How can I attract members to signing up for conversations?
Here is my advice:
Fill out your profile.
Add a picture to your profile.
Be active on the forum.
Create content for the library.
Learn a language yourself (That is impressive to other members). Sign up for a conversation in this language to get an idea how tutoring works.
First point is the most important point. I cannot believe how someone thinks about signing up if the profile is empty. Your profile should be advertisement for you!
How can I attract members to submit writings to me?
Think about offering conversations. This point is important for me. I’m a member since two years, and I submitted a lot of writings, but all of them to tutors to whom I have been speaking before. The past shows that students prefer to submit writings to tutors who offer and show other activities. There are so many tutors who offer writing correction that students develop criteria’s how they chose a tutor.
How can I support LingQ?
Tell everyone about it!
Use “Like it” for Facebook or other social bookmarks
Add the LingQ badge (showing number of known words) to your blog, mails etc.
How can I be outstanding?
Write your own blog about language learning
Record your own videos and add them to LingQPlaza. on youtube
Write articles for the LingQ blogs
Write articles for the wiki
Is writing on walls of members a good idea?
Yes, it is. My personal view is that you should only write on the walls of members if you offer more than conversations or writing corrections. Give always additional information that is really helpful! If people really want to speak or submit writings they can easily find you on the write or speaking page. I often write on the walls of other members but I offer a link with helpful information or I answer to their posts on my wall. It tutors only write “I offer conversation. Please sign up for a conversation with me!” it maybe sounds like spam, don’t you think so?
Why did I wrote this?
These are some ideas that I had because someone asked me questions about tutoring. Maybe it is a good idea to show this piece of information if new members want to add themselves as a tutor? The Question how to tutor, raises up every now and then.
Maybe new members should be a member for a minimum of 7 days, have a profile, more than 50 LingQs etc. before they can set themselves up a tutor?
Also I remember that we had the idea that the date of the last login could be interesting to decide if a tutor is still active (for writing corrections). I remember that there recently was a problem that writings were not corrected in time.
This is great information. As to restricting people from tutoring, any changes in how we allow tutors to start tutoring requires changes to the system. Since learners can see the learners profiles I think we can leave this to the learners choice for now. In some languages we really need more tutors.
Thank you for this very concise and helpful post, Vera!
I especially agree with what you wrote about filling out your profile and being active on the site. The first thing a learner wants to see, I think, is that you know what you’re doing. Those are two great ways to show your comfort with the site. (Or, I’ll put it this way: that’s what I myself have looked for when choosing who to submit writings to.)
I prefer to take notes with pencil and paper. I find that I don’t learn as well if I keep everything on the computer. I need the old fashioned tactile effort of writing by hand. The linQ’s seem like an extra step that I will never use.
Don’t we have to pay for linq’s anyway?
Is it possible to be a tutor if you’re not paying the monthly fee? Seems like, in reality, it’s not.
Oh, I also meant to ask, does this site actually need English tutors?
My experience of sites that offer tutoring/correcting services given by their member suggests 1. there are far more English tutors available than needed 2. sometimes their knowledge of grammar is not good enough and they do more damage than good.
What is LinQ’s answer to these concerns? How would a beginning student really know that their tutor was teaching them substandard grammar? Is there any point in joining this site (unless you intend to pay a lot for the services) if your native language is English, since the site is likely saturated with English speaking users?
Hi Moriador, you raise up two different questions that are not closely related to this thread. I would prefer if you open a new thread for each of it.
Create one thread about if and why it is important to create LingQs.
Another thread can be about the question if LingQ needs English tutors.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to offend you. I think it is better because other members look at the title of a thread to know what it is about. You’ll get more answers related to your questions.
The question about what LingQ is has been moved to another thread. That was a good suggestion from Vera.
You do not pay for LingQs, you pay for using the site if you want to keep more than 100 LingQs in your database, in other words if you use and appreciate the functionality. Otherwise you are free to help yourself to all the content in the libraries free of charge and take notes on paper by hand.
You do not need to be a paying member to become a tutor.
The site welcomes tutors. What we expect of tutors is that they become familiar with how our site works, and hopefully like our learning method, but more than that that they are positive, encouraging, and good conversationalists in their own language. We do not require tutors with teaching certificates or teaching training, since these things are less important to the learner in general.
It is not possible to teach sub-standard grammar. The learners learn from the content, largely by listening , reading and creating LingQs. They speak with tutors to practice what they learn, to have human contact with native speakers, and to get feedback. They also have their writing corrected.
Most beginner learners have limited contact with tutors, since they are mostly trying to get used to the language, through lots of listening and reading. As they advance in their learning, the learners use the service of tutors more and more, and they choose the tutors they want. They can also ask questions on our language forums if they have grammar questions, although the Internet is full of resources explaining grammar or providing conjugation tables and the like.
For most people the point of joining this site is to learn languages.