songsparrow Posted June 12, 2013 Share Posted June 12, 2013 I am considering enrolling my girls in lessons via Skype next year - primarily for music (instrument) and foreign language instruction. I'd love to hear from others who have done Skype lessons - did they work well for you or were there problems? Is there anything I should ask or keep in mind when signing up for lessons? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lanny Posted June 13, 2013 Share Posted June 13, 2013 No personal experience with this, but I think it will work fine for your DDs. Our experience with Skype is that the quality of the calls is usually excellent (Skype to Skype (audio or video) and Skype to landline audio calls to the USA). Regarding the possibility of learning a Foreign Language via Skype, there is a company called OpenEnglish that does a huge amount of advertising on TV (I rarely watch TV, but have seen many of their commercials) and on Facebook. It looks like they use Skype or something like it, for their online lessons, so I don't know why that wouldn't work well for you. Their Home Page shows they have more than one million "Likes" on Facebook, so I assume some of them are paying customers... Look for something like that, for the Foreign Language(s) you are interested in your DDs learning. GL P.S. Here's their URL, so you can get an idea of how they do this, for people learning ESL: http://www.openenglish.com/inicio.do Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peach Posted June 13, 2013 Share Posted June 13, 2013 One of the Spanish sections here (Montana State) is being taught online and via skype, which I thought was pretty cool. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HejKatt Posted June 13, 2013 Share Posted June 13, 2013 I use FaceTime with a tutor in China for my son. I tried Skype, but there were various issues which someone told me was due to the file transfers happening on Skype (which FT doesn't allow). So that would be the first issue I would check - having a trial call to work out connection problems, and get to know each other. The first couple of lessons, I sat beside ds so I could help if my son didn't understand the tutor's issue, and to show him how to reconnect if the connection was dropped. Now he has his lesson in the study with the doors open, and I can hear it but I don't have to be in the same room. The next thing would be to track progress. Finding a tutor who can email you a schedule/lesson plan ahead of time is useful. I also like to wrap up the last 5 mins of the session with the tutor to check on progress, confirm what homework needs to be done and exchange suggestions. Billing - I pay a month's tuition ahead of time for X number of hours (1 hour/week). We have to make arrangements through people we mutually know, but if you go through an agency, arrangements like Paypal should be available. About materials - if the tutor is in a different country, I would check whether both of you can work off the same set of materials or if someone has to scan/link copies of text ahead of time. In my case, we use a set of materials available locally in China and which my parents had brought a copy of. Hope this helps - all the best as you find resources for your dc! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lanny Posted June 13, 2013 Share Posted June 13, 2013 HejKatt had a number of good suggestions. One thing I would like to add, if you do not go with a commercial enterprise (or a school like TTUISD or somewhere else) is that you might find someone highly qualified on Elance.com And, they have a way for you to pay the provider, that protects both the provider and the buyer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lanny Posted June 13, 2013 Share Posted June 13, 2013 @OP This thread gave me a possible idea... Possibly my DD can tutor people, in Spanish, or English, via Skype, in the future... She is 100% bilingual. I will look into how to get an Employer ID number from the I.R.S. for her... Thank you! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IrishMum Posted June 13, 2013 Share Posted June 13, 2013 This is a great idea! Where do I start to look for tutors? Any ball park figures of cost? Or is it the same as hiring a local tutor? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lanny Posted June 13, 2013 Share Posted June 13, 2013 This is a great idea! Where do I start for look for tutors? Any ball park figures for of cost? Or is it the same as hiring a local tutor? I have no idea what the going rate is. Possibly HejKatt will see this and give us an idea. I suspect there may be a web site that specializes in this, but I have no clue as to whether or not that is true. If not, a generic site like Elance.com or fiverr.com Later, I am going to try to search on Elance.com to get an idea. I told DD, possibly she could charge USD$5 or $10; for 30 minutes, but I have NO idea what the going rate is... Something to look into... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IrishMum Posted June 13, 2013 Share Posted June 13, 2013 I have no idea what the going rate is. Possibly HejKatt will see this and give us an idea. I suspect there may be a web site that specializes in this, but I have no clue as to whether or not that is true. If not, a generic site like Elance.com or fiverr.com Later, I am going to try to search on Elance.com to get an idea. I told DD, possibly she could charge USD$5 or $10; for 30 minutes, but I have NO idea what the going rate is... Something to look into... It could be great for your daughter! It would be a very useful tool for me, I would love my boys to have a music tutor. If Lori D wanted to teach them literature/writing over Skype I'd be all for it too!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lanny Posted June 13, 2013 Share Posted June 13, 2013 It could be great for your daughter! It would be a very useful tool for me, I would love my boys to have a music tutor. If Lori D wanted to teach them literature/writing over Skype I'd be all for it too!! I know a TTUISD family that is in the UK. I think their older DD has a Spanish tutor. I will try to get an idea of what they pay... Everything in the UK seems to be *very* expensive.... Are your boys old enough to use the Purdue University OWL (Online Writing Lab)? http://owl.english.purdue.edu/ (click in upper left for grades 7 to 12) Writing in critical... Contact Lori D. for information about what she would charge you! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
songsparrow Posted June 14, 2013 Author Share Posted June 14, 2013 Thanks for all of the tips, so far. I have never heard of ELance but will check it out! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IrishMum Posted June 14, 2013 Share Posted June 14, 2013 I know a TTUISD family that is in the UK. I think their older DD has a Spanish tutor. I will try to get an idea of what they pay... Everything in the UK seems to be *very* expensive.... Are your boys old enough to use the Purdue University OWL (Online Writing Lab)? http://owl.english.purdue.edu/ (click in upper left for grades 7 to 12) Writing in critical... Contact Lori D. for information about what she would charge you! My oldest is 8th grade, so I will look into that thanks. Just yesterday I told my hubby that I need to do something about writing! I will contact Lori D :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HejKatt Posted June 14, 2013 Share Posted June 14, 2013 This is a great idea! Where do I start to look for tutors? Any ball park figures of cost? Or is it the same as hiring a local tutor? Local tutors here charge upward of $25/hour (craigslist), and local Chinese schools work out to $15/hour. So I used those as my guideline. There is certainly a wide variation if you look online, in my experience the tutors from bigger cities in China will have rates approaching $15/hour since the cost of living is expensive there. Lanny made an excellent point about using a site like eLance for both parties' protection. For Chinese, the Bilingual board has discussed the site eChineseLearning. IIRC the rates there were $15/hour if you committed to a year, and $20-25/hour for the shorter contracts. There was a large pool of tutors to choose from, but also a large variation in their effectiveness. Lanny - all the best with finding tutoring opportunities for your daughter! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Donna Posted June 14, 2013 Share Posted June 14, 2013 We live almost 3 hours from my dd's fiddle teacher and try to drive up for a lesson twice a month but occasionally when we cannot get up to him for 3 weeks, she will do a Skype lesson. He teaches numerous students (a number of international students and students from western states) strictly via Skype. For music lessons, I think it would depend on the instrument and how advanced the child is on the instrument to begin with. A beginner, imo, needs in person teacher guidance sometimes that Skype cannot provide especially on an instrument like violin. A more advanced student who knows how to play the instrument but is working on increasing their repertoire or learning a different style of playing, could very easily do lessons on Skype. My dd definitely prefers her in-person lessons. When she was much younger she did not like doing Skype lessons at all. Her teacher is particular about phrasing and bowing and often audio and video wouldn't line up exactly right. I video record her lessons and it is a little difficult using Skype (not great quality video as compared to when I record her in person lessons. Her teacher often has her play along with him to hear and internalize the phrasing but when on Skype it is difficult for her to hear him play when she is playing too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lanny Posted June 14, 2013 Share Posted June 14, 2013 Local tutors here charge upward of $25/hour (craigslist), and local Chinese schools work out to $15/hour. So I used those as my guideline. There is certainly a wide variation if you look online, in my experience the tutors from bigger cities in China will have rates approaching $15/hour since the cost of living is expensive there. Lanny made an excellent point about using a site like eLance for both parties' protection. For Chinese, the Bilingual board has discussed the site eChineseLearning. IIRC the rates there were $15/hour if you committed to a year, and $20-25/hour for the shorter contracts. There was a large pool of tutors to choose from, but also a large variation in their effectiveness. Lanny - all the best with finding tutoring opportunities for your daughter! Thank you, very much, for the above information! Much appreciated! I will relay this to DD... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lanny Posted June 14, 2013 Share Posted June 14, 2013 My wife just reminded me that Colombia has extremely strict laws, to protect children under the age of 16. Those laws may or may not permit DD to work 1 or 2 hours a week, on the Internet, working as a Foreign Language tutor.. We need to check that out, before proceeding... Possibly this would be a good way for DD to add to her Savings. We need to check with the Labor Ministry about the regulations... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mom0012 Posted June 14, 2013 Share Posted June 14, 2013 We used Skype years ago for a program my son was involved in and it was terrible because there was something like a 1 second delay, so we were constantly talking over each other. I also had problems every time I went to use Skype in that I had to fix the settings every time. Everything would automatically reset so that Skype wouldn't work each time we went to use it. More recently, we used Skype for Spanish tutoring and that went very well for about a year until we got a new computer. I think the difference was that we have a much faster internet access now, so there was virtually no delay. Unfortunately, since the new computer, we have recently started having one of the same technical problems we had years ago where our camera will work for a few seconds and then turn off and say it's not available because another program is using it. I have spent a lot of time trying to figure this out in the present and the past and I'm not sure how to fix it. Anyway, it's a great option, but as with all things in this technology age, be prepared to possibly spend a good chunk of time working out technical problems. Hopefully, it won't be an issue for you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IrishMum Posted June 14, 2013 Share Posted June 14, 2013 We use Skype for talking to family back home, Australia to Ireland, and a fast internet connection makes all the difference. FaceTime is even better. thanks everyone for all the suggestions and advice. It has opened up a whole new world of learning to me. How did I not think of it before? I was even thinking about finding some French kids that could Skype with my boys, maybe they could speak French for half the time and English for the other. It would be great for both parties to practise their conversational skills. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mnemosyne Posted June 14, 2013 Share Posted June 14, 2013 I didn't do 'official' lessons through Skype, but I had a bunch of language partners I met through how-to-learn-a-language.com and unilang.org. It was a wonderful way to to practice my target language - we'd start with Russian, and then after about 30 min, switch to English so the other could practice. The aforementioned websites have native speakers of many languages, and many of them just want to have the opportunity to talk in English. You'd want to have a good grasp on English grammar, though, to make it worth their while. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IrishMum Posted June 14, 2013 Share Posted June 14, 2013 how-to-learn-a-language.com and unilang.org. Loks interesting, thanks! I wonder if there are any kids on these sites. I will have a look :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mnemosyne Posted June 14, 2013 Share Posted June 14, 2013 Loks interesting, thanks! I wonder if there are any kids on these sites. I will have a look :) There are a good deal, but they often don't really advertise it too much. I started posting on them when I was about 17, and I chatted with a bunch of people from probably about 13/14 on up. They do end up being a bit on the older age, as a lot of them are very self-motivated and working on teaching themselves languages without the help of classes. They also have big group chats on Skype where they talk about languages all day long if that's anything that would interest you or your kids. If nothing else, both websites are treasure troves as far as finding resources for whatever language you can think of. There are people there studying almost every language imaginable. And for me, personally, it really fostered my love of language learning (I speak 2 fluently, and 2 at an advanced level, and I can give a lot of credit to these forums). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IrishMum Posted June 14, 2013 Share Posted June 14, 2013 I speak 2 fluently, and 2 at an advanced level, and I can give a lot of credit to these forums). Wow! that's amazing! I would be happy if we could speak French at an advanced level. I've been looking on unilang.org for the last few minutes, and it looks very promising. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
teeniebeenie6 Posted June 14, 2013 Share Posted June 14, 2013 My DSL internet is too slow for Skype, it was SO buggy while trying to talk to my parents who live in Canada. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grantmom Posted July 15, 2013 Share Posted July 15, 2013 IrishMum, did you have any luck with either of those two websites in finding someone to Skype with? I think that is a great idea, I just wonder about safety stuff with kids. How would we know? I guess we would just listen in to the chats? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IrishMum Posted July 15, 2013 Share Posted July 15, 2013 IrishMum, did you have any luck with either of those two websites in finding someone to Skype with? I think that is a great idea, I just wonder about safety stuff with kids. How would we know? I guess we would just listen in to the chats? I didn't, but I didn't look very hard. I asked our French tutor is she new any kids in France that wanted to Skype with mine. They have been at it a while now. They only talk for a few minutes, as they are all shy especially speaking a different language. I put them on speaker, so I can help when they run into difficulty. You could do that to monitor the call if you found anyone. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IrishMum Posted August 26, 2013 Share Posted August 26, 2013 Just an update on finding someone to Skype with. I have been using italki for French for the last 5 weeks. You can find language exchange people, speak your native language for half the time and theirs for the other half. This is for free. Or you can purchase time with some one to speak in your chosen language. I tried 5 different people for French, and loved 2 of them. I have settled on a lady that I adore, and I pay her $10 for one hour of conversational French, she has also sent me some homework. I hate homework!! My boys are not ready for 1 hour of French conversation, but when they are I will use italki :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grantmom Posted August 27, 2013 Share Posted August 27, 2013 That is awesome! Thanks for sharing! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kareni Posted August 28, 2013 Share Posted August 28, 2013 My husband tutors several students using Skype. Generally all goes well; however, once in a while there is an issue with the connection. Regards, Kareni Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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