Languages

How to prepare for your first italki lesson

By Ren · Updated October 20, 2026

A trial lesson is short, and most of its value is decided outside it: by the message you send beforehand and the notes you write afterwards. This is how to prepare for your first italki lesson when you have been studying alone.

What a trial lesson actually is

According to italki's help centre, a trial "usually involves the discussion of your learning needs, the demo of the teaching style, the teaching materials and the suggested frequency of learning." Four jobs in half an hour. If the tutor has to dig out your needs, the teaching demo gets whatever is left. Send them in advance.

Before you book: three checks on the profile

italki lists more than 30,000 teachers. Three things on a profile matter more than the star rating.

1. Professional Teacher or Community Tutor. Professional Teachers have training as educators and/or extensive professional teaching experience and can provide materials and structured lesson plans. Community Tutors provide conversation practice. Plenty of input and no speaking: a Community Tutor may be enough. No clear order to your study: look for structure.
2. The lesson description. Professional Teachers normally have materials such as textbooks, PDFs and slides. If the description is vague, ask.
3. The "Smart Lesson" label, if you want italki's automatic lesson summary. It only works with teachers who allow audio recording.

Browse the teachers for your language and compare three profiles. At booking, choose italki Classroom over the Teams, FaceTime or Zoom options some teachers offer. The summary and recording are Classroom features, and the platform cannot be changed once booked. Slot times are shown in your italki timezone, so check that setting first. Pick a slot more than a day away, so your message gets read and you can still reschedule.

The message to send before the lesson

The help centre recommends sharing your preferences, your level and "where you want to be", and suggests messaging the teacher directly about your goals and study plans. Neither page offers a format.

The hard part is the level. Studying alone is mostly reading and listening, so a self-learner often reads well and speaks badly, and a single label such as "A2" misleads either way. The CEFR self-assessment grid rates listening, reading, spoken interaction, spoken production and writing separately. Two of its lines work as they stand:

• A2 reading: "I can read very short, simple texts."
• A1 spoken interaction: "I can interact in a simple way provided the other person is prepared to repeat or rephrase things at a slower rate of speech and help me formulate what I'm trying to say."

Template

Hello [name], I've requested a trial lesson on [day]. Some background before we meet:

Goal: [what you want to do in the language] by [when].
So far: [months] of self-study with [book / app / course]. No lessons before.
Level: reading [A1/A2/B1], listening [ ], speaking [ ]. [Where speaking breaks down.]
For this lesson: how you would teach [goal], and corrections on a short self-introduction.
Corrections: please stop me and let me try again, and type the correct version in the chat.
English: [as little as possible / only for grammar].
Please avoid: [for example, a whole lesson of free chat].
Recording (optional): may I record the lesson for my own review?

Thank you, [your name]

Filled in

For an example learner of Spanish with a trip coming up:

Hola Lucía, I've requested a trial lesson on Thursday. Some background before we meet:

Goal: a two-week trip to Mexico in May without switching to English.
So far: 10 months alone with a textbook and a flashcard app. No lessons before.
Level: reading about A2. Listening and speaking A1: I need people to slow down, repeat, and help me find words.
For this lesson: how you would prepare someone for a trip, and corrections on a one-minute self-introduction.
Corrections: stop me and let me try again; type the correct version in the chat.
English: only if I'm stuck.
Please avoid: the weather for the whole lesson.

Gracias, Sam

The night before: ten minutes, not two hours

• Test the Classroom on italki's demo page, in a supported browser (Chrome or Edge 116+, Firefox 76+, Safari 16+). A setup page before each lesson tests microphone, camera and speakers.
• Headphones and a charged computer. italki strongly recommends headphones and a microphone, and its troubleshooting page suggests a computer over a phone, and closing Zoom, Teams and other apps that use audio and video.
• A 60-second self-introduction, written out and read aloud twice. It is the material for the correction round (ways to rehearse it alone).
• Three questions for the tutor (next section) and five rescue phrases:

What to do in the trial lesson: a 30-minute plan

italki's blog describes the usual first lesson as introductions, your goals, a level check through conversation, then how the teacher can help. With your message sent, that goes quickly, leaving time for a sample of real teaching.

1. What would my first ten lessons look like?
2. How will you correct me, and how will I keep the corrections?
3. What should I do before the next lesson?

A sequence, a specific way of correcting and a concrete task mean the tutor is planning. "We'll see" three times means conversation practice: fine if that is what you want, a poor fit if your study needs structure.

How to ask for corrections you will notice

The correction you are least likely to notice is the most natural one. You say "Ayer voy al mercado." The tutor replies "Ah, ¿ayer fuiste al mercado? ¿Qué compraste?" Your verb has been fixed, inside a question that sounds like agreement. That is a recast: your sentence repeated correctly, and the conversation moves on.

In Lyster and Ranta's 1997 study of 18.3 hours of lessons in four primary-level French immersion classrooms, teachers showed "an overwhelming tendency" to use recasts despite their "ineffectiveness at eliciting student-generated repair". Elicitation, metalinguistic feedback, clarification requests and repetition got students fixing their own errors more often. Those were children in classrooms, so treat it as a reason to ask, not as proof.

• "Stop me and let me try again." Elicitation: the tutor signals, you produce the fix.
• "Type the correct version in the chat." The Classroom has a chat panel. What is typed survives the lesson; what is said mostly does not.
• "Keep a list for the last five minutes." For fluency practice.

To ask in the language itself:

• Spanish: Cuando me equivoque, pare y déjeme intentarlo otra vez.
• French: Quand je fais une erreur, arrêtez-moi et laissez-moi réessayer.
• Korean: 제가 틀리면 바로 알려 주시고, 다시 말해 볼 기회를 주세요.

The notes to take afterwards

Within the hour, spend 15 minutes on this:

Date / tutor / Lesson ID:
Corrections (up to 5): I said … → better: …
New words (up to 5), each in a sentence from the lesson:
One pattern the tutor noticed:
Change for next time:
Tutor, 0–3 each: corrected as I asked __ / let me talk __ / proposed a plan __

Keep the Lesson ID: a guarantee claim needs it. Corrections go on the mistakes page of your notebook, and the new words become flashcards with sentences.

italki's Lesson Summary does part of this automatically after lessons in italki Classroom: topics, vocabulary and grammar, in Spanish, French and Korean among other languages. Both you and the teacher must allow lesson audio recording, which happens only in the web version of the Classroom; italki keeps the audio and may use third-party AI tools on its transcript to produce the notes. Error corrections are for italki Plus subscribers only, so treat the summary as a check on your notes, not a replacement.

Video recording is separate: it works in Chrome, Edge or Firefox, both people must agree, and the WEBM file stays on your own computer. The community guidelines say to get written consent before recording anyone, which is why the question is in the message.

After the trial: deciding, and what to book next

• Compare like with like. Same message and notes template for all three trials. Compare the scores out of 3, not how pleasant it felt.
• If it went badly or the teacher did not show up, claim the guarantee within 48 hours with the Lesson ID and your reasons, before confirming the lesson. Trials bought with vouchers are not covered. Either side can also file a "Lesson incomplete" request within 72 hours.
• Rating and review differ. The star rating is anonymous; the written review is public and cannot be edited, so write it once you have decided.
• One regular lesson before a package. Packages of 5, 10 or 20 lessons are prepaid and valid for six months, and the teacher and lesson length cannot be changed once scheduled. A trial shows the tutor's opening; a regular lesson shows an ordinary week. Every teacher offers 60-minute single lessons, and some also offer 30, 45 or 90.

When one tutor clearly scores higher, book one regular lesson with them and fill in the same notes afterwards.

Regular lessons go better with a set task. Language Hacking Spanish and Language Hacking French tie into italki: according to the publisher (Spanish, French), each of the 10 units ends in a speaking mission you can share on italki's Language Hacking community, and the audio is free in the Teach Yourself Library app. Ask the tutor to run that week's mission as the lesson.

Special cases

• Complete beginners. The A1 line above describes someone ready for a lesson, provided the tutor slows down and helps. One learner on italki's forum: "I waited until I felt I could have a basic conversation before I contacted a teacher. I regret this massively."
• Korean. Learn Hangul first (a weekend is enough) so you can read corrections in the chat. italki's language test has no Korean, so your message is the tutor's only advance guide to your level.
• Exams. Look for the Test Preparation lesson category, and put the exam and date in the goal line.