Italki: student reviews, service overview

2024 Author: Howard Calhoun | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:16

The opportunity to travel around the world, which humanity received just a few decades ago, required additional knowledge in the form of foreign languages. One of the Internet resources that allow you to master them is Italki, the reviews of those who have used it indicate that you can get high quality services with it.

What is Italki?

Learning foreign languages today is quite expensive, especially considering the fact that its presence is welcomed in employment in all large companies. The desire to save money pushes many to look for alternative sources of knowledge, one of which is the Italki portal, in the reviews of its customers they note that they were able to find really smart teachers here at affordable prices. All classes are held via videoconference, which is very convenient and saves a lot of time.

In 2007, this resource was registered as a community where users from different countries could chat with each otherfriend and provide mutual assistance in learning foreign languages. Two years later, it became possible to organize paid consultations from professional teachers. Today, teachers can set prices here on their own and even make discounts for their students, which is very convenient. As of February 2019, about 5 thousand teachers work on the site, in total, more than 3 million users are registered here.

How to choose a teacher?

Since the portal conducts a strict selection of teachers, the visitor of the resource can be completely confident in their qualifications and professional skills. Judging by the reviews, italki.com even checks the availability of diplomas from teachers, which is usually not done on other similar resources. On the first visit to the site, the student is invited to register and go to the teacher directory, where in the card of each teacher you can find statistics on how many lessons he taught, how many students he worked with, as well as information on how the latter evaluate the quality of work.

Since the portal has long acquired a commercial character, the teacher needs to create a bright and memorable portfolio with which he can attract the attention of potential students. According to statistics, those teachers who do not have a portfolio have much fewer students than their colleagues who know how to advertise themselves. The teacher also indicates the cost of his services on his personal page in the public domain, which is veryconvenient.

If you came home and said to your relatives: "Learn foreign languages with italki.com!", and they advised you to study the portal more closely, it is best to first pay attention to the reviews left by students in the profile of teachers. The portal administration carefully monitors that all responses are left by real users, so there is no doubt about their honesty. Another factor is cost. Quite often, high prices for lessons do not match the quality, so it is advisable to find a balance between them so as not to make a huge gap in your family budget.

What languages can you learn here?

The current staff of teachers offers the opportunity to master more than 100 foreign dialects. The main motto of italki.com teachers is "We learn foreign languages simply and with pleasure", they believe that the learning process in the video format is much easier than attending classroom classes. The most popular languages are English, Chinese, Japanese, as well as a number of European languages - Italian, Spanish, French, German, Russian, etc. If you wish, you can find teachers in rare languages, such as American Sign Language or Papiamento.

Portal services are invaluable if you need to learn an underused or dead language. In particular, here you can find a Latin teacher who will tell you about the history of the appearance of this language, its influence on world linguistics and teach you how to speak it. You are unlikely to be able to use it in colloquial speech, however,It was Latin that formed the basis of the Romance language family, which includes French, Portuguese and Spanish. So once you learn Latin, you can easily master three more languages with minimal effort.

Help prepare for tests

Teachers from Italki can not only teach you the language you need, but they can also help you prepare for the final exams, as well as those that you have to pass to enter the university. Since the preparation requires quite a lot of effort, it is better to calculate your family budget in advance and make sure that you can afford to purchase the required number of classes. One of the most acceptable options is to explain your goal to the teacher at the introductory lesson, after which he will be able to prepare a curriculum for you.

The services of local teachers are especially popular with those who intend to move to another country and for this must pass the relevant exams at the embassy. The profile of the teacher, as a rule, contains information about whether he is preparing students for passing such tests, you can also clarify this in personal messages. It is worth noting that exams for moving require serious preparation, so for a good assimilation of the material, you must start studying at least a year before passing.

Is it convenient to use the portal?

Comfortable and intuitive interface, responsive support service and the ability to translate the resource - another advantage of learning with Italki, in reviews ofsite users do not express critical remarks about its arrangement. Much more often they hear words of gratitude to the creators and suggestions for improving the resource. Regular visitors of the portal are pleased that they have the opportunity to take a written exam at any time to determine the level of knowledge of a particular language (for example, the Oxford test to identify gaps in English).

The resource constantly publishes interesting articles from teachers related not only to the study of languages, but also the cultural characteristics of other countries, psychology and art. In most cases, they are written in English, which allows you to further improve your knowledge of the language.

Are students happy with teachers?

One of the most important advantages of the Italki portal is that reviews about teachers are in the public domain and anyone can read them. Students are mostly satisfied with the teachers, as they are always friendly, responsive and friendly. Each of them is interested in providing his student with as much information as possible so that he masters the language being studied as quickly as possible. Class schedules can be adjusted in such a way that it is convenient for both parties, while taking into account the time difference between the cities of the teacher and the student.

Some students, having reached a high level of language proficiency, continue to study with teachers to keep fit. Teachers often gotowards students who have been working with them for a long time, and provide them with a large amount of methodological material that can significantly expand their understanding of the language being studied and the people actively using it.

Which teachers should you not work with?

Since all information about teachers is publicly available on italki.com, in the reviews you can find the most honest and detailed information about them. Negative feedback about teachers is most often associated with the cost of services, some students believe that native speakers charge too much for classes. Also, some potential students are repelled by the time difference, due to which it is not possible to agree on a date for the class that is convenient only for them.

Experienced students are not advised to contact teachers who themselves write in private messages and offer their services. Having agreed to them, they received poor-quality training, and were very dissatisfied with it. If suddenly you find yourself embroiled in a conflict situation with a teacher, be sure to contact the site support service for help as soon as possible.

How much will I have to pay for classes?

It is necessary to form the amount that you are willing to spend on foreign language lessons based on what level of knowledge you want to achieve. If the student is fluent in the language, but needs conversational practice, one lesson per week with a native speaker will be enough for him, but if it comes to preparing for the exam, 3-4 lessons per week simply cannot be done without. Please note - you canget classes from different teachers on Italki, in the reviews, some students note that this even simplifies the learning process - with one teacher you can study grammar, and with another - practice vocabulary and speaking skills.

The cost of the lessons will directly depend on what language you are studying. If it belongs to the category of popular ones, you will have to pay from 10 to 15 US dollars for one lesson lasting an hour. Learning rare languages will cost more - $ 15-20 for 60 minutes. When in doubt about the qualifications of the teacher, you can use a trial 30-minute lesson, which usually costs 5-6 dollars. Some educators also offer discounted packages of 10, 15, 30 or more lessons for their students, which you can also take advantage of.

When there is no time to sit on the site…

If you are a too busy person who has every day scheduled by the minute, but you really want to learn a foreign language, you can use the Italki application, it is in no way inferior to the main portal in its functionality. It can be downloaded from the store of your choice for free and installed on your mobile phone to take classes.

However, it also has a drawback - constant freezing and a large number of problems with data transfer. Also, difficulties arise with the establishment of filters when searching for a teacher - sometimes it is not possible to select only one language. The developers are trying to eliminate all emerging shortcomings in a timely manner, but this is far from always possible, which causesuser annoyance.

Can I get a job here?

Sufficiently comfortable conditions for teachers are another distinguishing feature of italki, in their reviews they note that the administration treats teachers as loyally as possible and strives to build the workflow so that it is convenient for all parties. The portal takes a relatively small commission for its services, which teachers consider to be quite an adequate fee.

To become one of the teachers of this resource, just visit the official website and fill out a special form. After checking the profile and the information provided, the administrator contacts the teacher to discuss the terms of further cooperation.

Partnership

Italki's "Language Partners" project deserves special attention, in which you can independently and for free find a friend from another country on the site and teach each other the dialects you speak. The opportunity to significantly save on training attracts many users, but finding the most suitable friend here is not easy, according to students, quite often site guests use it as a resource for dating. In addition, there is a chance that your new friend will not be as literate in knowing his own language as you would like, which can also leave an unpleasant aftertaste from communication.

Those who are more fortunate find here not only teachers, but also true friends with whom theyfurther establish strong ties and even travel to visit each other. The terms of the project are that none of the parties has the right to demand payment for their services from the other, so if they are violated, the site user has the right to appeal to the resource management with a complaint.

Why choose this site?

At first glance, it seems that there are a huge number of analogues of italki, but this is not so. On the “global web” you can find sites similar to this resource, but for the most part they only offer opportunities for the development of writing, which does not allow you to fully master the language and use it when traveling to other countries.

The main plus of the portal is the ability to organize video sessions between users, as well as strict filtering of teachers who teach lessons. The high level of quality of the knowledge gained is a priority for the site administration, so there is no doubt about the qualifications of local teachers.