All you NEED to know before booking a language tutor!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 พ.ค. 2024
- The title says it all! Don't go into a language lesson online without using these tips. Good luck! 💕
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Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
00:58 First point
03:06 A quick tip~
04:00 Second point
04:41 Third point
06:51 Fourth point
08:02 Fifth point
08:39 Being on time
09:31 Accent/dialect and time
10:52 Ratings
11:18 Bonus tips for students!
#languagelearning #languagelearningtips #italki
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Welcome to my channel! My name is Lindie and I share my love for languages and design on this channel. I'm a senior product designer and co-founder of Kaards.io. I also write blog posts about languages at lindiebotes.com, and mentor language learners, and offer UX consulting for language apps at superpeer.com/lindiebotes. I'm a Christian and strive to shine God’s light in all I do. May this channel inspire you to reach your language goals and learn more about design.
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I’m an English tutor on Cambly who has taught over 1100 students and 3000 classes. I can’t agree more with these tips. I learn just as much from my students as they learn from me. One more tip I have is to tell your tutor (if they don’t ask) why you are learning the language you are learning and what you do to practice. I have done this with every student I have taught. It helps me learn their goals and motivation, so my lessons will be helpful for them.
I actually prefer to be corrected, as long as it's done from a genuine place of wanting to help me improve (although obviously constant interruption would be irritating). I'm always worried about saying something wrong or using the wrong word, and I'm also a perfectionist, so if I say something wrong or use the wrong word, I want to know right away, instead of them letting me continue thinking I was "correct" when I wasn't.
Trying to improve on a langauge without being open to be corrected makes no sense whatsoever. Same with trying to learn without learning grammar or without ryring to speak despite making mistakes. Makes no sense at all. Yet people love to be told that they can learn a foreign language without all these things and this is probably why many of them for years makes no or very little progress.
I tried Preply for Italian. The first girl was running a lesson from a busy cafe and people (some friends) were coming and greeting her. Also people behind her were looking into my camera. Also he was late.
Terrible 😮
I asked for an replacement. The second tutor ghosted me completely.
Now I go to Italian groups on Facebooks and have 3 trial lessons scheduled this week. Hope to finally choose one.
Great tips ❤ good luck studying!!
Love this topic! I'm an English tutor on iTalki and I especially loved your tip about coming to class with some level of preparation. I always tell my new students in our first lesson--come to class with questions! My students who do that always improve faster.
And I can't tell you how many times a student has asked me to correct them in the moment! Even with their permission, I can't do it! 1) The way I was raised tells me it's rude to interrupt people, 2) it ruins conversational flow, 3) I am not nit-picky about tiny mistakes that don't change overall meaning, and 4) I don't want them to have a negative association with English, just as you described. So I'm definitely the type of tutor who quietly corrects. I put my corrections in a document as they talk and give them the document at the end of class.
Thanks for sharing, Lindie!
Jean I'm an Itallki tutor too- and yes "fixing" mistakes right in the moment can lead to discouragement and breaks the student's talk flow. So Iv'e never had a student tell me to tell them every time. But I know on my end as a student it really throws me off to be constantly interrupted.
I honestly think it's ego on the teachers part if they do that. It's actually HARDER to wait and track the major mistakes and work with the student. And often if we wait the student senses "hmmm that wasn't right was it..."
@@YogaBlissDance For sure! That's another thing I forgot to mention: I don't want to rob my students of the opportunity to self-correct! Getting to the point of being able to self-correct is such an important skill and I try to cultivate that as much as I can
I’m not a tutor but I ‘taught’ my fiancé English. He couldn’t speak English very well when we met and he learned the language through speaking to me.
He noticed that sometimes I correct him and sometimes I don’t, and wondered how I chose what to correct and what not to. I told him that I ignore anything that is understandable and that I believe other native English speakers would also be able to understand or at least figure out, but I correct anything that either hurts my English speaking ears or that I think other English speakers wouldn’t be able to figure out.
And people aren’t stupid; through his own self-study he figured out he was saying other things wrong (things I didn’t bother to correct, like ‘in the bus’ or ‘are you angry to me?’) and asked me to explain them to him. So we don’t need to correct everything, people get there eventually.
I booked a lesson with a teacher by accident, and I fell in love with her teaching. Even though her introductory video is not what drew me to her, she is the best language tutor out there. At least for me.
Hi! What made you hesitate in her video and what made you stick with her? ^^
@@spykomiam5847 she was very soft spoken and as an extrovert I wanted someone to match my energy. She uses stories and prompts questions based on it and I eventually warmed up to it. She is very patient and corrects me subtly. She always answers my questions when I text them to her. Honestly she as a person is also very nice. When I had financial issues and I had to alter the class, and she was very generous with her offer. I can’t stop recommending her enough.
@@livin_a_fairytale
So why don't you tell us her name, help her out with new students?
Word of mouth is the best recommendation for a teacher, but it's not a recommendation until we know who she is.
There's no need to be cagey about a public activity on a public platform.
If it's good (or she's good, in this case), shout it from the rooftops!
✨☘️💖☘️✨
Introductory video makes little sense. Tutors should be chosen based on a few lessons, not on a basis of introductory videos. It's good to see a difference between marketing and actual delivery of the service. Quality of the service shall always be judged on the basis of the quality of delivering this service. Otherwise you pay for a fantasy, not for the quality.
Getting interrupted can be such a turn off in a language lesson, especially as a beginner. I've always been annoyed when people interrupt me, but in a language learning setting when you're just a beginner it is terrible. As a language tutor myself I try to avoid it as much as I can, unless the mistake is on a keyword to what the student is talking about. This has given me the best results so far.
Each time someone repeats a mistake without your intervention is the time when they perpetuate and imprint this mistake in their long term memory on a very deeply physiological level. Your approach is doing your students a lot of good in terms of boosting their self-esteem and their mood but at the same you are doing them a great disfavour in terms of improving on their language skills. Make sure you strike the balance there right.
@@agatastaniak7459 Thanks for your comment! Don't get me wrong. It is not that I do not correct the mistakes. I just don't interrupt my students while they are speaking. I prefer to explain and correct the mistakes only once they have finished their idea because, if I interrupt them every time they make a mistake, they will loose track of what they were saying and get discouraged thinking they are only making mistakes.
As a Polish teacher (preply here!), after you book a trial class, please let your tutor know, what your level is. Especially if you choose a tutor that lists themselves as a divverent level than you are. I had students show up on a conversation class without knowing how to read the alphabet, I had students who were easily holding a conversation with me, who booked a begginer lvl class. If you're not sure, you can tell the teacher the grammar you know, or the topic that you can already talk about etc.
As a Mexican, I'm glad that you chose to learn our dialect, I think it sounds really beautiful and you're doing great. Great video btw!
Great video as always, Lindie! I teach Portuguese on italki you've mentioned so many important things! As a student, I also think it's really important to connect with the tutor, as I feel more comfortable to learn the language, make mistakes etc. And as a tutor, I always try to create a safe environment for my students to learn while also making sure I know what they expect from our lessons right from day 1.
crazy how I was just looking for a video like this today!
Thank you Lindie for all your valid points to accelerate language learning, coming from someone who speaks a bunch of languages I value your opinion 😃😃😃
Watching because I'm scheduling my first iTalki lessons ever this week!
lindie coming in clutch right when i'm thinking about booking a tutor! thank you so much
Such a useful video for teachers as well. Thank you for mentioning Verbling, it's where I teach French and also where I found my Italian tutor and she is amazing!
Thank you, the tips you share are really useful! Tutoring has really improved my language learning😊 last year I had an excellent experience with the Lingoda marathon in German; talking about Italki, my first 1/2 lessons felt a bit overwhelming because the tutor would only speak Russian (and I am A0/A1 in the language) but this has really pushed me out of my comfort zone and I'm starting to see the benefits!! I still struggle with having a fixed appointment, at present I'm trying to plan a lesson every 2 weeks, more or less. Have you tried the new Italki group classes? I'm thinking of doing one in Spanish
Very helpful to listen a student's perspective on italki.
I can relate to every single aspect you mentioned, it's been over two and a half years tutoring for the website.
Thank you for this "unfiltered" video!
PS: in the correction aspect, what my students fancy is me typing their spoken sentences corrected as they speak on the italki classroom/chat so they can check it when our lesson has finished. If they read it and do not understand why, I explain the correction as the lesson flows
Thank you so much for this informative video. When I watch your videos, I feel myself better and happy
Hallo Freund! Since we are studying languages, we say "I feel better and happy." In English we don't need the "myself."
Great tips! 🤓
Nice video Lindie! I will definitely apply those tips to find my subsequent tutor.
I work as an Arabic tutor too If anyone is interested.
Isle of Tenerife,
Spain,
Africa.
For sure, Lindie, it would drive me crazy if a teacher of a language I'm learning used English or any non-target language during the sessions.
Many people wrongly assume that one of the aims of a teacher is to assure that the student has understood everything said during the lesson.
NO!
The aim is to expose the student to the language, and if this involves leaving the session still with doubts and gaps in the content discussed, even better!
That's often when the subconscious mind decides to step in and starts to form a separate language core for this mysterious new element, and start running new neurotransmitters to build up structure and fluency.
I give Gaelic lessons (often on Italki), and without using one word of any other language during the sessions I always have even complete beginners conversing with me within the first session or two, I kid you not!
I'm hoping to start learning Siamese and find a teacher who teaches it like I teach Gaelic, all immersive.
Or do you think the unique alphabet, the tones, and the ton of vowels make it too difficult to learn for a European?
I love your videos and amazing insights, Lindie.
I'm guessing the tardy teachers you mentioned are of Spanish language, right?
It's part of Spanish culture, I'm afraid.
I've also just started teaching my brother Jonno (yes, he of Crazy Bastard Sauce) Mexican Spanish using my immersive routine, adapted for him, and I'm delighted to see it's working just as well with him as with my Gaelic students.
You're such an inspiration, Lindie.
✨☘️💖☘️✨
So much interesting to try online tutor
Let's me check that out 😀
Thanks for this information, I learn languages by my own but I have a friend who has a meany Russian tutor and he had told me how bad he feels when he commits a mistake and I think nobody should feel that way during learning a language and worse if you're paying that tutor it's not fair they be rude at you:((
Sziastok. Language with Lindie channel. ! On TH-cam, there's a tutor with 50 videos and transcripts. ' Hungarian with Angie' is enjoyable. Her Facebook page mentions using Zoom sessions. You've mentioned Sziszi before, also there's Szuszi., with youtube videos. Also there's a Bible App
available, called 'Bible Offline' - Mr. Rocco , on playstore. There's 27 languages in settings, if i remember correctly. Read your bible in Greek, Spanish, and even Hungarian! There are several versions of ' bible offline', Mr Rocco iis the version with translations. Koszonom
Thank you from 🇯🇵💞✨
Hi. Would you be willing to say who is your Spanish conversational teacher? I liked the sound of the teacher going through vocabulary at the end of the lesson. And I’ve been thinking about getting just a conversational partner. I have a Mexican teacher now but it’s not straight conversation.
My recent experience was booking a lesson for advanced Italian speaking. I booked a half an hour session. I spoke with tutor about how i learnt italian. She told me the honest truth that my level of the language was too advanced for what shes teaching. I'm at the C level as I'd been taking tests there. She advised me to look for language exchange people online for more conversations and also watching more TV programmes
Look for tutors through lanuage schools then. What happened here is just maximum ackward situation. Really. If a real tutor tells you your level as L2 learner is too high for what they teach this person simply is not competent enough to teach. For a competent person your level is a wonderful level to teach for both exams as well as nuances of the language and its real beauty plus culture of the country in which it is spoken as well.
Referring to the point where being corrected at every mistake is something right or not, if kids were to be corrected at every mistake when they are trying to speak their mother tongue, they will develop speaking issues and difficulties. I think the ideal way for tutors to correct mistakes is by not making students feel awful about their mistakes and waiting until they are done, once they are done, instead of pointing out that "you had mistakes here and there" he/she should resay the sentence casually
sounds like you have an amazing Vietnamese teacher XD
Are you back in Singapore? This looks like your Singapore apartment.
What's the opinion on a language tutor who only uses the target language with props, pictures etc but no english as a beginner learner? Is that a good idea or not?
If its' "comprehensible" b/c of their props then it works but if it leaves you frustrated and confused then no. What do you think yourself?
My Chinese tutor on italki uses minimal English in our sessions.. and I’m very much a beginner. What I’ve noticed for me is that I’ve become way more confident to speak and try out phrases, even after a few lessons. This is where trial lessons are really useful so you can try out tutors even as a beginner
I think it depends on your level. If you are an A1 or A2, you're probably not going to be able to phrase a question about the language well enough to get the information you need. If you're B1, probably a decent one, then you could get by but I personally always choose tutors that are truly bilingual, especially since I like asking abstract questions about learning the language that probably would require a C1 or near C1 level to phrase properly.
At the very beginning, it seems like these conversations need to happen in English to establish expectations. Is it okay to start lessons in English to start with?
An immediate "pass" for me is tutors that have a bad microphone. You have to be real careful on this one because you might not mind listening to a voice with a lot of room reverb (echo) for an intro video, but after 2 months you might find it really painful. Other things I listen for are excessive mic thumps (no pop filter and using a studio mic, which normally is a good thing) and just plain bad audio or frequent street sounds.
I also pass on anyone that has a bad camera. Blurry, dark, or choppy video is not something I can handle for a long time like the amount of time you will spend with a language tutor. I even saw one video where I literally could not hear the tutor speak! I think some tutors just blind upload their videos and never review them.
Hey @Lindiebotes I'm learning Hungarian I wanted to ask what you actually do you in your Hungarian classes because my teacher always asks me what I want to do in the lesson and to be honest I often don't know what to answer I don't like to go through a textbook side by side
I like to improve my vocabulary learn some "szleng "
Hi! What is your native language? I am Hungarian and I speak some foreign languages, I might help you:)
When I’ve had language tutoring for American Sigh Language, I can start to forget I’m there for the sake of feedback and have a twinge of annoyance when I’m corrected about vocabulary or grammar 😩 How do you suggest getting comfortable receiving constructive criticism, especially in a circumstance in which that’s what you’re there for?
Accept the very fact that you're learning something? I mean since when people have forgotten that making misatkes is a natural element of learning anything? Do you know how to ride a bike or cook or how to ski? Do you think you could ever learn how to do any of these without making some mistakes to learn from first? Learning a language is just like learning any skill, the only difference is learning a language is a set of 4 skills, most complex skills for the human brain, so how about stop stressing and just enjoy the ride?
I would go even further and would like to have experts only in my private lessons.
iTalk has the ability to filter tutors by Pro vs Community status. I always filter by Pro only.
Some italki teachers don't make you feel they want to do classes with you again after a package as they don't even write in messages "I hope you come back soon". That should be taken as a bad sign?!
I have never experienced tutors writing a message after a package ends. I think they are too busy and can't be bothered if you book or don't so that's maybe why they say nothing but it doesn't mean anything negative.
@@LindieBotes Vale. Meri beaucoup.
I know what language that is always late hahaha coz im from that country 😂
😂
I love the way you talk very much.
Ya, bagaimana Anda melakukan? 😊
Hej, hur gör du? 😀
Ehi, come va? 😁
Kiel vi fartas? 👌
איך אתה עושה? 🙂
Hvordan laver du?
Λοιπόν, πώς κάνετε? 😍
Hey, nasıl yapıyorsun? 🙃
こんにちは、どのようにしてやっていますか? 🌻
Hey, necə edirsiniz? ❤
The lenguage in which people are late is certainly Portuguese.
I have started flats out telling my italki tutors/professors - I do not like corrections. You don’t need to correct me. If you can understand me, that’s good enough for me! And if they can’t respect that, I don’t book another class with them again. As I tell them, my main goal is to communicate!
so you don't even want to know when you are wrong? that might make communicating harder 😂
😂 yup that sure will!
It's your choice but if you are happy with most likely talking gibberish in your target langauge for years to come that's ok. It is your choice. Chances are they don't mind it as long as you keep paying but maybe don't get even a half of what you're saying. If this is something you see as worth of your money, then why not? For them it's easy money with a person with weird approach to their own spendings. I see no problem with it as long as it makes both sides happy.