italki is undergoing scheduled maintenance on December 17 UTC 9:00. We’ll be back shortly with some improved features.
We apologize about any inconvenience we’ve caused. The site should be back up shortly.
The italki team
Update: That took way longer than we expected. Sorry! We hope you like the improvements.
Over the next few blog posts, we’ll profile a few members, both students and teachers who’ve had success learning or teaching online.
The first is Simon, a mechanical engineer from Yancheng, China who is learning English. Simon is a good example of someone who realized that taking lessons online was one of the best ways to learn a language. Below is what Simon had to say about learning on italki.
Simon
[Translated from Chinese] I’ve been a member of italki for more than one year, but I only started using the paid online teaching service in May of this year. I’ve had great luck in finding a very good teacher. She is a British national living in Brazil working as a professional English teacher. Her professional ability, accent, and price, these three aspects, are in my opinion, ideal. But more importantly, everyday she is happy, outgoing, and very open-minded toward all variety of topics–in my opinion, these things are even more important than teaching skills. Of course, within the class, we also try to adjust to each other’s style and develop methods to help me understand the language and the culture behind it. Overall, I’ve been enjoying my time learning with her.
From my perspective, the benefits of learning online are one-on-one lessons, saving money on each class, and saving time on each class. In addition, it is very easy to find someone [online] who is a native speaker of the language and communicate with them. One very small drawback is that communication is not just the language, over the internet you only get voice or video communication, which lacks the richness of face-to-face meetings.
If you’d like to share your italki story on our blog, please contact us!
Throughout the month of December, italki is offering everyone, both teachers and students, the opportunity to Unwrap the Joy of Learning with special promotions.
When you buy 200 or more ITC in a single purchase during the month of December, italki will give you 10% bonus on that purchase. This applies to each and every single purchase of 200 or more italki credits you make during the month of December. So that means, Buy 200 ITC and you will receive a total of 220. Buy 300 ITC and you will receive 330, and so on. If you haven’t bought ITC yet or tried finding a teacher online, now’s the time to start! More learning, more lessons, more time with a teacher to improve your foreign language skills.
When you buy the 1-year SpeakENG multimedia course, you can give the same 1-year package to a friend for free! The SpeakENG 1 year course gives you full access to the premier online teaching program from our Marketplace Partner Eleutian. Also included is one 15-minute videoconference with one of Eleutian’s American certified ESL teachers. Give a friend a gift this holiday season and let him or her learn English too! Please provide the person’s email address when purchasing this package.
No Commission on New Students: For all *new* students you start teaching during the month of December, italki will waive its commission for those students. That means extra money in your pocket. That is, any students you’ve never taught before (for paid sessions) that begin lessons with you during December, there will be no commission on all of those lessons. We highly encourage teachers to look for new students and try to get some lessons taught throughout the month of December.
These promotions are not exclusive and may be combined. Promotions lasts from December 1, 2009 12:01AM until December 31, 2009 11:59PM China Time (GMT+8).
Our second Chatfest here in Shanghai was a success with people from at least 5 different countries joining us to practice languages and meet new people. This time with a smaller group of people, there was more opportunity to get to know each other better and ample opportunities to speak foreign languages! While Chinese and English were still the most popular, we also had people speaking or practicing Korean, Japanese, French, Spanish, German, and Italian.
 |
 |
 |
 |
If you’re an italki member, and you think you’d like to organize a meetup in your city, please contact Toffler (at) italki (dot) com or visit the italki Member Events Group. As always, let us know what you think — and keep on sharing languages and cultures!
The italki.com team
To all italki Shanghai members, we’re organizing Chatfest 2 for everyone to come out and meet each other face-to-face. This is our second language exchange meetup in Shanghai. This will be another great opportunity to:
Meet some of the people you chat with
Find new language partners
Meet the italki team
Learn about different cultures, and
Indulge yourself with a Dunkin’ Donut!
We’ll have activities to help you mix and mingle and meet new people. Speakers and students of all language welcome!
We look forward to meeting all of you at Dunkin’ Donuts!
Date: Wednesday, November 18th
Time: 7- 9 pm
Location: Dunkin’ Donuts – ShiMen Yi Lu 239, near Weihai Lu 石门一路239，近威海路
Metro Line 2: Nanjing Xi Lu
(If you’re interested in holding a similar event in your city, please leave a comment below or contact us!)
