My experience with Italki
English is a skill that I need to develop to be an excellent software developer, The main reason I want to improve my English, is to have greater participation when I am in meetings with clients who speak English, because I do not have a good level of English most of the time in the meeting I am just a listener, and I very seldom speak, I have also observed that being silent for most of the meeting can be misinterpreted in many ways from the client’s point of view, clients may conclude that you as a programmer are not working and that is why you don't speak to meetings.
I am good at writing in English, but when I communicate orally it is difficult for me due to lack of practice. Knowing that this is an opportunity to improve, I decided to look for a platform which would allow me to communicate with native English speakers, and Italki seemed like a good option, I made an account and after looking for a good tutor, I immediately made an appointment.
Hours before I was very nervous because he had rarely interacted with natives. During the meeting with my tutor, I was able to appreciate many skills, which by themselves will never be able to develop. The first thing I notice is that when one is speaking, the conversation is spontaneous, there is no time to think grammar rules or review what is going to be said as it is normally possible to do when writing a message in English. This was something that happened to me a lot, the tutor wrote down the mistakes I made and then showed them to me, when I saw my own mistakes, I immediately detected the grammar error. This is something that I really could never have improved on my own, and that thanks to this platform I am improving it.
Another aspect that I loved about the meeting is that my tutor is proficient in Spanish, and this greatly enriched the feedback she gave me because by understanding my language, she knows what are the most common mistakes Spanish speakers make when they speak. English, for example, the pronunciation of words like “a”, which I would usually pronounce the way I would pronounce it in Spanish, or words that were said in the plural, which is not the case in English. For this reason, I think it is a very good idea to be with a tutor who understands your language, the feedback will be much better.
The best thing about Italki is that the conversations you have are like those that happen in reality, I say this because at the university I already passed all the English courses but they were very abstract, they only taught me to ask questions and answer, but I never had a conversation like it would normally be done in real life, everything was oriented to qualify and put a grade. Italki is a way to get out of this educational system and “get your hands dirty”.
Italki has been one of the best investments I have made in my development, and I recommend it
