Eric Baber's blog

Sorry if you find the site a bit confusing, we have taken note of similar remarks and believe we have made it much clearer now.

The EL Gazette article is full of factual errors, the reason for which we cannot explain.

You are correct in thinking that our software, Engage, is similar to Skype in functionality. However our recording and multi-currency charging devices are fully embedded in the software and make it very easy to use.

I'd like to respond to a couple of misconceptions you seem to have, if I may?

Firstly the 'practice partners' need not be teachers and are specifically instructed not to try to teach unless they are qualified teachers. They do not need to have prior knowledge of what the learner wishes to discuss when they are called and are only required to be polite, answer questions and possibly give explanations of new vocab or explain cultural references. We only activate their profiles when we have spoken to them online to make sure their equipment works, that they know what their role is, that they are aware of our safety policy and that their language skills are of a sufficient level to enable a learner to practise with them.

Qualified teachers can also register with us and teach using the software. They need to provide us with a scanned copy of their qualification and two contactable references. Once approved they can set their own charge out rate. So it is possible for someone to have two rates, one for practice and one for teaching. Currently we will be paying directly into partners' bank accounts but soon all partners will receive a free Cashflows MasterCard onto which they will receive payment every month. This can be used anywhere in the world just like a normal debit card.

Secondly, no one has to buy any materials from the site. The partners simply respond to calls when they occur and do not need prior sight of the materials the learners have used and teachers can use any materials with learners that they like.

The materials on the site are different to most teaching and learning materials because every single self-study pack (£1 each) and complete 3 hour lesson plan for schools to buy (£25 each, which enables unlimited licence to print and copy for as many students as you like) leads up to a conversation task and has been taught tens if not hundreds of times with real students. They have been tweaked, re-written and then edited once more. Many of them contain original or edited Guardian content.

Since launch almost 1,000 registrations have taken place and we now have a fantastic and safe resource of polite, educated and patient Guardian readers ready to help learners to practise their speaking and listening skills.

We are charging to make money, yes, but by charging we are also making 'users' into 'customers', and by vetting practice partners and paying them a small amount of money we believe that learners will appreciate that they get a more focused and efficient practice session every time they use it. Our research informed us about the many inherent difficulties associated with 'free' language exchanges.

What's more, a partner can also be a learner, as can a teacher. There are no Spanish language materials on the site yet, but there are Spanish speakers looking to help Spanish learners, also Chinese speakers and Portuguese speakers. £5.52 per hour could be a decent wage to those partners if they were based in Chile (minimum wage £1 approx), or China, or Brazil. Their English practice (and teaching sessions), at a time which is convenient for them, will then cost them considerably less.

If someone provides practice in their first language and calls English speakers to pay for English practice and manages to balance their hours up. We estimate that at the current rate their English practice will cost them just £1.40 per hour.

I really hope this helps to correct some of the misconceptions you might have about Guardian Languages.

Jason

Thanks very much for the reply Jason, that does help clarify a few things. In particular thanks for clarifying the difference between partners and teachers; that makes sense. The lesson packs still sound very expensive to me but there you go. Out of interest, who has published them? You say that "the materials...leads up to a conversation task and has been taught tens if not hundreds of times with real students." That suggests the materials have been vetted and published - I didn't think the Guardian was involved in publishing ELT material. Is it all home-published so to say or is there an ELT publishers involved?

You also say "You are correct in thinking that our software, Engage, is similar to Skype in functionality. However our recording and multi-currency charging devices are fully embedded in the software and make it very easy to use." Just thought I'd point out that Skype does this too, using the Skype Prime service (http://skypeprime.skype.com ) - this allows anyone to specify how much they'd like to charge for receiving Skype calls in exchange for offering a service via Skype. The caller's Skype credit then gets transferred to the receiver of the call on a per-minute basis; this sounds like the same sort of setup you've got.

Point taken about the wage thing, though I think that will be more meaningful once non-English languages are encouraged - at the moment it seems like yet another way to pay ELT teachers a pittance.

As I say, thanks for those clarifications!

Eric

Hi Eric

Thanks for your further comments. I think you might have missed my point about ELT teachers being able to join the community and 'teach' using the software whilst being able to set their own charge out rate (as you mention people are able to on Skype Prime). I don't understand how that could be interpreted as 'another way to pay ELT teachers a pittance', your words above.

Also, Skype Prime takes 30% off the top and uses PayPal which can take a long time to process funds. Our financial partner is Nick Ogden, the guy who created WorldPay and that is how we will are able to pay people monthly into their bank accounts and then onto special Mastercards from April onwards.

The profile database on our software also enables learners, partners and teachers to search on any information held in the users' profiles. So, for example, if there was a retired doctor offering to help people practice their language skills, a learner that was a medical student or junior doctor could easily find them and then their practice sessions together (with or without our materials) would have an extra element of interest for both parties.

The materials have been produced by us (LOT), using professional ELT writers and editors and also by experienced Guardian editors and production staff. They have been published exclusively online. I'm not sure what your point is, could you explain it a bit more?

With regards the £25 per teacher driven lesson plan...that covers a licence to print and copy the materials as much as a school or teacher wishes to. So no copyright restrictions. The real unit cost of using them diminishes hugely the more they are used. If a school used our plans to create a short course of 4 weeks (20 plans) it would not only have a course that integrates it's local environment and populace with the whole learning experience, it would also save money.

The course also gets fantastic results in terms of the improvement in learners' confidence and motivation levels with regards speaking and listening. The theory behind it is grounded in the works of Krashen, Skehan, and constructivism. On the LOT website (www.languagesoutthere.com) there are some 'before' and 'after' videos of students who have had relatively little exposure to the materials (about 30 hrs). You might find them, espcially Florent, quite interesting. A number of eminent ELT professionals have found them fascinating and think we are genuinely onto something.

I really hope that what I have written here has provided further clarification and reassurance.

Hi Jason,

Re "pittance" - I did understand that teachers (as opposed to practice partners) can set their own rate. What I meant was that at the moment (or when I first looked at the website) it looked like teachers were paid £5.52 per hour, which I would consider to be a pittance for a teacher based in a hard-currency country. As you say, though, I now understand that this is the rate for a practice partner. I still think though that that pricing will be more "acceptable", if you like, once languages are being targeted and encouraged where teachers are likely to be in other countries.

My question about whether there was a publisher involved was because I didn't quite see the Guardian having any experience in actual ELT teaching or publishing. From what you say though the materials are largely produced by languagesoutthere which I find more reassuring.

Cheers

Eric

I can't believe the Guardian is responsible for this! Capitalists!

I'm sorry, but I still find this offering dubious. After discussing it with some colleagues last night I revisited the discussion above and this part in particular struck me:

"If someone provides practice in their first language and calls English speakers to pay for English practice and manages to balance their hours up. We estimate that at the current rate their English practice will cost them just £1.40 per hour. "

So the Guardian/LOT offer is basically a matchmaking system for learners and teachers/practise partners to find each other. This already exists, for free, in the form for example of The Mixxer (http://www.language-exchanges.org ) using free technology (Skype). I think what I find most dubious is that the Guardian is using its established brand image to make money out of something that people could be doing for free.

If there's a vetting process in place, or if the teachers receive training, support, materials etc, I find it perfectly acceptable to charge learners for lessons. If it's nothing more than a matchmaking agency for "amateurs" for want of a better word I find this a completely inappropriate way of making money.

And another update - http://www.livemocha.com does what GuardianLanguages is trying to do but better, and free.

Update: There is a vetting procedure in place. We speak to every single person on the system before we activate their profile. Qualified teachers who can set higher rates have to provide scanned qualifications and two references and numbers are increasing. The practice partners don't require sight of materials prior to a conversation because if someone uses the LOT materials (ref. to earlier post, we created them from plans we have used many many times in London and then worked on them with other professional ELT authors and editors prior to publication - Tim Bowen being the overall editor)they don't need to buy any materials or do any prepration...all the plans lead up to use of the target language in a conversation.

Guardian Languages is not a 'match-making' agency, it is a safe community of language learners, language teachers and people interested in talking to people from all over the world, helping them to practise their language skills and earn a little money at the same time.

The reference about 'balancing' up the hours is meant to explain to users that they can subsidise their own language practice sessions by helping or teaching others on the system. Hope that makes things clearer.

Guardian Languages does now seem to be suspended. Does anyone know if this is permanent or temporary?

Thanks for this, Claire. I hadn't heard about that and have just done a fairly thorough search and haven't been able to turn up anything. It would be interesting to find out why the service has been suspended.

Hi Eric
It has been a while. Guardian Languages became dogged with some problems and we collectively decided to pull the plug. But we learnt a lot.

The lesson plans that we (Languages Out There) published from our seven odd years of teaching them are as of today on our website for teachers to subscribe to and download and use.

I hope when people go there they will realise that Languages Out There has always been on the economic side of the teacher and for encouraging innovation and debate on the topic of effective language acquisition.