The ability to travel the world that humanity received literally several decades ago required additional knowledge in the form of foreign languages. One of the Internet resources that allows you to master them is Italki, the reviews of those who took advantage of it indicate that with its help you can get high quality services.
What is Italki?
Learning foreign languages today is quite expensive, especially when you consider the fact that its presence is welcomed in employment in all large companies. The desire to save money pushes many to search for alternative sources of knowledge, one of which is the Italki portal, in the reviews its clients note that they could find really smart teachers at affordable prices. All classes are held in a video conference format, 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 other 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, all in all, more than 3 million users are registered here.
How to choose a teacher?
Since the portal is a strict selection of teachers, the resource visitor can be fully 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. When you first visit the site, the student is invited to register and go to the teacher’s catalog, where in each teacher’s card you can find statistics on how many lessons he spent, how many students worked, 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 vivid and memorable portfolio, with which he will be able to attract the attention of potential students. According to statistics, those teachers who do not have a portfolio, the number of students is much less than their colleagues who can advertise themselves. The teacher also indicates the cost of his services on his personal page in the public domain, which is very convenient.
If you came home and told your relatives: “We 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 teacher profile. The portal administration carefully monitors that all responses were left by real users, so there is no doubt in their honesty. Another factor is cost. Quite often, high prices for lessons do not correspond to 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 I learn here?
The current staff of teachers offers the opportunity to master more than 100 foreign dialects. The main motto of italki.com educators is “Learning foreign languages simply and with pleasure”, they believe that the process of learning in the video communication format is much easier than attending classrooms. The most popular 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, for example, American sign language or papiamento.
The services of the portal are invaluable if you need to learn an underutilized 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 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 include French, Portuguese and Spanish. Thus, having learned Latin, you can easily learn three more languages with minimal effort.
Test preparation assistance
Teachers from the Italki website can not only teach you the right language, but can also help you prepare for the final exams, as well as for those that will have to pass to enter the university. Since preparation requires serious enough efforts, it is better to calculate your family budget in advance and make sure that you can afford to purchase the necessary number of classes. One of the most acceptable options is to explain the goal to the teacher in 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 teacher’s profile, 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 the exams for moving require serious preparation, so for a good assimilation of the material, you must begin to study at least a year before delivery.
Is it convenient to use the portal?
A convenient and intuitive interface, responsiveness of the support service and the ability to translate the resource are another advantage of learning using Italki; in the reviews about the site, users do not make critical comments about its arrangement. Much more often they express words of gratitude to the creators and suggestions for improving the resource. Regular guests of the portal are pleased that they have the opportunity to pass 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 to the cultural characteristics of other countries, psychology and art. In most cases, they are written in English, which allows you to further enhance your knowledge of the language.
Are students satisfied with the teachers?
One of the main advantages of the Italki portal is that teacher reviews are in the public domain and anyone can read them. Students are mostly satisfied with teachers, as they are always friendly, helpful and friendly. Each of them is interested in providing his student with as much information as possible so that he can master the language studied as quickly as possible. Lesson schedules can be adjusted so that both parties are comfortable, while always taking into account the time difference between the cities of the teacher and student.
Some students, having reached a high level of knowledge of the language, continue to engage with teachers to maintain form. Teachers quite often meet the 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 who actively use it.
Which teachers aren't worth working with?
Since all information about educators 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 require too much amount for classes. Also, some potential students are repelled by the time difference, because of which it is not possible to agree on the date of the lesson, 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 low-quality training, and were very dissatisfied with it. If suddenly you find yourself embroiled in a conflict with a teacher, be sure to contact the site support for assistance in the shortest possible time.
How much do you have to pay for classes?
To form the amount that you are willing to spend on foreign language lessons, it is necessary based on what level of knowledge you want to achieve. If the student is fluent in language, but needs conversational practice, one lesson per week with a native speaker will be enough, but if it comes to preparing for the exam, 3-4 lessons a week simply can not do. Please note - you can receive 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 you can 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, for one lesson per hour you will have to pay from 10 to 15 US dollars. Learning rare languages will cost more - $ 15-20 in 60 minutes. If you doubt the teacher’s qualifications, you can take a 30-minute trial lesson, which usually costs $ 5-6. Some teachers also offer packages of 10.15.30 or more discounted classes for your students, which you can also take.
When there is no time to sit on the site ...
If you are too busy a person who has minutes every day, but you really want to learn a foreign language, you can use the Italki application, it is as functional as the main portal. You can download it in the store that suits you best for free and install it on your mobile phone for classes.
However, it also has a drawback - constant freezing and a large number of problems with data transfer. Also, difficulties arise with the installation of filters when searching for a teacher - sometimes it is not possible to choose only one language. Developers are trying to timely eliminate all the shortcomings that arise, but this is far from always possible, which causes irritation for users.
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 seeks to build the work process 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.
In order 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 conditions for further cooperation.
Partnership
Particularly noteworthy is the Italki project “Language Partners”, in which you can independently and for free find a friend from another country on the website and teach each other the dialects you speak. The opportunity to significantly save on training attracts many users, however, it is not easy to find the most suitable friend here, according to the students, quite often the site visitors use it as a resource for dating. In addition, it is likely that your new friend will not be as knowledgeable in his own language as he would like, which can also leave an unpleasant aftertaste from communication.
For those who are more fortunate, they find here not only teachers, but also real friends with whom they further 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 from the other for their services, 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 italki analogues, but this is not so. In the "global web" you can find sites similar to this resource, but for the most part they offer only opportunities for the development of written language, which does not allow you to fully master the language and use it when traveling to other countries.
The main advantage of the portal is the ability to organize video communication sessions between users, as well as the strict filtering of teachers leading lessons. The high level of quality of acquired knowledge is a priority for the site administration, so there is no doubt about the qualifications of local teachers.