Italki teachers getting pricey?

[abcdefg]

On 2/8/2024 at 3:45 AM, TheWayfarer said:

Also, rather than asking 'why', I prefer questions like 'Between X and Y, which sounds more natural to you?' or 'Does X make sense to you?' etc.

Agree! That was one of my main guidelines in learning from native speakers who were not professional language teachers. Turning it around, if a Chinese friend asked me "Why do you say it like that in English?" -- my first inclination was always to answer, "You just do."  

[suMMit]

@roddy@roddy really 3-4 hours a week is "A LOT" of time? I would think that would be the bare minimum to make any progress.

 

I am not out to buy someone a yacht. 

 

I have rarely used professional teachers, I have mainly chosen community tutors, I don't know whether I've made the right or wrong choice. 

[Guest realmayo]

That 3-4 hours is a big chunk of a teacher's working week so should probably represent a big chunk of a teacher's weekly income.

 

If you just want a native speaker to chat with you then under $10 might work for e.g. university students with nothing better to do for an hour or two in the evening. I believe the chance to speak English to a foreigner (assuming the person's Chinese is weak enough that English is required) may be an incentive here too.

 

But if you want actual teaching then it becomes a contest between whose expertise and whose time is more valuable, yours or the teacher's. If you:

 

- choose the study materials

- spend serious time seriously preparing (say, 4 hours prep per lesson)

- direct the teacher on how to teach you

- control the pace of each lesson

 

... then a cheap teacher can be a great teacher. But if you have less time and/or expertise to bring to the party, chances are you'll need to pay the teacher for that.

[Ledu]

Need -> Motivation:
The international student whom if unsuccessful will return to a country that is at war or in poverty. They take no extra classes at all and they don't buy apps/products/readers. Despite their apparent lack of resources they achieve fast levels of improvement. This is the highest level of motivation in my opinion yet not all international students fit this unique category. 

 

Assimil/Glossika, Shadowing/Intensive TV show watching:父亲爱情 on 父母卫星 TV station
I am at HSK4, I found this show easy to understand and plan to intensively create a transcript and study along with the show. Within it I will find common usage of the language that I can apply to my everyday real word usage. [Free]

 

Graded Readers:
I don't plan on purchasing any more in the future. But the ones I did buy do offer common everyday language use. According to a Chinese friend who also read them all, they are all I need for life lol. So again, intensive study of those even as they were created for extensive reading. I plan to sentence mine the spoken language phrases. Then study them repetitively. 

 

When I said teachers are found in schools it is because ALL of the product developers (from non-natives) that we buy products from to learn Chinese also studied at Chinese/TW universities. It is the best situation for both the health of the teacher and financially for the student. 

 

Of those who later developed or created products/readers/apps, they did not use those methods as they were learning Chinese either. They also did not take extra classes. Some are on this forum, they can be reached out to here or on their websites. Ask them how many Italki/private classes they took. The ones that don't sell products are probably going to say they did flashcards, handwriting, shadowing. I honestly don't think any will say they did extensive reading, even the creators of extensive graded readers themselves. Maybe sparingly, one or two books but not series after series. 
 

Edited February 9, 2024 at 05:18 AM by Ledu
父母爱情

[suMMit]

On 2/9/2024 at 9:10 AM, realmayo said:

But if you want actual teaching then it becomes a contest between whose expertise and whose time is more valuable, yours or the teacher's. If you:

 

- choose the study materials

- spend serious time seriously preparing (say, 4 hours prep per lesson)

- direct the teacher on how to teach you

- control the pace of each lesson

 

... then a cheap teacher can be a great teacher. But if you have less time and/or expertise to bring to the party, chances are you'll need to pay the teacher for that.

For the last couple of years, this is exactly what I do, except maybe controlling the pace.

 

On 2/9/2024 at 11:19 AM, Ledu said:

Chinese/TW universities. It is the best situation for both the health of the teacher and financially for the student. 

Would love to do this, but it's not an option for me.

 

 

I was mainly just curious what others thought about the prices having gone up lately on Italki .

 

 

[malazann]

On 2/9/2024 at 2:19 PM, Ledu said:

I honestly don't think any will say they did extensive reading, even the creators of extensive graded readers themselves. Maybe sparingly, one or two books but not series after series. 

they might have not done "extensive reading", but they almost certainly did a lot of reading. whether through social media sites, manga, subtitles/transcripts, blogs, group chats etc

I agree with your general idea that chinese learning products aren't going to accelerate your learning for the most part (shoutout Pleco!) but you should also remember that there is a lot of self-selection going on in how you identify successful learners. Extremely motivated learners are more likely to study chinese formally. Extremely motivated learners + study chinese formally leads to very high levels of mandarin who are bombarded by questions from other learners and then they decide to make a product

also I think you'd be surprised by the amount who did use tutors, it just might have not been online. italki is relatively recent and the big players in mandarin education product sphere have been learning it for 10+ years

[Ledu]

I changed my response because I wanted to mention that I would like to try the things that successful language learners did in fact do to get where they got. 

 

For example the people that create graded readers probably actually did intensive reading. They read simple books also.

 

People that created Skritter probably actually did lots of handwriting. 

 

Paying for this, paying for that, is not efficient. The OP is taking up to 4 classes a week. I don't think these app developers did that. I've listened to many podcasts and some only mention perhaps taking a pronunciation course or intensive reading course. Taking extra classes for years, they never mention. I have heard successful language learners using Shadowing and Assimil (Laoma Chris, Professor Argulles).

 

These Successful Language Learners may have more passion than I do, that is true. As my ability increases, my interest can increase also. Right now it feels like a lot of effort and I can't get into the interesting stuff yet. Studying this language is fun though, especially the characters and words. If it was romanized it wouldn't be as interesting to me.

 

Many in this education sphere (whom all probably know each other) didn't buy products. Many did gain expertise by studying Chinese in a University.  Many of these creators have MA's some are pursuing Phd's, they have expertise. However, I am more intrested in what they did in the trenches? How they seiged this language from all sides? I am not trying to devalue their products.

 

*One suggestion to the mods: 

I personally think this "liking" feature could be changed. For example, if I like someone's comment for responding to me, they know it was I that liked them. This creates some type of tribal/clique experience as later I might not agree with that person's opinion. I reference "Language Learners Forum" as I think that is how their forum is designed. If you want to "like" someone's comment, you don't really know who "liked" it. I think everyone should just give their opinions and disagree if they want to without being influenced by rewards.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 10, 2024 at 01:44 AM by Ledu
to stick to position

[Flickserve]

On 2/6/2024 at 1:00 AM, realmayo said:

why (and when) did that happen?

I hadn’t used italki for a while and that happened. It was after China killed the private tutoring marketing for school kids. Teachers that previously worked in education sectors had to find alternate sources of income and italki was one of them. Then there was a sudden glut of highly qualified teachers who charge a higher price.

[suMMit]

@Ledu I'm not really focused on italki as 'an app' , I don't even do the classes on their platform, I just use it too book and pay for classes. Did any successful language learners take one on one classes? I find it hard to believe none of them did. Maybe some did and some didn't. For me it's not even only about "success" I also purely enjoy an hour focused only on speaking and listening to Chinese, no interruptions, no distractions, no English, back and forth with a live person who also gives feedback. It also forces me to prepare for the lesson and do some work that I might otherwise put off til later if knew there was no class coming up. 

 

Speaking of distractions, I often spend time watching English videos on YouTube, English news, etc. I've decided to try a challenge to see if I can go for a month with zero listening to English for entertainment. I'll watch the video on a caving disaster or whatever random interesting topic in Chinese. Maybe I'll go longer. Maybe later I'll also extend this to reading, but that will be more difficult. 

 

BTW, I have also met people who did Chinese at a university and have Chinese that's not that good, and of course some that do have very good Chinese. So I'm not sure university is the be all and end all. Though if I had the option, I'd love to do it. 

[Ledu]

On 2/13/2024 at 2:21 PM, suMMit said:

I'm not really focused on italki as 'an app' , I don't even do the classes on their platform, I just use it too book and pay for classes. Did any successful language learners take one on one classes? I find it hard to believe none of them did. Maybe some did and some didn't. For me it's not even only about "success" I also purely enjoy an hour focused only on speaking and listening to Chinese, no interruptions, no distractions, no English, back and forth with a live person who also gives feedback. It also forces me to prepare for the lesson and do some work that I might otherwise put off til later if knew there was no class coming up. 

Thanks. That's great if doing classes with Italki is working for you.  I didn't have a positive experience with a popular teacher whom also had an MA on Italki. That was for another language. I never paid less than $20 for any language class. I'd rather cut daily Starbucks coffee instead.  In my experience the "language exchange" thing doesn't work well either. The other person usually has a need to learn English and it doesn't work out so much as their need dominates the conversation. 

 

Another thing I tried , as one time there just was not language teachers in my area , was to just find a teacher who happens to be Chinese. It is best if they can speak zero English.  I didn't actually go through with this plan but I was able to locate a willing teacher. Any Chinese connections you have probably would love to help you locate such a teacher. And then you could work on whichever books you like. Obviously, a qualified teacher of Chinese > regular teacher of another subject > Native. Sometimes Chinese teachers just don't exist in our districts. That doesn't mean online classes are the only way. 

 

What I currently do is listen to Chinese TV, especially the recent New Years Gala daily. I also listen to Chinese TV all the time vs listening to music. If you make a blog on your journey, I'd like to follow. Another poster made a blog about his reading progress and it is interesting.

 

The highest I have paid was 250 rmb an hour for 1-1 with a qualified Chinese Native Teacher of Chinese. I have done online classes also but not in connection with Italki for learning Chinese.  We are all comrades here learning Chinese. Ultimately we are all trying to improve and grow. Let's do this!

 

[abcdefg]

On 2/13/2024 at 2:18 AM, Ledu said:

Another thing I tried , as one time there just was not language teachers in my area , was to just find a teacher who happens to be Chinese. It is best if they can speak zero English.

I was fortunate in finding such a teacher, who taught Chinese language to middle school kids, many of whom spoke minority languages in the home instead of Putonghua 普通话。(This was in Yunnan.) She tutored me in the summer, when school was out, two years in a row. She did speak some English, being a university graduate, but was much more comfortable in Chinese and we always used Chinese as our communication language 98 or 99 percent of the time. 

 

It was a great learning experience, plus lots of fun. We would spend a whole morning together, two days a week, 4 hours each session. We would have a focus for the day, agreed on in advance. Started out each time with breakfast at a cafe near my apartment, during which we would work out strategy for that day's project, our "plan of attack." We did most of the morning "out and about." For example, one morning we would ride a city bus to the botanical garden or to the zoo or to one of the museums. We would walk around and talk (in Chinese) about what we were seeing like most of the other visitors were doing, except we would stop every half hour or so, sit on a bench, and review the new vocabulary that had been just introduced. I would write it all down in a notebook. She would correct my characters, let me know if I was writing them wrong. Usually, during "bench time" she would also ask me a few questions about the material from our last expedition, a few days ago or even from last week. 

 

At home afterwards I would review several times, including putting new vocab and sentence structure and grammar into flash cards. I wanted to really "own it." The second year we did this, we sometimes finished the morning with lunch (my treat.) When convenient, she could even invite one of her local friends to join us and I could practice telling that friend about what we had just done, seen, learned earlier that day. A lot of what I came away with was not just new words, but an appreciation for a more local way 地道 of saying things. Getting rid of "foreigner-speak" phrasing. 

 

Eventually she invited me to visit her hometown, where I stayed with her parents and her fiancé, who was a police officer. Mojiang 墨江 was the town, in the lush mountains of SE Yunnan; the Tropic of Cancer runs through it. The next year I attended her wedding. 

[Ledu]

On 2/13/2024 at 10:17 PM, abcdefg said:

She tutored me in the summer, when school was out, two years in a row.

That seems very beneficial for everyone. I did two days a week for 2 hours each time. I needed a coffee each hour and it was quite tiring. The teacher would explain grammar yet I still couldn't understand it. Then she would speak English using Chinese grammar and then I would have to say the entire sentence in Chinese back. My mind felt fried. By the end of the class I don't even think I was consciously thinking anymore. During the summer break her boss would teach in Beijing universities. Her boss would have cost more than 250 rmb an hour. That was at an institute though and I am sure their business fluctuated throughout the year. 

 

But you did 4 hours each time. Two years of that would create some results and no middleman in a corporation that is going to take their cut. In your case it also helped create some connections with the people which can sometimes be difficult to make. Private teaching outside of institutes and corporations learners could probably get a better deal than I did.  1-1 live teaching still costs the most. 
 

[abcdefg]

On 2/13/2024 at 6:18 PM, Ledu said:

My mind felt fried.

 

True at first, of course. That's normal. My goal, however, was eventually to function 24/7 completely in Chinese every day of the year. Eventually I got there, even talking to myself in Chinese when alone and thinking in Chinese (with errors, of course.) My tactic was to "try out" things I had previously "rehearsed" like that the next time I was out and about and see if I got a puzzled look and a "what?" or a cogent reply. If it was clear that I was "shooting blanks" I resorted to "我的意思是。。。" and give a clumsy explanation of intent. The native speaker would invariably reply, "哦，你想说。。。“ and presto, it was another learning moment. That's the beauty of immersion through living in China, it opens the door to some unbeatable tools for learning the language. 

 

 

[Ledu]

 

Quote

to function 24/7 completely in Chinese

What methods did you use? How long? Did you test or do you plan to? 

Phone purchases, no English translation, no interaction. On Wechat people text more than speak. Speaking is nice but a focus on reading text is from necessity. Others may have a different daily experience though.

[abcdefg]

On 2/16/2024 at 2:39 AM, Ledu said:

What methods did you use? How long?

I spent a little over 12 years building a life in China and much of that time was devoted to learning Chinese. Language learning had a high priority. Took lots of small-group classes initially, later changing to one-on-one instruction from actual qualified teachers supplemented by informal instructors and language exchange partners. Most was “face-to-face,” little was over the internet. Wrote short (one-page) compositions 文章 a couple times a week and exchanged corrections from other members on Lang-8 before it folded. Did that for quite a few years.

 

Initially attempted to have a “balanced skill set” of reading, writing and conversation, but increasingly focused on conversation. Didn’t abandon reading and writing altogether, but just gave them less time, concentrating on the reading and writing skills required to carry out activities of daily living or to pursue my hobbies and interests.

 

Didn't do HSK testing and don't plan to since I have no need for that certification. (I'm an older guy who is retired.) Wish you all the best in your China journey! Glad you joined the forum; I've enjoyed reading your posts. 

[suMMit]

On 2/17/2024 at 6:22 AM, abcdefg said:

I spent a little over 12 years building a life in China and much of that time was devoted to learning Chinese. Language learning had a high priority.

You definitely had a unique and interesting experience with learning Chinese! Did you ever consider doing a degree in Chinese while you were here? Do you ever regret the time and effort you put into it, or completely consider it time well spent? Did you always know you'd eventually leave, or were you partly thinking you would stay? Have you found a way to maintain your Chinese in the states? Are you coming back now that covid is behind us? Have you ever considered retiring in a country like Malaysia, where it might be easier visa wise ,but there is still a Chinese language presence? And just to tie it back in to the original topic, would a platform like italki be a good/economical way to maintain speaking while not in the country? Apologies if any of these questions are too personal.

[Magelita]

@Flickserve @realmayo

On 2/13/2024 at 12:25 PM, Flickserve said:

hadn’t used italki for a while and that happened. It was after China killed the private tutoring marketing for school kids. Teachers that previously worked in education sectors had to find alternate sources of income and italki was one of them. Then there was a sudden glut of highly qualified teachers who charge a higher price.

 

Regarding the influx of new teachers on iTalki, I was told by a teacher there that she has a hard time competing with them. She is a fully qualified teacher of Mandarin in the Chinese system. She told me that these new teachers have come from the platforms teaching English to Chinese students in cram schools. And she told me that she now posts shorts on TikTok  and podcasts on iTalki to get more exposure. 

Background: For profit English language teaching after school hours was made illegal by the authorities in a a move to limit the amount of extra study and focus more on physical activities. Of course determined parents can find ways to bypass this rule.

 

I have also noticed the prices going up, even up to USD 40 per hour or more. It has become steadily more unaffordable for regular lessons. I have also noticed that these price hikes are made by teachers in China, not so much the ones teaching in North America.  NB I have not tried the cheapest teachers in the past or language exchange. The other thing is that it has become difficult to find a good teacher on iTalki because there are now so many new ones. 

 

Today I spoke to somebody just starting their Chinese language journey. They told me that they had found a platform in the US where an American teaches Mandarin for USD70 an hour. She thought the first lesson was quite good and now plans to continue there. In other words, Chinese lessons can be even more expensive. 

[Ledu]

Quote

and focus more on physical activities

= Have more than 2+ children. I think it is to ease the burden for parents while encouraging them to have more children.

Edited February 17, 2024 at 12:29 PM by Ledu
off topic

[abcdefg]

On 2/16/2024 at 8:08 PM, suMMit said:

You definitely had a unique and interesting experience with learning Chinese!

Thanks @suMMit -- I'll start a new thread soon to respond. Don't want to get this thread too far off track. Thanks for your comments and questions. It has always seemed like you and I had some of the same learning strategies.

[lordsuso]

I have been using ChatGPT (the audio version) for the last few weeks and it's fantastic. Of course it can't completely replace tutors, but maybe it can replace a couple of sessions per month to save a few bucks.

 

You can have casual conversations with it, I like to do role-playing scenarios.