Are online teachers a good substitute for face to face lessons?

[Fenderman]

I'm currently taking online lessons on italki and I think it's a great way to take lessons because of the flexibility. For example, just yesterday I had some free time and checked and my instructor had an opening so I quickly booked a lesson. To do that in person with an instructor would be much more difficult. The main thing is to make sure your instructor has good internet connectivity since in the past I've had some online lessons and it became frustrating because of a bad connection and constantly having to hangup and connect again on Skype.

[Flickserve]

Cheers, I'll certainly give it a go and thanks for the tip!

I find it particularly useful for community tutors lessons. I once got 50 sentences. The tutor thought I could understand lots and I didn't want to interrupt the flow.

You need to use audacity or something similar to split the file into individual sentences.

I personally use workaudio book on a PC because of its subtitle function.

[Flickserve]

Cheers, I'll certainly give it a go and thanks for the tip!

I found this link that might help you to some free software options

https://www.raymond.cc/blog/messenger-plus-for-skype-records-video-calls-for-free/

[zenmonkey]

Win 7 - I use a paid app called Evaer

Win10 - I think skype might actually have a record feature - never used it

Mac - I think you can use Quicktime to record - again, never used it myself.

Most teleconf apps have a record feature.
BUT, since you don't need the video, I prefer to use a digital recorder that sits on the desk. I use a TASCAM DR-05, it has many uses in language learning.

Please, please always ask before recording someone. It's a minimum courtesy and may be a legal requirement too.

[Ariel]

As a teacher, it's much harder to teach online than in real life. You can't use realia (real world objects), whiteboards (at least not easily), or physical space. I do believe that there is a strong relationship in our brains between languages and spatiality, and that not being physically present might affect how you learn. That's just a guess, but generally I'd prefer to teach someone in person rather than online 100% of the time. It's much harder to build rapport with someone over Skype, and I also believe there's a large emotional factor in language learning. Also, many people seem to devalue online classes, and not see them as 'real'. So you get students expecting much lower prices and dropping you without warning after several lessons.

Now, as a student... unless you're learning a mainstream language, it's quite difficult to find teachers or tutors. My thoughts as to methodology still apply, but going 60 miles to meet a face-to-face teacher definitely isn't worth it. And with a good teacher, you can learn lots either way.

I guess I'd phrase it this way: online classes aren't a substitute for good face-to-face classes, but they are a great alternative.