EduFire Review: Learn Japanese (or any language) Online via Webcam with a Private Tutor

First off, I love eduFire. It’s a great website with great people, a great interface, and a great mission: They want to make it easy for tutors to teach students a foreign language. Right now, there are forty-three languages being taught on eduFire (and that number is growing as tutors increase), including Arabic, English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Mandarin, Portuguese, Russian, and of course, Japanese. And yes, I am one of the forty-one Japanese tutors currently teaching on eduFire (but more on that later).

But, how does everything work? Everything’s pretty simple right now, and the eduFire staff are constantly making improvements to the site, mostly based on user suggestion. The site’s creators are very good about listening and responding to feedback, and their employees are very friendly (If you are a tutor, you will be contacted by Marco, who will join your lesson as a “student” and walk you through eduFire and answer your questions. Super cool Frood.

How to get a Language Lesson:

eduFire makes it easy to learn a language (and let’s you not use some of that expensive gasoline, too). When you sign up, you can choose to either be a student, or a teacher. Most people will choose to be a student, but hey, if you have foreign language skills, maybe you’d like to do some teaching too!

#1: If you sign up to be a student, the first step is to fill out your profile. This makes you (seem) more reputable. Tutors like it when you’ve filled out some information, because then they feel like you are more serious, and that’s definitely a good thing. Some tutors don’t even accept students who don’t have avatars, so it’s best to take a few minutes and fill some stuff out.

#2: Next, you need to find yourself a tutor. Just choose the language you’d like to be taught in, and take a look at the list of tutors teaching it. According to eduFire, the best tutors move towards the top. This refers to a combination of their tutor score (what people rate them), credentials, and how much they’ve filled out their profile. I’m not saying don’t cycle through the lists some, but it seems like the most active tutors (and probably the most experienced) will be on the front couple pages, depending on how many tutors there are in a language category.

#3: Once you’ve found someone you like, it’s time to schedule a lesson with that person. Just go to their profile page and hit the big yellow “request tutoring” button.

From there, you’re given an option to choose what language you’d like to be tutored in, as well as up to three times you are available for a lesson (the more options, the better). You can even send the tutor a note (something like “oh Koichi, you are such a cool frood” will get you brownie points).

#4: Wait for the tutor to either accept, reject, or send alternative times back at you. Right there, you’ve got yourself a lesson!

Student Learning Interface

I really like the interface eduFire uses for students and teachers (during the actual lesson). It’s really simple, it’s reliable, and it’s easy to use. Here is a picture of it (not of me, though). Left side is a chat / whiteboard area, and the right is the tutor and teacher’s webcams (which are not required to learn, by the way, though it is nice, for sho)

I will say, though, it is missing a few features. Luckily, eduFire will be rolling out a brand new interface really soon that looks ridiculously cool. It will allow multiple web cams (and multiple students, though I think the current one allows that as well), power point presentations, class notes, sending files to each other during the session, and much much more. The current interface is great, but the new one is going to be amazing. It’s fully customizable, so what you’re about to see below (click for something bigger) is just one of the many possible combinations that you can set up depending on your needs.

I’m really excited about the new system, but the current one is great too. I’m thinking when the new system comes out I’ll do lessons on various subjects for multiple people at reduced rates. That sounds like a lot of fun, anyways.

Getting Taught Japanese by Koichi

So, I’m going to start tutoring people via eduFire. I’ve already started, and so far it’s buckets of fun. I do have other things to do besides this, though, so I’ll only be able to accept a certain number of students (that means get in soon!). What makes me different from other tutors on eduFire? Let me tell you:

1. You (kind of) know me. I’m not (entirely) some random person you’re asking to tutor you. If you’re reading this blog, I’m already less mysterious (and hopefully less scary) than someone you don’t entirely know. Plus, I’m friendly :)
2. I really do go the extra mile. Unless you specifically tell me otherwise, I’ll make homework and work/reference sheets for you. Comes with the one hour session you get. And, they really are just for you. If I think you need to work on something specific, I’ll focus some worksheets on that, just for you. Heck, I’ll even record my voice to help you practice if you need it. I’m really happy to go as far as possible to make sure you are learning Japanese.
3. Email me with questions, whenever. If you’re my student, you get first priority on Japanese related questions. I’ve got lots of emails that come in, but yours will always rise to the top. That’s customer service, right there.

So really, why are you waiting? If you’ve always wanted to learn Japanese, but never knew where to start, I’m now available! If you’ve wanted to learn any other language as well, there’s tons of other tutors doing the same thing, and doing a good job. I really look forward to working with all of you! Here is my eduFire profile, which contains all the information you’d ever want to read. You should at least sign up for an account. I believe new sign-ups get a free lesson, though don’t quote me on that. You’ll have to find that out on your own.

Not tired of shameless self promotion quite yet? Then check out this vid as well.

Related posts:

1. Japanese Language Cheatsheet for Travelers
2. How to NOT find a Japanese language partner