What was your worst or strangest experience with an online tutor?

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leosmith
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What was your worst or strangest experience with an online tutor?

Postby leosmith » Mon May 29, 2023 11:30 pm

Many of us take language learning classes with online tutors from platforms like italki. I think most people have favorable experiences with these sessions. I have taken over 3000 of these over the past 10 years or so, and probably less than 1% have been “unacceptable” for some reason other than technical difficulties. Have you had any bad or strange experiences as a student or a teacher?
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Re: What was your worst or strangest experience with an online tutor?

Postby tastyonions » Tue May 30, 2023 12:02 am

Perhaps the strangest was a Spanish tutor who, over the couple years I took lessons with him, seemed to get deeper and deeper into conspiracy theory thinking and kept redirecting the conversations we had toward that area. He was a nice guy and otherwise a helpful tutor but it became annoying enough that I eventually sought out others.

I’ve been quite lucky on italki in general, though.
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Re: What was your worst or strangest experience with an online tutor?

Postby leosmith » Tue May 30, 2023 12:23 am

I’ll share something that happened to me a few weeks ago, not terrible, but strange. About 20 minutes before the class was scheduled to start, I got a text message on italki from the teacher saying she couldn’t teach me because she didn’t have internet. Obviously, she used internet to message, so I decided to take a chance and message her on skype. She repeated her previous message, saying it was due to a storm. I said I didn’t understand why she was able to message me in that case. So she actually called me, right when our class was supposed to start, audio only, saying she couldn’t teach for lack of internet. I asked the same question. She finally elaborated a little; she said she was afraid the storm would cut us off, so as a preventative measure she was cancelling the class. I told her I didn’t need video, was willing to take the chance with the storm and willing to pay full price even if it happened. But no, she was adamant that she had to cancel the class because it might be cut short. Actually – they always ask to reschedule, which I don’t do anymore because I do enough review now so that it won’t kill me if I miss a class. So I just lost my French slot for that cycle.
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Re: What was your worst or strangest experience with an online tutor?

Postby Gaoling97 » Tue May 30, 2023 12:47 am

I had an extremely negative experience with one particular Chinese teacher a few years ago. She seemed somewhat famous to me, had great reviews and was, well, expensive. And at first, I was actually quite satisfied, because she seemed to be one of the very few Chinese teachers willing to actually be tough with you. Most Chinese teachers are, going to be blunt here, atrocious and completely unqualified at their jobs. They will tell you your pronunciation is great even when it is borderline incomprehensible. There's a reason Chinese people are extra impressed by a foreigner speaking Chinese who they can actually understand, and only a small percentage of foreigners truly speak with correct tones.

So, I hired her, and was her student for, I think, 3 or 4 months.

But she gradually turned out to have an extremely abrasive and unpleasant personality, and definitely did not seem like the kind of person I would otherwise want to interact with in a non-professional capacity.

On a few occasions, we chatted about my personal life. Of course not everything in my life at that time pointed to very healthy behavior, but I think chatting in and of itself is a completely normal thing to do. The worst experience though was during the last lesson, where I got so frustrated and upset that I had to hang up the Skype call and go cry for a few minutes in the bathroom. (This was a one time occurrence.)

After this, she sent me a message telling me that I had made great progress in the past few months and that she would like me to leave her a rating. I did not leave her a rating. She refused my request for more lessons after that and after ignoring a few messages of mine, claimed that our lessons turned into "counseling sessions" (they did not) and that I need a therapist. She blocked me after that.

Oh, yeah. And she claimed that my pronunciation had in fact regressed. This was after I was no longer able to leave a review. So, she told me I made great progress, until I was no longer able to leave a review, at which point I had magically regressed.

Lesson being, the relationship between a language teacher and student is, even with some professional distance, still a kind of personal relationship, and sometimes you just aren't compatible. Shortly after that, I found a new Chinese teacher who was much better, and I've been with them ever since.
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Re: What was your worst or strangest experience with an online tutor?

Postby leosmith » Tue May 30, 2023 2:20 am

Gaoling97 wrote:she gradually turned out to have an extremely abrasive and unpleasant personality, and definitely did not seem like the kind of person I would otherwise want to interact with in a non-professional capacity.
Wow, she really put you through a lot – sorry to hear you had to go through that, but glad you persevered. I’m not sure if you bought a “package” of lessons, and as a result had to keep meeting her, or not, but both times I paid for packages the relationship changed and I ended up regretting it. One of those teachers started overcorrecting me, and I complained about it. Then she just refused any attempt of mine to schedule the remaining lessons. After 2 or 3 attempts, asked her what’s going on, and she said “Oh, you know what’s going on!” I’m no brain surgeon, but I figured it out, and we decided to cancel the remainder of the package.

Lesson learned – don’t book packages! (ymmv – I basically use tutors as paid conversation partners, so my criteria are lax and I really don’t need to repeat with anyone if I don’t want to)
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Re: What was your worst or strangest experience with an online tutor?

Postby Sonjaconjota » Tue May 30, 2023 6:09 am

The only tutor I did not like at all was one who was very full of themselves, speaking nearly all of the time and dominating the conversation.
It was a conversation class for English, and I had told them beforehand that I wanted just some informal chatting which, technically, I got. :roll:
I always tell italki tutors beforehand that I just want one single class and don't want to commit.
If I like them, I'll book another class in the future. This works well with my irregular schedules, and I don't have to go back to people like that.
Last edited by Sonjaconjota on Tue May 30, 2023 10:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: What was your worst or strangest experience with an online tutor?

Postby Sae » Tue May 30, 2023 9:49 am

I've not had bad experiences, but I've only ever used 2 tutors online for language and 1 for throatsinging.

As for strange experiences, does learning to sing a song in Vietnamese and having to sing it back count? As a response to me singing The Backstreet Boys once. Or having to teach Spanish in Vietnamese because every session I open with things like "Hola senor", "Guten Tag", "Ohayo Gozaimasu" and "Bon jour".

Gaoling97 wrote:Lesson being, the relationship between a language teacher and student is, even with some professional distance, still a kind of personal relationship, and sometimes you just aren't compatible. Shortly after that, I found a new Chinese teacher who was much better, and I've been with them ever since.


Sucks that happened, but you are right. And the refusing to proceed over a lack of a review is a bit of a red flag, I can understand they help, especially for people newer to the platform (and sounds like she wasn't). I prefer to give reviews earnestly, because then what I say has more weight if knowing what I say comes from a genuine place, meaning if somebody is twisting my arm into it, I am more likely to refuse. But I am generally quite open to giving them.

And yeah, if you have a consistent tutor, it is a relationship of sorts and naturally have to be right for each other...not in a romantic way. And I think it helps a lot getting to know each other because they can tailor sessions better to you and it becomes easier to have topics to talk about in your target language and appeal to things like interests. And you might spot somethign they might be interested in an talk about it in your target language and they may do the same for you.

Me and my Vietnamese tutor ended up as friends. He's introduced me to his niece & nephews, we joke around in some of our sessions and sometimes to the entertainment of his nieces & nephew because they find our jokes funny. And we end up on tangents, sometimes in Vietnamese, sometimes not, sometimes he might ask for advice or my perspective and sometimes we're open about ourselves. Yet they stay as structured sessions without dismissing other things we talk about or becoming unfocused.
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Re: What was your worst or strangest experience with an online tutor?

Postby Cavesa » Tue May 30, 2023 9:59 am

In most cases so far, it was just the usual disconnection between what they offered and what I needed, or just a discovery of their lies from the profile (such as claiming to have experience with not only beginners etc). But one was really strange in communication. It was the only time I tried an Italian tutor.

Back then, I was already A2ish at active skills, C1ish at passive. The level I had acquired very fast on my own, with the usual methods (and it being by third romance language). I had hoped to get a tutor to speed up my learning and reach B1/B2 faster, so that I could also apply for Italian universities for Erasmus.

She appeared nice at first. She was totally suprised and at awe at me actually speaking quite ok as an autodidact, claiming she had never seen such an achievement. That was already a red flag, clearly lack of experience, especially with motivated and not full beginner students.

Then progressively, as we spoke about my needs and plans, she totally destroyed all my plans like "nope, you cannot reach B1 in a few months" (I had previously done just that in Spanish and without a tutor) and "no, you should not just self teach, I will give you activities to do" (I had already proven to her that my self teaching was clearly working and I was looking for an addition to that, not a replacement) and so on.

She treated me like a stupid kid, in spite of clearly having proven I was not one, and she basically made it clear that she would of course be so kind to take me, if I'd make more reasonable plans and submitted to her way of teaching. She really expected me to pay her for not reaching my goal in time and therefore make it worthless. She couldn't understand that she was only valuable, if she was willing ot help me be more efficient than on my own.

The shocking part was her dissociation of the clear proof that I could do it (as she was amazed herself at my speaking) and the trash she was offering me, really expecting me to pay. And also the complete lack of listening. I told her the goal, she ignored/changed it. I told her the methods that I wanted to add hers to, she told me to stop that. I told her the reason for the deadline, she assumed just ignoring and giving up on the deadline was no big deal.

Of course I didn't take a lesson with her again. I didn't take another lesson for years. No clue what is so hard to understand about "I need you to be even more efficient" :-D
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Re: What was your worst or strangest experience with an online tutor?

Postby Irena » Tue May 30, 2023 2:45 pm

Cavesa wrote:The shocking part was her dissociation of the clear proof that I could do it (as she was amazed herself at my speaking) and the trash she was offering me, really expecting me to pay. And also the complete lack of listening. I told her the goal, she ignored/changed it. I told her the methods that I wanted to add hers to, she told me to stop that. I told her the reason for the deadline, she assumed just ignoring and giving up on the deadline was no big deal.

If you're an exceptional learner looking for a teacher, then you have two reasonable options: (1) find an exceptional teacher, (2) find a very open-minded teacher and make sure you're in the driver's seat, with the teacher there as a helper rather than a guide. Otherwise, it's not going to work. (1) is tough to find and likely to be expensive. (2) shouldn't be that hard, but you really do have to know what you're doing.
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Re: What was your worst or strangest experience with an online tutor?

Postby leosmith » Tue May 30, 2023 5:06 pm

Cavesa wrote:nope, you cannot reach B1 in a few months
What a terrible teacher. I wonder if she really believed that, or she just wanted to stick to some crappy pre-designed plan of hers.
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