italki: How was your experience?

[MamaPata]

I've had a pretty much universally positive experience on Italki.

I had one teacher who I was actively unimpressed with. I wanted to prepare for an exam, which was going to be on a fairly controversial topic. Because I knew it was controversial, I contacted the teachers I was looking at talking to beforehand to check they would be up for it. If not, no harm, no foul. She agreed, so I booked a lesson. In the lesson, she had terrible internet connection, she seemed really uninterested and unenthusiastic. And then she said how surprised she was I wanted to talk about the topic, very much suggesting that she was weirded out. Why take the lesson then?'

Other than that, I've had a few teachers that I thought were fine but didn't gel with. The rest have been fantastic and I have quite a few that I return to.

I do agree that the review system is not helpful. I left a bad review for the woman stating the above, but still felt obliged to say that she might work for someone else! I do look at reviews but mostly to see if anyone has said what they do with the person (and how many people leave a review in their TL, as that suggests they have a few intermediate students). When I leave reviews, I mostly say what we did together as I figure that's the most useful to other people.

In terms of how I use it, I am pretty focused on conversation. A couple of my Russian teachers will get me to read articles aloud and we'll discuss the languge and content, which allows me to have the talking practice and improve my Russian stress. Sometimes we might do a bit of grammar, particularly if they have noticed mistakes I've been making. My main criteria is that they are enthusiastic and they do make corrections. And that they're cheap. (If anyone has any recommendations of cheap Spanish teachers, let me know)

I also like to have a range of different teachers - I think they notice different mistakes, you get used to different accents, etc. So while I return to people and do buy packages (I love a deal), I tend to switch between teachers. I prefer to have teachers older than me, with a few exceptions. It has worked out that most of my Russian teachers have been female and most of my French ones have been male, I'm not entirely sure why!

I'm also not a regular student (in the sense of timings rather than being special). I am a terrible LE partner because I won't do lessons/exchanges unplanned and I tend not to be free weekly. Similarly with lessons, I am all or nothing. I'll book several at once and then not have any for months. I've seen some of my teachers for several years now, but with long gaps between lessons.

I'm very interested in this thread because I like knowing how other people approach lessons and if there are things that I could be encorporating to maximise my progress from classes.

[garyb]

- 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.

I agree with this, but I've also had the opposite experience of teachers who are a bit too chatty. My otherwise-great Spanish teacher sometimes just didn't leave much space for me to talk, and changed the subject before I had had a chance to say everything I wanted to say. There are a wealth of resources that let me listen for free; if I'm paying for a lesson it's to get something beyond that!

[Flickserve]

Mandarin tutors

I have had effective and very good pronunciation lessons with italki tutors. You need to know how to pick them.

Most tutors do video. One of my early ones didn't and had the personality of a brick. I picked that tutor because of another person having many lessons with the tutor. Just goes to show how inconsistent it can be. Ratings are not effective.

Picked some pro teachers and mostly community tutors. Pros are much more likely to ask me to read a text which is a different skill altogether. I hate that because I haven't really calibrated tones properly at the beginning of the class. So, in the end, I pick the community tutors.

Community teachers come out and talk which I like. However, since I am not learning systematically, probably my progress is much slower than an organised person. Probably not the best way to improve as fast as possible but one I am happy with.

Southern teachers are easier for me to understand. It's quite hard to find the accent I like. Most people are speaking standard or close to standard mandarin when talking to a student rather than their usual accent. They can't really grasp the concept of why someone might want a different accent. A reverse example would be why someone would want to learn received pronunciation accent when we don't use it in conversation.

No tutor has refused my request to record a lesson. I sometimes send a mp3 file back to them to clarify words or meanings that I couldn't catch or understand. I try to be reasonable with this and end the lessons a bit early because they need time for this. I have no specific goals except to get better at hearing daily life conversations and improving my flow and intonation of speaking.

There are many mandarin tutors at affordable rates. For that language, there is simply too much choice! I am not a weekly lesson person and also like to talk to different people. Many are competent teachers and conversationalists and I get on with many of them. However, I do tend to veer away from university students who have fewer life experiences. Then again, one teacher who I used as a community tutor started as a university student and now is a professional tutor. She was competent all the way through. So you really can't tell and just have to try

[Kraut]

I have seen a few profiles of Spanish teachers detailing what they offer in each one of their course segments. It might be a good idea allowing students to pick subjects from a list that the teacher provides.

[languist]

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.

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.

[Brun Ugle]

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.

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.

For me, the problem with Italki has been finding someone who has a good internet connection, does what I ask them and doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. Several times, I’ve had tutors that seemed pretty good at first because they were willing to just talk, but then they either stopped listening to me (one was obviously reading the newspaper while I talked), or decided to “teach” me and made me use worksheets that were several levels too low and often poorly designed. If I’d wanted to do that, I could do it at home for free.

[zenmonkey]

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.

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.

For me, the problem with Italki has been finding someone who has a good internet connection, does what I ask them and doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. Several times, I’ve had tutors that seemed pretty good at first because they were willing to just talk, but then they either stopped listening to me (one was obviously reading the newspaper while I talked), or decided to “teach” me and made me use worksheets that were several levels to low and often poorly designed. If I’d wanted to do that, I could do it at home for free.

That's incredibly rude and unprofessional - I'd ask for a refund (not likely to get it) but to mark the moment.

[Cavesa]

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.

[rdearman]

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.

When you sign up as a teacher it asks you to tick the boxes you want, so people just tick all the boxes. They should make it so you can only pick 2 of 5 for example, that would force people to put more thought into it.

[Cavesa]

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.

When you sign up as a teacher it asks you to tick the boxes you want, so people just tick all the boxes. They should make it so you can only pick 2 of 5 for example, that would force people to put more thought into it.

At least offering more boxes would help. If an "advanced" box is not even offered, of course everyone will automatically get the "I must focus on the beginners and say that I am good with them" idea.

Also, I think the tags for the filters (or a second system of such tags, like on Verbling) should be ticked by the learners, I think verbling does that. So, your filter would give you the teachers that have already been used for the purpose you have on mind.