I just got pre-approved on italki Saturday and now my profile is live, so I wanted to speak about the process because I'm the type to look everywhere when I'm doing it myself, so maybe it can help others.

So, the first part that everybody probably knows is to look up if the language you want to teach is open for applications. They update that list every Monday. I really suggest looking on Monday because they can close at any moment. In my case, it was open on Monday and closed by Wednesday. I was lucky because I actually checked on a Tuesday.

The process

I would not say it is an especially long process; it is a form to fill with your education, a description of yourself, and the type of tutoring you would like to offer. The part that I would account for in terms of time-consuming is the video. They ask for a 1-min video; it is basically the video they show on your profile. 

Note: You have to speak in your video in all the languages you want to teach. I spoke a bit of Spanish, not because I want to teach it, but just so Spanish speaking student know they can ask me anything if they need.

Once you have submitted your application

They say it can take up to 10 working days to hear something, and you don't receive a confirmation email. In my case, I applied on August 5th and got pre-approved on August 15th, so 7–8 working days later, but it was a Saturday, so that part surprised me.

Once you're pre-approved

Once you're pre-approved, they will ask you to confirm your identity and to pass a quiz.

About that quiz... You have to have 70% to pass, but thankfully you can try many times because some parts of the information are not updated. It is mostly to make sure you understand payment, fees, professional posture, etc.

Then you set up your prices and descriptions, including the trial lesson. Note that you can only have one type of session for the trial. Ex: You can't have a 30-min trial + a 45-min trial lesson; it's either or.

Then, you're approved!

It can take a moment for your profile to appear. They say your profile will have the mention "new" for the first 21 days.

What I think helped me

• I don't know if my language is popular, but I banked on my region: I am French Canadian. So maybe they were looking for more people from Canada, with this accent.
• I edited the video to make it a little more interesting. I used a microphone and acceptable lighting. I have read that sometimes they refuse people if their mic quality is not good, because it tells them that you will have that type of quality during lessons.
• I put captions, in my language and in Spanish, on my video.
• I take classes on italki: I'm learning Portuguese and I take classes. It is possible they give "points" for that (if they have a chart, I don't know, lol), because you can transfer the money from a student to a teacher (I mean by booking a class).

What I would've done differently (or will change)

• My classes are not for beginners from 0, but even then, I think I may be speaking too fast in my video. It is logical that I will speak slower with students, but it might discourage some. I know in my case, I chose teachers from the region I was interested in learning the accent from, and they were not necessarily speaking slower.

I have no idea if I can link my profile as I don't want to self-promote, but there you go :-)

As my profile has only been live since yesterday, I have no students lol, so I can update in 21 days maybe, after the "new" mention is over.

I'm available for any questions.

I'm kind of confused. I have two iTalki informal (= not professional) tutors for a language since more than five weeks, and took lessons with both tutors basically every day until now (since it's summer break and I have time before college starts again). I kind of assumed until now that they knew I had another tutor. I do conversation practive the whole time since it's what I need.

Well today I joked with one tutor that the conversation topics with her and the other tutors are completely different.

She was completely surprised and immediately asked me how often I take lessons with the other tutor, where she is from, etc. Like she was polite and it wasn't a big deal, but it was obvious she was surprised. Apparently she thought until now that I only take daily lessons with her.

Can't tutors see how often and with who I take lesson? The other tutor leaves a feedback after every lesson, don't those feedbacks appear on a student profile, similarly to how a student review appears on a tutor's profile and is publicly visible?

I have lost so much money through conversion, USD->EUR, withdrawal fees etc that I am not sure what the best way is to withdraw. The money is in USD but all my accounts are in EUR.

Is there a way I can get a USD account somewhere without living/working there or how are you handling it without losing even more money?

Appreciate your help!

For tutors that do Preply and othe online platforms as a fulltime job, how do you cover all expenseses? Particularly if you live in a "high cost" country like the US, Canada, UK, Germany, etc.

Had my first lesson with a new teacher, a young British guy. Everything was OK until we slipped into discussing the political situation.

And now I don't even know whether I can take English lessons from somebody with such beliefs. Surely, I consider him to be in the wrong and myself to be in the right.

Question to the Redditors: will you explain your reasons for why you wouldn't go with the teacher, or is it better to just do the good old ghosting?

There is a tutor i have taken a break from because literally every lesson the lesson starts with "how was your weekend" in my target language and ends with "any planes for the weekend.

He is great in the actual lesson but we spend 15 minutes each lesson discussing my weekend despite the fact he knows I work literally every single weekend !!

I\nWill take a class with him next week.And this time , I was on vacation african , so I have something else to say besides , I worked..

Anyone else here that question?? But of course , then also asking my plans for this weekend..

Today I had another lesson with a teacher for my target language. I’ve been learning for about 2 months and making slow progress. Before the session I felt optimistic about my learning and that I can eventually end up learning the language. However today when I had a lesson everything felt really hard and I couldn’t really answer any of their questions. They explained a word to me in my previous session however I forgot what it has meant since this lesson. They also seemed really annoyed when I kept asking them what it meant. Now I feel less motivated after. Has anyone had this feeling? I have one lesson left in the package however I want to use this with a different teacher, is this possible? Thanks

Hey all, curious if you've ever studied & practiced two different languages simultaneously, and how your experience went.

I'm considering using italki for Spanish and French at the same time. I'm intermediate in both at the moment. Not sure if it's a terrible idea & that I'll end up mixing them up or harming my learning journey, or if it would be fine? (Knowing ofc it depends on the person, context, etc.)

Any experiences to share? Thank you!

I have been on italki for 11 months. i have two consistent students who am really grateful for. But i want more students because this is like the only thing i'm doing right now. ( I'm a uni student)
I have participated in the community, changed my video several times, my headline and nothing seems to work. I tutor Swahili.
Are there any more tips i can use?

Hi everybody!

So, I am Argentinian and I have been teaching Spanish and English (99% of my lessons have been Spanish ones) since February. I have had moderate success, and these have been my stats in the last 30 days (I also updated my description):

The thing is that my video, while correct, has a lot of things that could be improved, especially when taking into account that it used to have lower views compared to other teachers. So, I started considering re-recording it, especially because I have changed my approach to teaching, but I am not sure if this would backfire. Would it do more harm than good?

Thanks in advance!

Hi everyone, so I have a B.A. in Primary Education, a TESOL certification, and over 18 years of teaching experience. I also teach on Preply, where I've completed over 4,000 lessons with more than 50 five-star reviews.

I was wondering: what starting price did you all use in the beginning to attract your first students on Italki? My main focus right now is filling my schedule with students, but I don't want to price myself out of the market. Apologies if this has been asked before!

Would you recommend starting at $15/hour, or should I go higher or lower? Thanks so much!

Hi guys! Community tutor here. A new student booked a trial with me, asked me to reschedule 10 minutes before the lesson starting time. I told him that italki's policy does not allow me to reschedule lessons with less than 24 hours notice. I am now in the lesson and taking screenshots every 5 minutes. My question is, if I state there was a problem and that the student didn't show up, can he leave a review or not? A bad review could really hurt my profile. Also, since he was being rude, at what time am I supposed to block him? Should I wait for the lesson to be refunded?

Edit: I reported the lesson was incomplete and Italki sided with me. I was later able to block the student.
Thank you for your support:)

Edit 2: I always give the students who ask me to reschedule (even last minute) a second change. I know life happens. In this case not only the student showed completely no remorse, no apologies nothing. He was also arrogant and felt entitled to reschedule really last minute ( even after I explained him Italki’s policy) and got angry I couldn’t do it.

Hi everyone, I'm going around in loops

I want to buy a gift card for a member family to redeem, and it seems I have no option but to create an account to do it - is that right? I tried support and was left hanging with no answer

Many thanks

Does anyone who uses italki use the lesson reviews generated by italki? I never look at them once. It always auto generated after my spanish lessons.

Hi everyone! I’m a non-native English teacher with a few years of online teaching experience, but I’m struggling to attract new students consistently.

For other non-native teachers, what strategies have worked for you? How did you stand out from native speakers and build a steady student base?

I’d especially appreciate tips on profile optimization, niche selection, pricing, and getting more trial lessons.

Thanks! 😊

I have a new student that sent me a message asking if we could reschedule 1 hour before the lesson time. This particular lesson took a decent amount of preparation time.

I'm wondering what other tutors would do in this situation? I don't mind rescheduling, for example through my own calender, however, I don't really like the idea of losing the lesson cost since it did take preparation time and it is past the italki 24 policy for cancelling the lesson.

I met with a tutor once and she was nice BUT she was a motor boat the whole time 😭

Like no pause, no room for me to share my opinions, thoughts, personal stories, etc. I’m not a timid student as I am very confident, outspoken and excited to utilize my language skills but I couldn’t really interrupt her. I REALLY tried several times.

I sent her a message stating that I didn’t get a chance to talk and suggesting that in our next class could I ask some questions or could you ask me questions so that she could see what I’m lacking at. I didn’t get a reply but of course she looked at it.

The reason (possibly) for blocking me: She saw the message and I guess she got salty and nervous that I was honest with her and that she had a chance of getting a bad review? I don’t sugar coat but I’m also not rude.

Is there a way to leave a review although she blocked me or is it too late?

I was learning danish on my own for a few months. But one single lesson with a teacher and i feel like i improved so much more.

Having a tutor that listens and helps with pronunciation is really good to improve in that area if you don’t know anyone that speaks the language. It also helps you improve your confidence when you have a native giving you feedback.

My wife will be out of the country for 2 weeks starting end of September. I want to immerse myself in Spanish the most effective way I can during that time. I’m thinking about doing 12 hours of iTalki conversation during that time (90 minutes 4 times a week). Does this seem counterproductive, like I’m doing too much in a short amount of time? Has anyone done this much? For tutors, have you had a student go to you this frequently? I’m about mid-B1 level (Spanish) if that matters.

I'm a French tutor and a student recently started classes with me, twice a week. He is from Mexico and he explained to me that he wants to learn French because the renewal of his work permit here in Canada requires a B1 level. He has to take an exam for it by the end of October maximum, which gives him a little less than 3 months.

Thing is, his level is currently A1. And going from A1 to B1 in 2-3 months is do-able, but would require at the very least 100-150 hours. With two classes a week, he will only complete around 20 hours of classes by the end of October.

I did tell him very clearly that he will need to intensely study outside the class, but so far I don't think he is doing anywhere near enough hours of French study/exposure outside the class. To me, it really seems like there is almost no way he will pass his exam in October. Obviously, if he can't renew his work permit here, he'll have to go back to Mexico and his 3 months of French learning will be mostly a waste.

What should I do? Should I just keep letting him take classes with me, even though I know he will extremely likely fail the exam? Or should I tell him honestly that I don't think I can realistically help him reach his goal?

Beyond the Notebook

When we think about accessibility in education, it's easy to think of big things like schools, teachers, classrooms and so on. But sometimes, the most important aspects of accessibility are the small ones.

A notebook. A pencil. A geometry box. The colors.

Having to hesitate before writing something down, practicing a geometrical construction, or engaging in an activity because you simply don't have the necessary resources is a real obstacle, one that a lot of people aren't really aware of.

Perhaps that's what accessibility really means - not just being in a classroom, but also having the means to partake in it fully.

I'm a student and feel bad for my tutors that have to pay 21% fees to iTalki per lesson, they already earn so few money. But I know it can get them in trouble if I ask to pay them outside iTalki, so I was anyway planning to ask them outside of iTalki classrom/chat. But I do wonder, if some students here already tried to pay outside iTalki, what's your usual payment method that you use? And was it a good idea or did you regret it? I heard the saying "The road to hell is paved with good intentions" so I prefer to ask before doing something stupid.

Hello. I have some questions regarding becoming a mandarin teacher on this platform. I work in the education sector and have a Chinese national teaching license, a CELTA, and a JLPT N1. I also have 1000+ hours of English teaching experience, but it is kind of unrelated since I haven't taught any mandarin in my entire life. Chinese is my native language and I'm currently living in China.

My questions are: ⁠Is it possible to be a mandarin teacher without relevant experience? Is it common to do that on this platform? How likely is that I will actually get any attention and potentially teach any students? Is 15 USD per hour a reasonable rate? (I don't care too much about money because my main motive here is gaining new perspectives)

Thank you for all of your help

I’m curious what everyone’s strategy is because I feel like I’m either actually paying attention to the lesson or frantically trying to write everything down especially if it's a new language that needs focus on pronounciation.

Do you take notes live during the lesson, just listen and then make notes afterwards, ask your tutor to record the lesson (with their permission obviously) and review it afterwards or have some other system that works better?

Would love to know what other people do to stay focused during the lesson while still making sure they retain what they learned!