Dear Teachers,
We welcome you to join our 3rd English webinar for italki teachers on Monday 28th September from 10:00 AM to 11:00 AM (GMT+0). The topic of discussion is “Common Problems Teachers Face”.
Click here to watch the webinar
The hosts are Dora and Alexandra, 2 experienced italki teachers who are going to share their knowledge and experiences with you. The webinar will be hosted on YouTube and the recording will be made available for teachers to watch.
Guest speakers:
Dora
(Teacher ID: 7204946)
Dora is a professional teacher teaching Chinese on italki. She has a master degree in teaching Chinese and can speak English, Portuguese and Spanish. Since her joining at italki in April this year, she has completed 465 lessons on italki.
Alexandra
(Teacher ID: 5542307)
Alexandra is a professional teacher teaching English on italki. She has a double bachelor’s degree in Liberal Studies and Psychology. Since her joining at italki in April this year, she has completed 398 lessons on italki.
If you have any feedback or ideas about our teacher webinars, leave a comment below!
Click here to watch Spanish webinar: Los conflictos más comunes que un profesor enfrenta
Comments
13 comments
Looking forward to another wonderful italki webinar! Keep up the great work! You're doing a super job! See you in the webinar! I can hardly wait! Thumbs up! ^^ 👍
This sounds so useful :)
Could you please discuss what to do if a student becomes verbally abusive and/or manipulative during a lesson (i,e. telling you what to teach and how to teach it, yelling, etc.) I rarely experience this, thankfully, but it is a problem with some individuals I have encountered while working here the last four years, and it would be nice to get some advice from others as to how they themselves have dealt with this particular issue if and when it comes up. Thanks!
Hi Marisa,
I'm not a part of the presentation group, but I can still give you some tips for handling an unruly student:
1. Turn off the student sound on your speaker. Tell the student, I can't hear you anymore. I will listen to you when you stop using bad words, yelling, etc..., (Continue the lesson - lecture style...it's really boring for the kid.)
2. In Skype, you can turn off the incoming video and tell the student that you will turn the video on when the student stops smacking the camera, making faces, etc..., (You don't need to see them; continue the lesson, and they'll get bored quickly.)
3. On Skype, you can record the classes. (If you say or do that again, I'm going to show this video to your mother/father.)
4. For older know-it-alls, remember, you're the one with the credentials - not the student. Remind them that they need a credential to teach (or tell you how to teach) on Italki.
5. And, unlike public schools, you have the ultimate weapon. You can tell the student that you will not teach him/her anymore. (I've only needed to do that once or twice in the last 10 years.) You will lose a few bucks, but you WILL KEEP YOUR DIGNITY - and that worth more than money.
Thank you for your response to my question, David. Unfortunately, in my experience, the few incidents I have had like this have all been with grown adults--usually other women, too. Thanks for your help! I appreciate it.
I enjoyed the previous one and was really helpful. With eagerness am looking forward to the this next one.
Thank you very much for this webinar! I have enjoy all the webinars before and I`ve found them very useful. I would like to hear something about students being absent at their tryal lesson. Should we reschedule it in any case? What about when you feel the student has just forgotten it? On one hand, I feel it's good for us, as italki members, to gain one more student. But at the same time, I feel the students won't take our job seriously....
What do you think? What do you suggest?
Hi Ursula, I think that's very annoying. Usually if they had tech issues (and tried to reach me at the time of the lesson) or if they wrote me before the class to say they need to reschedule I would reschedule. But if they just don't show up and write me later I don't. To me, It's not worth it to have a student who behaves like that :)
I love the webinars!
I would love to host a one about feedback: how to give it, when and why. To me, how the teacher gives feedback is fundamental for the students progress and confidence! Unfortunately I realized that only during my master in 2016/2017 but I had been teaching already for 2 years!
What do you think? Would you like a webinar about giving feedback and evaluation?
HI I had pleasure to saw our webinar.
New teachers as me have to collect all possibilities to follow advices so I was very happy to follow your webinar. Every common experience enrich us alltogether. We can connect our knowledge as teachers and as persons. I will have pleasure to follow another webinar especially according how to collect new students. Good job everyone.
Hi, Ted
Thank you for your message. I will keep these things in mind. Recently, in the past few weeks I have not had good experiences working with new students. Three of them were nice enough to tell me something like, "I enjoyed my lesson with you last week, but I have found another teacher that works better for me" In cases like those, my response is, "Fair enough. I am sorry I won't be working with you, but am happy you have found what you are looking for"
What really bothers me is when students don't like you but aren't honest about it and instead lie to your face about their reasons for leaving a lesson early. This has happened the last two times I have agreed to teach someone new and both instances were strikingly similar. I reported both situations to Italki support, refunded the money to both students (I didn't want their money and don't need their business), and ultimately made the decision to work with only those students I am currently working with on a regular basis.
Once I made this decision, I felt much better. While I may go back to teaching new students in the future eventually, it will not be for some time. I would much rather spend my time working with those who genuinely respect me and who enjoy our time together during lessons as opposed to those who don't. This not only gives me peace of mind, but it is also good for my current students, since not having to compete with others will give them the opportunity to get what they want more often and allow me the freedom to be more flexible in terms of my availability. As a result, everybody wins!
Hi, Ted
It was hard for me not to take it personally at first, as I am a very sensitive person by nature. After I had calmed down enough to think things through, however, I was like, "Wait--why am I the one getting upset here? I didn't do anything wrong--they did." Once I was able to come to that conclusion and put those much needed changes in place that I mentioned earlier, a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders and I was able to breathe again. So, yes, I am very happy now! =)
Thanks for your help.
Hi, thanks for the powerful information because some students have attitudes towards us. But thanks because I only experienced it once. All my students are happy and behave well.
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