italki Teacher Code of Conduct

1. Be Culturally Sensitive

Respect the values and traditions of your students and keep in mind that stereotypical assumptions can be offensive. 

We recommend avoiding conversations about marital status, politics, religion, etc.

All students should be treated equally. Picking a student based on their race, nationality, ethnic origin, age, religion, disability, sexual orientation, gender, or any other characteristic is not tolerable. 

2. Be Professional and Empathetic

Always remember to maintain a high level of professionalism: 

• Be prompt in replying to all student questions, messages, and lesson requests (within 2 to 48 hours depending on the lesson start time). 
• Actively manage your profile, updating your calendar to accurately reflect your availability, and try to minimize rescheduling, canceling, and declining lesson requests.
• Take the initiative in communicating with and managing students. Make every effort to help them. Always be patient and polite.
• Provide a suitable learning environment for students, which includes proper lighting and quietness of the room, and fast internet speed.
• Respect for student’s privacy. Always ask for students’ prior written or recorded consent for recording student’s video or audio.
• Be available to teach during the entire booked lesson time if a student is late.

3. Attend All Classes and Arrive On Time

italki expects that teachers will responsibly attend lessons at the scheduled time. Rescheduling or cancellation should be your last resort.

4. Be an italki Ambassador

Maintain a positive attitude towards italki and never make negative comments about italki.

Bannable Offenses

The following actions are not permitted on italki and may lead to account deactivation and removal from the platform.

1. Taking students/teachers off italki or accepting payment outside of the italki system.
2. Promoting competing language services.
3. Engaging in spamming, disrespectful language, obscenities, theft of personal information, etc. Click here to read the complete italki Community Policy.
4. Providing or posting false, misleading, or inaccurate information (including profile, teacher application form, course content, lesson history, feedback, etc).
5. Scheduling and starting lessons with yourself or with fake students.
6. Posting private contact information which includes social media accounts and channels, email addresses, blogs, websites, IDs, and usernames.
7. Engaging in extremely negative and defamatory behavior toward others and italki.