Lots of potential but very disappointing - Recensione dipendente - Instructor, French presso Lingoda

- Extensive list of technical issues with their learning platform. Why is it an issue ? When the platform doesn't work, teachers can't properly do their job. Lessons are an hour long and 10 min spent troubleshooting and trying to find solutions for students experiencing problems is a huge waste of time. Lingoda says they're collecting data to improve the platform but honestly, how much more data needs to be collected and how many more complaints need to be received for action to be taken ? In the meantime, teachers and students are not happy. - Poor communication from management. Why is it an issue ? The online work environment already limits the communication one would typically have in a traditional setting. When faced with questions and concerns from teachers, management either redirects them to an outdated FAQ or doesn't respond at all. Before, the excuse was that they didn't have a full team to assist teachers. Now, who knows what the excuse is. Management clearly prefers to not have to deal with teachers, speaking from experience (I was told my emails were too frequent and too lengthy). I guess two-way communication is not valued with this company. - Poor treatment of teachers: Why is it an issue ? When you take care of your employees, employees take care of the company. When you take care of your teachers, the teachers take care of the students and the reputation of the school. Teachers are hired as freelancers. Working online is not always ideal. Most teachers work online because it's difficult to find work in a traditional setting, especially as a foreign language teacher. Lingoda teacher management treats its teachers as if they're dispensable (I quote "if you're not happy, you can find another job"). Lack of respect shows teachers that they're not valued, they're not appreciated, and they're certainly not needed. This is horrible for morale. No incentives are offered to teachers who perform well, no rewards, no constructive feedback, no check-ins, no support at all. If teachers take the time to ask questions, give feedback, demand solutions for their students it's because they care. it's because they want to improve the teaching and learning environment. In a school setting, this type of feedback would be taken seriously. At Lingoda, teacher management took this as a rant and told me I was in a bad position to be giving critiques when I myself haven’t been a model teacher. That was outright hurtful. - Teachers cannot not communicate with each other. In a typical school setting, communication between colleagues is essential not only for student benefit but also because teachers need support and advice from their peers. Communication between teachers is limited to comments in the student log which also serves no purpose. Most times the comments aren't useful for preparing lessons. It doesn't help a teacher to know that Student X did a good job. A teacher needs to have access to student progress; their strengths and weaknesses, etc. Since Lingoda does not allow students to choose their teachers, it's not easy to track student progress. This feeds into the idea that Lingoda is managed as a business and not as a school. Student needs are not the priority nor is providing teachers with the necessary materials to fulfill the needs of their students. Teacher management simply does not have the time to address every teacher, it would take a huge load off their shoulders if teachers could find solutions amongst themselves and give each other tips and advice. - The materials have improved and any proper teacher knows how to work around the shortcomings of the materials however, there are common problems with the materials: embarrassing spelling and grammatical errors, examples and activities that are useless and not contextualized, "skills" lessons that don't in fact teach skills but rather vocabulary, writing lessons that don't actually require writing, etc. Not to mention absolutely no audio or oral comprehension activities. It’s embarrassing when a student asks « why am I learning this ? » and the teacher is wondering the same thing. (for example, a lesson on idiomatic expressions is still basically a vocabulary lesson. without context it's useless to the student if he/she can't apply what they learn right away not to mention there are way too many to teach, it's overwhelming for the student and becomes more of a translation lesson) True, even textbooks aren’t always perfect but teachers have time to prepare and plan their lessons. I think it’s fair to say for minimum wage online, teachers aren’t going to invest a lot of time into lesson planning when that preparation time isn’t paid, when the hours are all over the place and some of us are working other jobs too. Teachers are encouraged to give feedback but aren't paid for doing so. Speaking the language and having knowledge of grammar or didactics doesn't make the didactics team qualified to create material. Teachers have a better idea of what works and what doesn't work. If teacher feedback is valued, teachers should be paid. I'd recommend that the didactics send the material to teachers for feedback before posting them online. Get constructive feedback rather than forcing teachers to work around it. I do like the variety of subjects and the different communication situations presented and studied. There’s potential to make improvements. -Poor communication from Lingoda to students: Why is it a problem ? During lessons, students complain a lot about student support. They often don't receive replies, or the feedback provided by students isn't taken into account. Teachers are the only people students have regular contact with. Naturally the students expect the teachers to know everything. Ironically, teachers experience the same communication issues with teacher management. It's extremely unprofessional to not be able to provide the students (or rather the customers) with what they pay for. They want answers and teachers don't have them. They want solutions and teachers can't provide them. On several occasions student support communicated certain things to the students about their progression or their lessons, etc. but the teacher wasn't informed. It looks very bad. Also concerning the new learning platform, Lingoda teacher management insists that all students were informed of the changes and the new system requirements to access the learning platform yet for several weeks, students continued to say they were not aware. Lingoda teacher management rather than seeking a solution and taking responsibility to send another update to students or to reiterate the changes just said it's the students' fault. -The certification sold to students is bogus : the completion certifications have no real value in the professional world. No tests are given, there are no means to truly measure a student's level and knowledge of a given language. A student who may have attainted B1 level in written expression maybe has A1 level of oral expression and comprehension. Especially since students can apparently just choose to taken lessons in whatever level they want. On numerous occasions I've had students taking advanced level courses when they couldn't even introduce themselves or understand basic questions about where they're from. the completion certification is bogus and recruiters know the proper certification required to measure and validate foreign language skills. Lingoda should be careful when selling these certificates. For example: concerning French, the only valid and recognized certificates measuring level are the TCF and DELF/DALF.