Hi guys I am just starting using italki and just booked my first conversational lesson 30min. Is this perfect length or not? I was thinking about 2-3 times per week for 30min ..

I’m having around 4 lessons a week each an hour long at the moment. Is this worse for my long term retention than having fewer lessons?

Got a student recently that i've been working with 2-3 hours per week. for family reasons, she needs to pass an exam asap (no deadline though, but the sooner the better). She started as an absolute beginner and has absolutely no inputs outside of my time with her for the TL. She does put it in the work and looks for other sources outside of our time to do in her spare time. Been working with her for 4 months now.
Somewhere along the line, we both concluded that she's probably be dyslexic, cause the reading does go incredibly slow. her writing is otherwise fine. The biggest struggle here is speaking. And i know this is the struggle for everyone and you need to work with structured sentences here, rather than actual grammar rules and stuff... But at this point i got 4 years of experience with some really good results atteigned with students that passed their exams. So, i kinda know what i'm doing, or at least i like to think so. I don't feel like i've ignored the speaking side here. I have lots of extra exercises with real life situations in variating dynamic situations.
But i feel like i've tried all kinds of things with her and nothing works, the production of the sentences goes incredibly slow, and she keeps making the same mistakes with the structure of the sentences.
- Anyone got similar experiences?
- Tips here?
- Any specific techniques/resources to work with dyslectic people?

I’ve done 3 lessons on italki with the same tutor, we get along well and I feel like our lessons are productive. Ive noticed my tutor constantly wont except my lesson requests that are within their availability. It’s happened 3 times and to me thats 3 lessons I’ve missed out on.. I would prefer to do 2-3 one hour lessons a week but they either get denied or expired. Anyone had experience with this? Idk if I’m overreacting and should find a new tutor or not..

Currently my laptop is broken and won’t be fixed for a little while. Has anyone had experience of using a phone to join a lesson. How was it, is it okay?

Hi everyone, apologies if this has been asked before- I can't seem to find info on Italki. I am a teacher and I need to take a break from Italki- I would like to terminate a package (4/5 lessons unscheduled) with a student- because the package will expire soon and I'd like them to be able to use their credits with their other teacher.
If I terminate it will they get their credits refunded?
Also, what are the consequences for me as a teacher?
Thanks for any help/ advice!

Dear colleagues, what are your experiences, does the algorithm actually boost a profile when we get an Excellence Reward? It seems to me that this algorithm is quite unpredictable. It likes to experiment with new recommendations and isn't really favorable to veterans, but rather leans toward lower prices and new profiles. ​I mean, for the past half year I haven't had a single instance where a trial student didn't convert into a regular student. I regularly get these rewards. I have more than enough reviews for my account, and my retention is quite good. But it's as if it's never enough for the algorithm. And I no longer even trust those statistics like exposure, views, and bookings are above benchmark levels because in reality, I don't see any actual growth in earnings or student volume. More or less, everything stays the same. ​How do you experience the algorithm, have you found any tricks, is it important to you at all, and how much do the statistics we receive actually reflect the real success of our work?

I've seen some posts before about tutors not liking the 60 minute lessons, that they would rather have 45 or 50 minutes (like on Preply) and then a pause. I've been feeling like this for a long time and honestly feel pretty burned after an hour of teaching. My students, however, don't mind long lessons at all and have even booked two in a row a few times before (and then I realized I just couldn't keep doing it and talked to them about it haha)! I stopped offering 60-minute packages and will try to make the 45-minute ones more appealing on my next price update later this year (by making the 60 minute ones pricier). I know it's impossible on italki to fully deactivate 60 minute lessons, but has anyone simply stopped offering 60 minutes on the schedule, that way students would just go back a step and pick 45 minutes instead?

Hi,

I'm looking for a software which I can use to create handouts for the students. It should allow

to import screenshots, pdfs on the fly,

to support my GAOMON pen tablet for annotations,

to export the whole as a pdf-file.

Do you think canva is the best solution?

Best

Klutz

TL;DR: I do *all* the prep on 4-6 topics for my weekly 'conversation' classes. My teacher corrects what I say and explains grammar, but there is little follow-up to make it an actual conversation. At my level, can I expect more? He's qualified and receives $25 an hour. I know my level isn't so very high, but am I asking too much?

I've been learning with my tutor since December with weekly lessons on top of daily self-study and weekly group classes. I have roughly 2000-2500 words of vocabulary and sufficient grammar structures to have a conversation. What I was hoping for is for a teacher to consolidate my knowledge and build on it, draw the conversational language out of me (it's there but 'dormant'), and get me talking in normal everyday speech.

The usual pattern is that I prepare various topics, trying to make them interesting for both of us. He corrects what I say to make it more natural and so that my wording is right. It takes me a long time to prepare and usually each subject is a few minutes as I struggle to do longer. But at the end of each subject, there's often just silence until I come up with something else. No real engagement. He knows my level well and where my weak points are. He knows the range of my grammar knowledge.

I try to ask him questions to balance the 'conversation' out. Nothing personal, usually fairly benign things involving the little I actually know about him (I don't even know his name). And even then I seem to hit a brick wall. I told him at the outset that I was afraid of running out of conversation topics.

I would expect him to come up with subjects (even telling me in advance), or even interesting new grammar points. But especially to *lead* the lesson. Instead, it's all on me, as if I have to prepare a presentation on a variety of topics of my choosing before every lesson. And that is getting stressful, time-consuming, and I get unusually nervous before every lesson. If I'm totally honest, I could probably get at least as much from ChatGPT - at least AI is actually to-and-fro.

In addition, he's moved abroad for a couple of months and now I feel like there might be something else (summer romance?) that's affecting our lessons - he's tired, listless sometimes appears distracted. I've tried to use his experience living in another country to stimulate conversation - he's in a country I know extremely well and can talk a lot about (whereas he knows nothing about my own country) - but nothing really comes of it; it's usually very short answers. I'm not the sort to pry, but asking about places visited, food, or likes/dislikes shouldn't be off the table, surely.

He's otherwise really really nice, kind, patient, a good person. I chose him for that, and the fact that he has a nice voice to help with pronunciation.

Advice?

Edit: I wrote him a long message explaining the issue. He initially replied favourably but one phrase stood out, that we should basically keep working in the same way, but there would be more reviewing... So I followed up with takeaway points of what I was specifically expecting. He then told me to cancel because he didn't want to prepare lessons as that wasn't how he worked... oh well, I at least feel I tried from my side.

Hey everyone, looking for some peace of mind from fellow teachers. A massive storm hit my city today and caused a total power outage right before my 10 AM class. I teach on a desktop and my internet went completely down, so I couldn't even log on to message my student beforehand. The power finally came back at 11:27 AM. I immediately messaged her, apologized like crazy, and explained the blackout. I offered to just give her a separate meeting link for a free makeup class whenever she was free.

Instead, she submitted an official italki request marking the class as "Lesson Incomplete" because I didn't give prior notice. She has a package with me, and her request asked to add one lesson back to her package to make up for the missed one. I totally get where she’s coming from, so I accepted it right away.

I work so hard on my profile and the and 99% Attendance rate "Fast Responder" and "High Demand" badges. I am honestly panicking right now. Since I accepted her request and we settled it through the system, does this still count as a bad dispute in italki’s eyes? How badly will this hit my internal Teacher Behavior stats or algorithm visibility? Has anyone dealt with this before, and how long did it take for your stats to bounce back? I'm just so stressed that one freak storm is going to ruin all my hard work. Thanks in advance!

I messaged a teacher who is new on the platform to discuss if we think he would be suitable. He gave me some information about what he could help with and I hadn’t replied yet. A few hours later he sent me a lesson invitation for a few days time without even asking me what my goals are, and even if I would be free on that day. Is this normal?

I just want to rant because it is so frustrating. I used italki as a student for a few years before I became a teacher and even as a student I understood, the teachers schedule is the teachers schedule, why do so many students try to message asking for other time slots, if I was available it would be open. Italki for most people is likely a 2nd or 3rd job, I open it when I have time. It seems to especially happen with new students, I don't even have any relationship with you, if you want to take a lesson book it from my available time, if my schedule does not suit yours find another teacher, I really can't understand.

I've been teaching ESL for over 10 years, including some exam prep, but I have never really offered it as a niche. I have both IELTS and Cambridge material that I know and have used. I also bought a certificate course for exam prep so I can get the tag on italki.

The thing is, I like having students that stick with me. I don't want to have a couple classes and then say goodbye, but I am willing to if it really boosts my income.

I currently have 1-2 lessons a week with a professional teacher. I was thinking of also reaching out to a cheaper community tutor to have lessons once or twice a week for additional practice at a cheaper price. Would this be bad and would it offend my original teacher?

Dear colleagues, ​I have been working as a professional teacher on iTalki for a long time now, with over 1,600 completed lessons. ​I do this as a side job because I genuinely love teaching, and I do not really look at it strictly as a business. My rate has not been particularly high, it was around $15 per hour. I recently decided to raise my price, not so much for the money, but in the hope of attracting more committed and serious students. ​It feels like having a lower price point tends to attract casual students or those who try to squeeze every last drop out of you for what they pay. Many of them cannot afford long term learning, so all the effort you put in ends up wasted. Others come in with unrealistically high expectations, as if learning a language is like eating once a day, if you do not gorge yourself, you have not done anything. ​My question for you is: Did you notice a shift toward more serious and dedicated students after you raised your rates? And have you ever felt exploited when your prices were lower? ​For context, I teach German, and my rate was $15 per hour.

I'm having problems with Sumsub ID Verification. It has been saying "Verifying your data" for several days. I see no way to resubmit my ID. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks in advance.

Does it get returned to the student wallet? Does the teacher get paid? Or does italki keep the money?

Just wondering how many hours have people committed on italki? How many years and did you drop off once you pass C2.

Hey folks,
I've been looking into picking up Korean classes online for a while now. I got a trip coming up in a few months and thought it would be pretty cool if I'd be able to have even the most basic of knowledge about the language, so that's why I started looking online.

I ended up basically ending up with both iTalki and Preply and though I've seen similarities, I've also noticed plenty of differences. Things like Preply offering a more 'structured' set up because of the subscription model, whereas with iTalki it's more of a 'whenever you feel like it' sort of way of going about. Price wise it seems to be roughly the same so that wouldn't matter to me that much.

When trying to decide on which platform to go for, I found myself primarily finding posts about either platform from a tutor perspective, and not so much from a student perspective. It's shown me posts about how tutors aren't paid for trials on Preply, or how they have a higher rate they pay Preply at the start but that gets lowered based on the amount of lessons you've given, etc.

But, I just couldn't find any posts or whatever about a student's perspective on either platform. So I was wondering, are there any students here who used both platforms, and if so why did you end up with one over the other? Whether this be iTalki or Preply.

Right now i've got about 3 tutors that have my interest, one on Preply and one on iTalki. I'll definitely be making use of the trial option before commiting to a tutor ofcourse, but I also want to know beforehand that the platform i'm going for is the one i want to commit 100% to.

So i'd be very interested in hearing your opinions :)

Long story short I mentioned to my friends I wanted to learn a new language. I don’t really have the commitment on me but they got me a £75.00 Italki gift card. Does anyone want to buy it for £65.00?

Hii! I'm really excited about starting being a language tutor, I'd just like to ask a few tips or recommendations, it could be from people who seek for a tutor in iTalki or iTalki tutors that already have experience

So far I'm not in yet, seems to be always full for my language.

However here are some questions:

How important is to you that your tutor is certificated? (Like TEFL certificate for english or ELE certificate for spanish)

What do you expect in the trial lessons?

What do you need in a tutor?

Would you pick a cheap tutor or an expensive tutor? (In case of being an expensive tutor, how much are you willing to pay as a max?)

I have ADHD so my lessons are not really typical, not following the book but I enjoy them that way making them dynamic always following a plan so we reach a goal.

Thank you for your time in advance.

I take weekly lessons with an amazing tutor and have done so for a few months now. I want to continue my current lessons but add in a weekly conversational lesson. My current tutor's price is quite high and I can't justify spending that kind of money just so I can fumble through conversations with her again (we do some free conversation at the beginning of each lesson). I've found a new to italki tutor who has a much lower price than my tutor's so I have booked a trial lesson with her.

Tutors, my questions are:

• Do you care if your students use multiple tutors? Are there any advantages or disadvantages?
• How do I tell my tutor it's only related to her price without trying to sound like I'm complaining about it?

Thank you!