Even in a self-study program, tutors still play a vital role. We need live practice with real people in order to test and refine our language skills. Native-speaking acquaintances are an important practice channel, but probably not sufficient in and of themselves. They are unlikely to be willing or able to provide the depth of feedback or repetitions required to hone new language skills.
Finding a good tutor and determining how best to work with them is a logistical challenge. For many of us, it is not practical to meet in person with a tutor. A remote tutor is the only viable option. So what is the best way to find a remote tutor and what is the best way to work with them?
My Experience
After working with Chinesepod for six months, I was frustrated with my inability to reliably recognize tones. It seemed that I was tone deaf. Sure, on the occasion when a particular lesson cycled through all four tones of a syllable in sequence, I could distinguish between the tones. But, otherwise, my recognition accuracy was very low. So, I searched for a tutor that could help me with this specific aspect of the language.
At the time, Chinesepod allowed tutors to post contact information on a “teacher connection” page they had set up. A massive list of names developed over time. Most of the tutors were very young, listed little or nothing about themselves, and demanded high hourly rates. My impression was they were just looking for a quick, easy Laowai buck. Fortunately, there was a filter capability on the site, and I searched using the criteria of:
- Chinesepod certified (meaning the tutor had invested effort in receiving training on the Chinesepod system by Chinesepod personnel)
- > 30 years old
- Posted a resume
- Charged a reasonable hourly rate
This narrowed the output down to one single tutor by the name of Amy Shen (Shen Xiaomei) who was located in Shanghai. I contacted her, and we agreed to move forward with a fixed number of sessions.
Initially, the logistics were difficult to work out. A common tool that people use for this type of remote communication is Skype (a VOIP service), but at the time broadband Internet access had not yet reached my home, and most wifi hotspots and corporate networks did not support Skype. Also at the time, Skypeout, which enables users to call outside the Skype network to a regular phone, was not yet available in China. In the end, using a pre-paid phone card and connecting via regular landlines ended up being the best solution. Pre-paid cards offer inexpensive rates and provide excellent sound quality, which is critical. The card source I used was PhoneCardOnsale.
Another logistical challenge was payment. Most people in China do not have credit cards, so therefore do not have ready access to money transfer services like Paypal. The solution we worked out in the end was for me to acquire a bank check and then snail-mail it to her half-way through the 16 one hour weekly sessions that we had agreed to.
We used Chinespod transcripts as the foundation for our work, and focused most heavily on tone recognition and pronunciation. This effort turned out to be very valuable. I’m certainly still not a tone virtuoso and never will be, but Xiaomei was an excellent teacher, and she helped me gain the level of ability that I needed.
Six months after completing our tone sessions, we began a new round of lessons, attempting to marry Pimsleur techniques with Chinesepod material. This has been very valuable. Unfortunately, we've had to put it on hold for the time being due to scheduling conflicts.
Where to find a remote tutor
You may be able to find a tutor locally. Universities are a good resource. I have never tried this avenue, but a university near where I live offers up native speaking students as tutors for a fairly reasonable rate ($15/hour).
Chinesepod eliminated their teacher connection site, and instead now offers up a service option called “The Practice Plan”. It includes 10 minute calls with a tutor five days per week. With a price of $200/month including the other premium content, this comes out to an hourly rate of around $50/hour just for the tutor. This is pretty steep. The likely upside is that their tutors should be well steeped in the Chinesepod material and processes.
Another site that offers structured Chinese lessons with live tutors is the Confucius Institute, run by the Chinese government. Warning: their site is very confusing to navigate. I’m not sure how much they currently charge for this service, as I was not able to easily find this information on a recent visit to the site.
There are a number of independent websites that offer to connect teachers and students with each other. I haven’t tried any of these. One such site is: Chinese-Teachers.com.
Another concept that some sites support is connecting “language partners” with each other. Rather than building a one-way teacher-student relationship, the idea is for native speakers of different languages to connect and help each other, typically via Skype. An example is a site named Mixxer.
Somewhat of a hybrid model is Livemocha, which offers formal course content and teachers, but which also connects native speakers of different languages to give feedback to each other.
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