italki: How was your experience?

[languist]

Just an update to say that the italki support guy got back to me to say that this would indeed be a feature in the new italki website they’re going to release.

If you have so much pull with Italki, how about you ask them to make a tag for advanced? I could never understand why they had a tag for beginners, but not for advanced students.

I was contacted by someone from their support or PR a year or so ago, based on some of my comments on reddit. I was asked to elaborate a bit on one of the comments (on a thread not too different from this one) and lack of an advanced tag and focus on the more advanced learners in general were the main points. The person promised to deliver the message to the right hands and that it was likely to be added at some point as a very good idea.

The hope: if they care enough to follow the discussions on reddit and even ask for details, they might really take this kind of feedback seriously.
The doubt: something is wrong about their team, if they cannot think of such a basic thing on their own right away. So, who knows.

Right now, the tags have no meaning, as most teachers have all of them. There is no diversity. So, they are useless for filtering the list.

I was also in touch with them recently about the tags, and they advised me that the tags were all to be removed from the new site. They said that they were a "beta feature" which was never truly developed, and they found them mostly ineffective, and will instead be using a much more "comprehensive system". So hopefully that's good news!

EDIT:

Also, I do wonder about the italki team. They seem really responsive to feedback, which is great. And in general, I think the system works really well and is really practical. But maybe they need as much guidance as possible; the new messaging system they implemented a few months ago was TERRIBLE. Extremely impractical - you couldn’t even click on someone’s name/picture to go to their profile, and they removed the “notification channel”, so instead all notifications came in the form of a message. A messy, useless, mess. However, they reacted really quickly to the feedback about this (to my memory, within a week?) and implemented all the changes people were suggesting. So I’d say, if you have any issues with the system, now is the time to get in touch, because they are actively seeking feedback as they work on their new site.

[Cavesa]

Also, I do wonder about the italki team. They seem really responsive to feedback, which is great. And in general, I think the system works really well and is really practical. But maybe they need as much guidance as possible; the new messaging system they implemented a few months ago was TERRIBLE. Extremely impractical - you couldn’t even click on someone’s name/picture to go to their profile, and they removed the “notification channel”, so instead all notifications came in the form of a message. A messy, useless, mess. However, they reacted really quickly to the feedback about this (to my memory, within a week?) and implemented all the changes people were suggesting. So I’d say, if you have any issues with the system, now is the time to get in touch, because they are actively seeking feedback as they work on their new site.

Is it possible that I got no answer from four tutors because of this messaging system? I was sending the messages during December. That would explain, why I didn't get even a simple "no" back.

[languist]

Is it possible that I got no answer from four tutors because of this messaging system? I was sending the messages during December. That would explain, why I didn't get even a simple "no" back.

I would speculate that it’s very possible. A repeated complaint from teachers during that time was that they were missing messages from prospective students, and even lesson requests.

[languist]

I decided to post this in this thread rather than make a new one because it fits the theme of the last few posts, but please make it a new topic if you feel that it is appropriate. :)

I don't think italki are going to magically listen to everything I say, but as I mentioned before, they do seem to be really listening to feedback and suggestions at the moment. So I've decided to send them a list of all the improvements which I think they could make, and I was wondering if any members here have specific requests which they would like to add to my list? Then it could have even more weight, "supported by members of a prominent language learning forum", haha.

Some of my own recommendations include:

- reducing lessons to 55 minutes to allow teachers mini breaks *(they confirmed that this will be happening)

- upheaval of the endorsement tag system *(also confirmed)

- more comprehensive feedback system *(also confirmed)

- improved message system: separating messages into channels for your 'general' messages, your students, your teachers (all done automatically), and a "prospective" tab, allowing you to manually categorise prospective students/teachers so you can keep track of those messages more easily

- an option to "mass email" your students (maybe only granted after a certain amount of time/lessons on the platform, to avoid it being abused), or at least send them some kind of notification that you have updated your 'teacher status', to make sure they see information about price/schedule/policy changes without having to contact them all individually, or just hope they happen to notice it. As a student, I'd appreciate this too.

- the option to send "lesson invites" with reduced prices to established students, so that offering discounts isn't so inconvenient for both students and teachers (again, you'd need to "qualify" for this - italki already has "instant tutoring" which you need to qualify for, so I think it's easy for them to extend the system)

- I would appreciate if the messages, from a student/language exchange perspective, could have the option of being searched "by language" (like on HelloTalk)

- a kind of "alert" you can send teachers you've already booked a lesson with that will pin your message to the top of the inbox, in the same way "Action Required" functions. For example, "Requires Attention" and you can click and see which students are in this box, and go to their messages from there. Only used for urgent questions/rescheduling issues etc

and so on.... Thoughts?

[lingua]

Languist, I personally like that they separated out the messaging by teacher. The old one didn't work very well and always showed unread messages when there weren't any messages at all because I had deleted them all previously.

Most of this stuff is not relevant to me. I don't pay attention to the teacher ratings, tags, etc. I assume most people will give them 4-5 stars. I primarily look at price and schedule availability because the time zone difference is a big problem for me. Once I have a lesson or two with someone I decide if we are a good fit or not.

[languist]

Languist, I personally like that they separated out the messaging by teacher. The old one didn't work very well and always showed unread messages when there weren't any messages at all because I had deleted them all previously.

Most of this stuff is not relevant to me. I don't pay attention to the teacher ratings, tags, etc. I assume most people will give them 4-5 stars. I primarily look at price and schedule availability because the time zone difference is a big problem for me. Once I have a lesson or two with someone I decide if we are a good fit or not.

Sorry, but I don't understand what you mean by 'separated out the messaging by teacher'? Because the suggestions I have are to make the messages more 'separated', because I think they are very messy, and everything is mixed in together in a very unhelpful way - and today, a teacher messaged me (in reply to my "teacher contact form" message), and I didn't get a notification for it at all - in fact, I scrolled through all my messages and it wasn't there at all, I only found it because I happened to search for his name in my messages specifically. The messaging system needs a major overhaul.

The tags are for people who are searching for teacher with specific skills/experience (as mentioned in this thread; especially those catering to advanced learners). It's a great concept to trial-and-error-it with teachers, but if you're looking for something specific, this may take a lot of time, energy, and money, before you find what you're looking for.

[lingua]

By separated out I mean there is a tab for each teacher and when you click on it, all the activity related (messages, actions required/taken, etc) is there. It works for me. It may not work for others.

In any case, people have different needs or preferences so there is no one answer. I spend very little time on italki. Just long enough to schedule an appointment and follow-up with payment. In fact I could just let it auto pay after three days but in fairness to the teacher I try to do it right away.

Frankly, one of the most irritating things about italki is the logon. For most of the time I've used it I had to go through a dozen or more captcha screens before it would let me logon to the point of annoyance. Not to mention a lot of the photos are grainy and I couldn't even make out what was in it. That seems to have improved recently where I'm in after 1-3 screens.

[languist]

By separated out I mean there is a tab for each teacher and when you click on it, all the activity related (messages, actions required/taken, etc) is there. It works for me. It may not work for others.

Yeah, I really like this! It's better than before. I didn't mean to suggest scrapping this; I mean also having "inbox tabs" (idk what to call them - I mean the same way it works on gmail with "primary, promotion, social" etc) which are a main inbox with all your messages, but then you can click on a tab which contains only the message threads with your teachers, another (if you're a tutor) with your students, and personally, I would love to have another "prospective" to manually be able to tick a box and add certain threads to this tab for prospective teachers/students. It's so hard to keep on top of this sort of communication when you have several teachers, many students, and loads of other random messages throughout the day.

Frankly, one of the most irritating things about italki is the logon. For most of the time I've used it I had to go through a dozen or more captcha screens before it would let me logon to the point of annoyance. Not to mention a lot of the photos are grainy and I couldn't even make out what was in it. That seems to have improved recently where I'm in after 1-3 screens.

Oh, I never had this problem! But in general I think it reflects that the site is really buggy and clunky sometimes. Even though in other ways the system is so well thought-out.

[Flickserve]

I have been back to italki recently and make these comments relative to Mandarin. I went back because although I got a variety of interactions with native Chinese speakers, the vast majority are incredibly reluctant to speak Chinese (native language no less!) and therefore revert to text messages or simply don't send another message. For me, who wants experience in listening and spoken communication, that's nothing good. Hence, I will have to pay for conversation time that concentrates just on me.

Going back to italki:

The site is slow.

Instant tutoring is a great idea. Love it if the price is right. Previously, they would have a ringing tone that would stop if the teacher responded affirmative to the request. They have done away with this so if I am on another webpage waiting for a response, I don't know if the teacher has replied. I think they have also done that at the other end because I have had a few teachers not reply.

My Listening comprehension and speaking is better and some of the teachers have given me extra time for free. I hope that's because I express more and be interesting. So it's less taxing for them.

Some new teachers have come in. I love that. Gives me different people to select from, some with different accents. For example, I picked a teacher who had an interest in accents. We went through pronunciation again and he also helped me practice some connected speech.

Messages consolidated. Good. takes a little getting used to because I was used to the old system.

Discussion board - very primitive. But you do get some odd gems. I joined a wechat group from there that helps with pronunciation.

It's only a halfway step to face to face interaction but it I can't think of anything better. I notice Chinese tutors are more in numbers so that keeps prices down compared to other languages. Good for consumer.

[LeeGood]

I never heard about Italki before, really, thanks for sharing your experience. I want to try teaching German via similar service https://preply.com/en/skype/german-tutoring-jobs , the language is rather demanded for today and the fees look decent, at least comparing to English offers.