italki Review

Saturday, January 28th

2023 German Lesson Reviews

italki

• One-on-one live lessons
• Affordable fee rate
• You choose the instructor
• 15,000 teachers available
• Skilled teachers, even at the lower fee rate
• Flexible scheduling

German is the second-most spoken language in Europe, and approximately 200 million people speak it worldwide. Your trial lesson can cost just $1, and your instructor can be a person who knows German well, a native speaker of German, or a professional teacher. (For reference, Italki considers a professional to have an advanced degree or be a teacher. There are 15,000 highly qualified people that italki has chosen to be German instructors.)

First, choose a German teacher

If there are 15,000 teachers, how do you decide which one to choose? Italki has a list of teachers. Each person has a photo, their name, what country they are from, which languages they speak, and their hourly rate. Click on their name to learn more. They give you a video introduction of themselves and what it's like to learn from them and a written bio as well. You can see how many students they have had, what their native language is, if they speak English, how many italki lessons given, what materials they may use, if they assign homework, their work experience, italki ratings, and reviews by italki German students. The reviews are helpful not only for the obvious reasons, but also so that you can see if they are a good match for you specifically. When you read the reviews, which often talk about their style, is this an approach that you would like to have in a German instructor, or should you move on to the next bio?

Next, pick a date and time for your lesson

Click to schedule. The italki calendar adjusts to the timezone on your device, and tells you the available time slots on the instructor's calendar. You are also welcome to message the instructor to ask for a specific time that's not marked as available.

Connect for your lesson!

Visit your Student Dashboard, find today's lesson, and click "Enter Classroom," share your screen, and that's it! You can take notes on the screen that only you can see, and they will be saved automatically. At the end of the lesson, click END, and submit a review. That's it! If you're wondering if your internet connection isn't strong enough, they have a Pre-Lesson check in the classroom so that the student and/or the teacher can see if their device is running well enough.

Keep your teacher, or switch next time!

The beauty of italki over in-person language classes is that you can change the instructor at any time. In a traditional classroom, your teacher is your teacher for the whole semester or year, like it or not - though hopefully you do like it! With italki, you can keep the same instructor or change at any time. Maybe you would like to have different teaching methods or hear different accents, or what if your favorite teacher didn't have a class available at the times that worked for you? No problem! There are 15,000 teachers to choose from!

Costs

• Starting at $9 per hour
• You can choose $40 per hour or more

You get what you pay for?

Instructors with actual teaching experience, teaching certificates, or a university degree in education are referred to as Professional Teachers and allowed to charge more, which can be $40 or more. Those who are either native German speakers or have an advanced degree in German can also be italki teachers, are referred to as Community Tutors, and aren't allowed to charge as much. They might start at $6 per hour. One might think that the higher the fee and the degree the better the instructor, and that the opposite would be true as well. And yet, some reviewers have had great lessons from the less expensive instructors, and sometimes lesser learning experiences with the more costly instructors. So, just like anything else, try it out, and see what or who works best for you.

Help with your writing skills

There is a section where you can write about any topic you'd like to write about in German. Be aware that your work will be public! A person who is proficient in German will read and make corrections and suggestions to your work. If you like this feature and use it, it would be nice to do the same for someone wanting an English speaker to give advice on their writing.

Italki is fabulous, but it's a lot of pressure if you're camera-shy

We love italki, don't get us wrong. How wonderful to choose among 15,000 instructors, have live classes, and choose your schedule! How convenient to change teachers at any time you like! The teaching quality can vary from teacher to teacher, so it may take a few lessons until you find one or a few that are right for you. It's wonderful to have live lessons, of course. However, some people are camera shy, not wanting to be in the spotlight, or don't feel comfortable with a live lesson, just you and the teacher face to face. Some people prefer to learn passively, via video instead of having to interact with someone. Or sometimes you might want to have some fun practicing German, but not be in a live tutoring session. For passive practice, a traditional online language program will have games and activities, prizes and leaderboards to keep you excited and motivated.

Ideal German lessons for developing native-like fluency

Italki is original, has thousands of excellent German teachers, and has inexpensive one-on-one lessons. For those looking for passive lessons or practice, italki falls short. Still, on the whole, there's almost no better method (short of moving to a German-speaking country) of getting your spoken fluency up to speed in such a fun and affordable way. Italki continues to be one of our favorite language-learning resources.