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We just wanted to note that italki now accepts JCB credit cards. JCB (Japan Credit Bureau) is similar to Visa or Mastercard, and is widely used in Japan and other countries, including South Korea, China, Taiwan, and the United States. You’ll see the JCB option when you go to purchase italki Credits (ITC). We hope this makes it easier to purchase language products and services on italki.

That’s why we’re trying an experiment that we’re calling Learning Requests – http://www.italki.com/teachers/learning_request.htm (you must be logged in)

With Learning Requests, students can submit information about their:

• Background in the language
• What type of lessons they want
• Their budget
• Time availability

After a student submits a Learning Request, italki will try its best to match up teachers that would be the most capable of helping the student to achieve his or her learning goals. italki will contact those teachers. Finally, italki will return a list of suggested teachers back to the student.

Only students that have purchased italki Credits (ITC) can use this feature.

We hope that this feature will be helpful for students who need help finding a teacher. We think this feature will eventually evolve into a system where teachers can easily view the demand for their services. If you’re a teacher and would like to be on a recommended list for students, please send us an email to teacherhelp at italki dot com.

If you have suggestions about how we can help match students and teachers, please feel free to send us ideas through our feedback form or through our email at feedback at italki dot com.

Click on Language Teachers in the left-hand navigation box.

First, choose your search criteria:

Teaches: Choose the language you’re looking to study. This lists the language the teacher will teach you.

Professional Teacher / Language Tutor: Do you need a teacher with professional teaching experience, or is a language tutor more suitable for your learning? More explanation of this here.

Native Speaker: Do you wish to learn from someone who speaks that language as their mother tongue? If you’re an advanced learner of the language, this may be more important to you than for beginners. Check this to find native speaking teachers of the language you’re learning.

Free Trial Available: If you want to have a trial session with the teacher before you pay for lessons, mark this option and you will only be shown teachers who offer Free Trial.  (You must have ITC in your account to be a Free Trial.)

Price (ITC per hour): If you only want to be shown teachers who fit within your budget, you may select it here. ITC are italki’s internal currency, known as italki Credits or ITCs.  US$1 = 10ITC.

Then click Browse to search by your specified criteria.

Second, after your new personalized list has loaded, choose which order in which you want to view the matching teachers.

Ratings: Sorts from highest to lowest (none) the level of positive feedback ratings the teacher has received from other italki students.  Shown by 1-5 Gold Stars.  More details here in our FAQ.

Price: Sorts from lowest to highest price in ITC per hour.  ITC are not US$.  1 ITC equals US$0.1

Once you find a few teachers that match your criteria and interests, click on their picture or name to few their profile.  Here you can learn more about them, check their availability schedule, and book a session with them.

Learning online is very quick, easy, and affordable.  Get started today!

Congratulations to these members who’ve won a 1-month subscription to the SpeakENG course.

Eucilene     Brazil
Amanda     Brazil
Yingshine     China
Lucinda     China
Tony Feng     China
Lucky     China
Ahmed Elrazki     Egypt
Hery     Indonesia
Joy     China/Japan
Hamahamacchi     Japan
Queen Bees     Lebanon
CINTHYA     Peru
Ugly     Russia
Firuz     Tajikistan
Nao     Japan/USA
Sharanya India
Ozan Turkey
Sarah Iraq
Hasan Bangladesh

Winners should claim their prize by the 28th of September and then will have one month to use it.  Good luck to all the winners!  We have high hopes for your improved English ability and we look forward to hearing from you after you use this package.

For those of you who didn’t win, you can still buy the SpeakENG Online Course for either 1 year or 1 month.  Don’t forget the special introductory price of $16 for the 1-year course will be ending September 30.  So make sure you take advantage of the reduced rate and buy before the end of the month!

One of her main projects is called Edukwest, and she has been interviewing a lot of inspiring people in the online language learning space. She asked to interview us at italki, and we gladly took the opportunity.

Here’s the direct page to the interview
http://www.edukwest.com/kevin-chen-of-italki-com/

And here’s that interview embedded (you’ll need a proxy to view it if you’re in China):

We covered a lot of topics in the interview, and one thing we hope that is clear is that it is an exciting time to be a startup in this area. The technology and the market is evolving very quickly, and we’re only just seeing the start of these new and potentially world-changing ideas. I believe everyone shares this core belief that technology can play a critical role in improving the old way of language learning. The impressive thing about Kirsten is that she has actually met and interviewed a lot of these people!

Again, if you want to know all the latest news, as well as engage in the latest debates about online language education, read Kirsten’s blog or follow her on twitter (@kirstenwinkler). And of course, you can also get involved and influence the shape of things to come just by commenting on a blog or sending emails!

So this is your last chance to purchase the 1-Year SpeakENG Online Course for $16 USD!

If you know anyone who is studying English, please tell them to join italki and purchase it soon! The price for the same package starting in October will be $40 USD! Don’t miss out on this great opportunity!

If you don’t know much about the SpeakENG Online Course, you can read the description here. It’s important to remember that SpeakENG has two main parts:
1) Online Course: Multimedia lessons, English exercises, grammar explanations, roleplaying games, and much more. The courses run from beginner levels to advanced.
2) One-on-One Tutoring with a professional American teacher: Included with the 1-year online course is a 15 minute session with a professional US teacher. The teacher can answer any questions the student may have, in addition to structuring a one-on-one live teaching course. Students are encouraged to purchase additional teaching sessions.

Here is a sample video of what a SpeakENG online course looks like:

You can also view a short sample of a one-on-one tutoring session here.

We hope people studying English will take advantage of this promotional pricing! It is really a tremendous value that is hard to compare with.

Also, it’s the last chance to register for our sweepstakes the Great English Giveaway. We’re giving away 20 SpeakENG 1-month Online Courses, and all you have to do is post in that group. We’ll be choosing the winners on Monday. Go post now, and if you don’t win next week — make sure you purchase SpeakENG by the end of the month!

The italki team

In general, the process works like this.
When you go to purchase italki credits, you will have a new option labeled bank transfer.

After you select bank transfer, you will be asked to confirm the amount of italki credit to purchase, and which country is your bank in. The designated bank account will be different depending on the country, and this helps keep the bank transfer fees very low.

Then you will be taken to a screen that will show you the information you will need to transfer the money. This information will include the bank name, city, payee, SWIFT Code, country, and account number. Crucially it will also include a “Reference Number”. It is crucial that you include the Reference Number when you transfer the funds. This will ensure that your account on italki is credited properly.

With this information you should be able to do an online transfer from your bank’s website or go there in-person to transfer the money.

If you have any questions, you can check our help section on bank transfers.

We hope offering more payment options will allow more of our users to participate in the italki marketplace. If there’s a specific form of payment you would like to see on italki, please leave a comment or email feedback at italki dot com.

SpeakENG is an online course for learning English, and any italki member can win a 1-Month Subscription just by replying to this group post! The SpeakENG program includes access to the Online Course for a full month, plus a 15 minute session with Eleutian’s certified ESL teachers.

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What you need to do to enter the sweepstakes:

1) Log on to italki.com or join if you’re not already a member.

2) Go to The Great English Giveaway group post

3) Read the rules, and then reply to the post with three things:

• How you found out about italki
• Why you’re learning English
• A funny or embarrassing English mistake you have made

4) That’s it!

The contest will begin on September 8, 2009 at 12:01 am China Standard Time, and will end on September 20, 2009 at 11:59 pm China Standard Time.  italki will choose the winner before September 30th.  Full contest details are available here.

If you’re looking for other products to help you learn English, check out the italki Marketplace.

Good luck!

About Adam Jackson:

• Adam specializes in consumer internet companies, and has founded three companies.
• Founder of venture-backed DriverSide.com. Driverside helps people make better decisions about owning and maintaining their car.
• Founder of MarketSquare, a company to help consumers find locally produced products. Acquired by StepUp Commerce, which in turn was acquired by Intuit (INTU) in 2006.
• Advises Incentalign, Inc., a company which supports sales team optimization.
• Adam graduated from Vanderbilt University with a degree in Computer Science and Economics.

We’re excited to have Adam on our board of advisors, along with Porter Erisman and Tom Soohoo. We are a young company, and we really value the advice and help we get from these experienced entrepreneurs.

The italki Team

italki has a store at zazzle.com where you can customize tees and other products with the italki logo and the language you’re studying.  You can tell the world how much you love italki and what language you’re learning.  For example, one of our shirts says 我学习中文在 italki (which means “I’m studying Chinese at italki”).

Check out our storefront and start shopping now! http://www.zazzle.com/italki.  In fact, I think its time I start stocking up for winter and I really like the black italki sweatshirt…