Language Learning Tools: Choosing a Teacher on iTalki

Last time, when we were talking about active learning, I mentioned, that speaking practice should be the one ultimate language activity you should not dodge. For productive conversational practice, it is always better to have a teacher or a language buddy. In this post, I would love to share with you my best tip for finding the right one.

First, a word about the website we are going to look at – iTalki. iTalki is a community platform for language enthusiasts and students, as well as a place for finding language teachers and tutors. There, you can find many useful tips and articles from the teachers, search for a new language partner or submit notebook entries for receiving corrections from native speakers. You can also check fellow students’ texts and, of course, access the huge database of teachers and tutors to find the best one for you.

There are many filters available to narrow down your search results, such as the lesson price and length, availability times, user’s native language etc. On every tutor’s page, besides the rating, you can also see the amount of lessons, as well as students, they have had so far. These two numbers are the ones I usually pay most attention to, as from them it could be clearly seen, how long an average student stayed with the teacher.

For example, my Japanese teacher, Annie, has on average 11.6 lectures per student:

And my Spanish teacher, Martina, has 5.8 lectures per student:

How do you get this number? By dividing the number of conducted lessons by the number of existing students. The ratio you get roughly shows the amount of lectures an average student had with this teacher. Although every lecturer has some one-time pupils, generally, the greater the sum of “per student” lessons, the more people have returned to this tutor for another lecture.

Although iTalki is an awesome platform with a great number of teachers being present, the competition among them is high. Since a lot of teachers have great ratings, I believe, that returning students are the best confirmation of the teachers’ skills.

Personally, I try to choose tutors who have, on average, more than 5 lectures per person. The suggested figure, of course, is just an estimate – you can look at it in case you struggle with your choice.

Hope this tip helps you find the right mentor. In case you decide to try this platform out, feel free add me as a friend here:

https://www.italki.com/user/3520761

In the next posts, I will tell you more about my favourite books, podcasts and apps I use for improving my German, English, Spanish and Japanese.

Now, could you tell me which learning platforms do you like the most? Have you heard about the iTalki before? Please, let me know in the comments below.