into higher levels without mastering earlier material, it is frustrating for a student (like myself) who insists on accurate placement. For example, if students in advanced intermediate or low advanced Spanish classes are still making very, VERY basic pronunciation errors, or cannot correctly conjugate present tense verbs, much less use the past tenses correctly, it is not unreasonable to be disappointed.

In addition, spending large chunks of time in breakout rooms means that the teacher rarely gives individual feedback. Personally I think many teachers lean far too heavily on breakout rooms, which demand very little of them. I was even in a class of 4-5 (depending on attendance) in which the teacher STILL insisted on using breakout rooms. Ridiculous. We could have done the same activities as a larger -- but still quite small -- group.

tiia wrote:It is so, that by explaining something to others, one is also improving oneself. So it is not necessarily a bad thing having to explain something to your fellow learner.

I am an educator myself. I believe in judicious usage of peer instruction. However, in language learning I believe much of the time it is unfair for the more advanced learner. Sure, if you really enjoy teaching others, great! Go for it! But if I pay for classes, it is to advance my OWN learning, not to provide remedial help for other adult students, many of whom don't bother to put in the necessary work between classes.

tiia wrote:For me the interaction with other people, the exchange of ideas is one of the main factors of motivation to learn a language and keep going.

As it is for me. But perhaps unlike you, I usually don't find speaking with other learners useful. Even those that are fairly advanced are likely to use English-like phrasing in their French and Spanish. I'd much rather [pay to] interact with native or near-native speakers who produce more natural phrasing, because THAT -- and writing exercises annotated/improved by a native speaker -- will improve my own fluency.
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Re: Italki- A worthy investment or a waste of money?

Postby Diomedes » Mon Mar 13, 2023 1:16 am

acorngalaxy wrote:Yeah no problem.

Here is what he said regarding speaking practice, summarised:


Speaking practice lessons are a complete and utter waste of time and money, as foreign languages shouldn't exist as a separate subject. As a result of this, Italki , Preply and other similar platforms bring no ROI at all.



Well, then I believe it would be much fairer if your topic was named "Speaking practice lessons - a worthy investment or a waste of money?", don't you think?

Italki is just a platform, like any other, in which the type of class will depend on the agreement you make with your teacher.

I had a great experience with Italki, when preparing for a trip. But it could be on any platform. If your teacher is good and you're prepared, it's worth it. Just like in a face-to-face class. BTW, a face-to-face class with a good teacher could be awesome too.

Also, beware of these radicalisms and dogmas related to language learning. Anyone can create a profile, post a video and become a "language influencer". There are always people who will watch any crap and validate it, unfortunately.

"Foreign languages shouldn't exist as a separate subject"? Hmmm... Are you really sure you agree with this kind of statement? This is quite extremist, don't you agree?

I'm not talking about the videos you posted, I didn't watched them (and will not, sorry). Just be careful not to deceive yourself. Perhaps it's better to listen to a... teacher, after all.
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Re: Italki- A worthy investment or a waste of money?

Postby kelvin921019 » Mon Mar 13, 2023 3:13 am

I think that's a perfect example of starting on a sort of a correct statement ("language is not teachable / language is knowledge") and ending up on some sort of "extremist" conclusion.

Yes, language is knowledge, or more precisely, knowledge are expressed in language. But knowledge about language itself is also a language (that's why there's a branch of knowledge called linguistics). Learning language is to learn about knowledge about the language itself, and making use of the knowledge to re-construct the language itself.

Yes, language is not "teachable" so are mathematics, physics, and even medicine and law. We don't learn mathematics by teaching, but by doing maths. We understand the basic principles and do drills and exercises to make sure that our understanding is correct. Similarly, we understand the knowledge about language and do output exercise to make sure that our knowledge about the language is correct.

So I arrive at a very different conclusion, language lessons are (i) organised way of approaching the knowledge about a langauge (in terms of input) - of course one can self-study, just like any other subject; and (ii) a way of solidifying the knowledge and checking your understanding (e.g. whether the grammar is correct, whether the choice of word is appropriate, whether the tone is adequate).

In short, he missed the point that the knowledge about a language itself is knowledge or a set of skill, which can be learnt as a standalone subject like philosophy or medicine. I think it's where the slppery slope began.
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