In addition to their language exchange program italki.com is offering a new service since last week. You can now apply as a language teacher or tutor.
Teachers are defined as professionel instructors who already worked as language teachers, tutors are native speakers who share their knowledge on a paid basis, so basically the paid version of a language exchange.
italki.com in their own words:
italki.com is a free language learning website where you can find everything you need to learn a language online. italki applies Web 2.0 concepts, such as social networking, user-generated content, and crowdsourcing, to language learning. italki is home to a global community of language learners representing over 90 languages worldwide. This website is one of the first social networks focused on learning foreign languages and continues to be an innovator in this space with features such as multimedia chat, socially-driven questions and answers, open-source file sharing, and collaborative knowledge-based wikis.
italki believes that being able to communicate in a foreign language is an increasingly critical skill, and that the internet is radically changing how a language can be learned. While globalization is making foreign language skills a necessity, technology and italki are making acquiring them easier. With italki, anyone, anywhere in the world can learn a language for free.
This is my first impression of this website as I am not a member yet.
First of all, I really like the design. It is clean, it is functional and you clearly see all the information you need.
italki.com is on the way to be translated in different languages. This is done by the community which consists of over 350.000 members from 22 countries around the globe. You can see the progress here.
Google Adsense is inserted on most of the pages but without being annoying and the pages load quickly.
There is a section where you can ask questions that can be answered by the community, a bit like Yahoo Answers. The other feature is a knowledge base that can be filled by the community, too. Both are nice ideas in fact. And, of course, there are groups for language learning available.
The most unique feature for me at a glance is the difference italiki.com makes between language teachers and language tutors. I think this is a good approach to offer an even wider range of language learning / teaching services. On the one side we have the free language exchange, in the middle we have the paid but surely good priced tutor and on the other side the more expensive but professionel language teacher.
In a next step, I will apply for a teacher account and test the system from inside.
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