@mikebond
Thank you for responding to my question. I am sorry that you cannot change the word.
Michele:
‘Deceiving tutor experiences’ This is actually an accurate enough title, in the sense that you deceived me into thinking that you knew more about economics than you actually do, which is was what made me think to steer the conversation in that direction. This may have been useful to deflect criticism from the likes of the person whom you told that you had better things to do with your time than make photocopies, such as study the intricacies of the ERM. Prof thinks to himself: Check out the big brain on Michele 
It can also mean that you deceived yourself into thinking that a casual conversation would necessarily lead to a sufficiently comprehensive report.
But, ‘disappointing’ would have been a better choice.
Charles, I do not seem to see your item. Did you share it? What is it called?
Hi Charles,
I’m late with my answer but we had friends with us for the last days. I thought about sending you an email after our conversation but I wasn’t sure about this. I didn’t want to offend you, and it is difficult to send an honest evaluation after having only one conversation with someone. I felt I don’t know you well enough.
I felt unable to interrupt you like Michele. Maybe it is a culture problem. Maybe I’m too polite to do this, or too shy to do this. At the end of the conversation I had the feeling you talked about 80 percent of the time, and I had only the chance to make a few remarks. Also it turned out that you were talking about what you thought was interesting for me, and not what interested me. I saw no chance to change the subject. Also I had the impression that you talked on a very high level with me. I consider myself being on a high intermediate level. That means that I’m able to speak fluently besides the fact that in some cases my vocabulary is limited.
I had no problems with your report besides the fact that you should post everything related to the conversation in the report and not on my wall.
What I enjoyed was that your accent is very nice. You are very understandable (if you don’t use to difficult words). Also I appreciate that you are high educated. I’m sure you’re able to talk about a lot of different things. I’m sure you’re willing to improve and you’re really interested in tutoring. It’s great that you participate in this discussion. That shows your interest. I’m willing to sign up again for a conversation with you the other week. We can discuss tutoring if you’re interested in. Next week, I’m on a business trip.
By the way, have you ever checked my blog? There is a post with some advice and some links that help new tutors: http://post.ly/khVh
Or check my videos about tutoring on the LingQCentral blog: http://lingqcentral-en.lingq.com/videos-conversation-with-tutors-0
I’m thinking about how LingQ can implement feedback functionality for reports and conversations. On the report page there is the “Import” feature. Maybe you can add feedback functionality.
The feedback should be send to the LingQ service, and/or the tutor.
I would suggest ratings from 1 to 5, and questions like:
- How much have you enjoyed the conversation?
- Was the relation of time for listening and speaking ok for you?
- How understandable was the accent of the tutor?
- Did the tutor speak at an appropriate level for you?
- How satisfying is the report?
If you want to ask a limited range of question these two are fine:
- Would you sign up for a conversation with this tutor again?
- Would you recommend this tutor to your friends?
With these two questions you get an impression if the tutor in general is accepted.
You can have a close look on the feedback, and react.
Another suggestion would be to have an “approval” for tutors. I can imagine that experienced users have a first conversation with new tutors and introduce them how to teach. I’m willing to do this for English tutors for example.
I know that tutors can write something about themselves on their profile. Now you show the native language and the number of conversations and writing corrections if we hover over a tutor’s name. Maybe there should be a “Level of knowledge in the language that I tutor” field that provides additional information. For example if I would tutor English I can add “Tutoring English at Beginner level for native German speakers.” I know that it happened in the past that the student was more advanced than the tutor.
Veral:
I will look forward to another conversation. Always feel free to interrupt.
On the subject of feedback about tutors: If a tutor has had many conversations, that should indicate to a student that the tutor is doing more right than wrong. And given the networking nature of LingQ, word to the contrary, will spread soon enough. So it is all fairly self-regulating.
A low number of conversations held is not necessarily an indicator of an unpopular tutor. Although I have been a member of LingQ for a while, I have only recently began to offer conversations. My hectic schedule does not allow me to regularly offer slots, but whenever I have posted my availability, some kind soul signed up! If the language a tutor offers does not have many students keen to speak, then s/he won’t be able to show many conversations held either.
So, in a way a feedback functionality would still be adding value (although I do dread the idea a bit, I always think I’m not good enough…)
I agree with Susanne.
A hectic schedule would/should coincide with a low availability of times to book, so a student could figure out that the number of conversations was for reasons other than the degree of popularity or capability. Ratings and accreditation is getting unnecessarily German
"Ratings and accreditation is getting unnecessarily German "
There is no need to get your Irish up, Charles
Doo:
No, I wasn’t getting my Irish up It was simply that Germans like to have an officially accredited plumber, electrician, etc.
When I started tutoring I had no idea what was expected because it was very unlike the teaching I had done before. I was given enough training by Steve and Vera to work out what was expected, but the system is still unstructured enough to allow for a variety of interpretations. Some tutors select the topic and structure the discussion, others say “tell me your news!” and just sit back and listen. This latter approach may lead to only everyday vocabulary ever being used to describe real-life events, which may be too easy for an upper-intermediate or advanced student, and too hard for a pre-intermediate.
Personally, I miss the old system of each student choosing a personal tutor. The tutor then had the opportunity to develop a personal relationship with the student, discussing their goals, priorities and deadlines, and then structuring (hopefully regularly-held) discussions to help then meet their goals. Now I have students who I haven’t spoken to in months signing up for a 15-minute conversation. I don’t know if we will be talking weekly, monthly or yearly thereafter, and maybe the student doesn’t either. I can’t do much more than say “So tell me all your news!” and then listen to them, and comment on their grammar and vocabulary mistakes. If there are any students who still want a regular student/tutor relationship, they have to negotiate all of that with a tutor, which must be very intimidating in your target language.
Or you can all just be bad students like me and have to cancel or just forget you had conversation scheduled, that would certainly fix all the problems we’re having here…
I would really like to see a LingQ application launched which connects to your alarm clock and wakes you up if you have a lesson booked. I am an incurable napper and have lost many points by being asleep when I have a Russian lesson booked 
As a lo-tech alternative I would settle for Steve coming round to my house and, if necessary, shaking me awake in time for discussions.
@skyblueteapot - That is at the very top of our list. Any day that should be coming out. What will happen is that a big glass of cold water will be poured over your head 5 minutes before your discussion…
I love reading both English and Canadian humors.
I suppose there is no site like this in the Internet.
I’m new to LingQ teaching but I just wanted to make a suggestion @Veral who wants there to be a points based rating system for teachers.
Firstly, having students rate the tutors is completely subjective. e.g. The student might have had a technical difficulty or a headache, thus thinks the class was bad and rates it badly.
Secondly, the people rating would be students and not all qualified teachers, and so some might not be qualified to judge whether a teacher is truly good or bad (only in their own opinion).
Lastly, nobody gets rated for every 15 minutes of their work in their real job. It would be totally unfair to do that to tutors. Imagine if, in your day job, you got rated for every 15 minutes of work you did, I’m sure you would not always perform at 100%. However, overall, you’d probably do a pretty good job.
Anyway, the reason I’m posting this is because I currently work for an online teaching school which has a rating system and I hate the system. It’s the reason I’m trying to teach on LingQ so as to leave my current situation. Although I am regularly the highest scoring teacher (4.8 out of 5 for this month) it is extremely stressful. Especially when you see a student has graded you badly and in your own professional opinion, the lesson went well.
Perhaps a better way forward would be to have recommendations. If the student would recommend the tutor to others. Yes or No. And they could leave a comment as to why (or why not). This would be seen by other members looking on the tutor’s profile and I think it would be a much fairer and simpler way of finding out if you are going to like a teacher or not.
Anyway, that’s just my opinion.