I think it’s weird that people will come here looking only for free lessons. I mean, I know that the free lessons are usually a taster and the hope is that the students will become paying students, but it seems like if I set up a class that is free then If I allocate 30 seats, it’ll be easy to fill it (even though only 5 will turn up). But, if I have a small token sum, like $6 for 75 mins, people run from that. I have had people tell me that they would NOT by any means pay for a lesson!

Think about the real world though, the offline world! It’s expected that you will PAY for any lesson that you take… why is it such a stretch for people to apply that to the internet??

Also, I’m doing a favour to those who pay $6 for 1.25 HOURS of lesson! It’s a bargain! grrr

anyway,

i guess that’s a bit of a vent

thanks for listening!

tom

I completely agree, Tom, you have all of my understanding!!!

I guess my concern is this …. if you’re not a marketing genius, how the heck does one make money when it seems that there are so many tire kickers? I mean, if people only want to gobble up the free and not ever pay for anything (which would not be the expected actions of a person committed to learning a language), then how to make money here? I guess a well paid job is a prerequisite for using edufire to make money lol!

Anyway, enough from me for now

@monica, thanks for the understanding, although, i did come to your free class ;) lol

grazie! tom

I know you did and i really appreciated that and your feedback!!! I meant i gave a free lesson nto which 16 people registred and only 6 turned up!!!

Tom…. there was a discussion about this topic (no shows, paid classes and other interesting points) in a thread not so long ago (2541 views, 188 pages)…. better grab a coffee, you’ll have 8 pages to read! :P

http://edufire.com/forums/2-tutor-talk/topics/2964-a-bit-disturbing-i-might-say

In my personal opinion there is only one way to create more paying students: convince people to study only two/three topics. If they think they can study everything they will end up following any free courses on any possible topics that interest them at least a bit, and they will have no time to cultivate a true interest. If you have no real passion, you are not willing to pay.

Well said Marzia…. I’m afraid that class tourists will never pay for classes…. because they register in all kinds of courses! :D

And Tom… here’s another thread for you to read:

http://edufire.com/forums/1-the-fireside-chat/topics/3201?page=1

What if…..
students could only take one free class per month ….
or
tutors could only give one free class per month ….
or
there were no free classes at all …..
and
every student registering for a class or individual session had to pay at the time when they booked the class / session
?
just dreaming :)

Mair…. I would have never checked this site if there would have been only/almost only paid classes. My paypal account didn’t work, this site is not too simple to navigate, and so on.
I knew the Japanese tutors that give free lessons at hours that I can attempt to attend and decided who was worth my money. OK, in real world you have always to pay. But this is the net. People can download courses, books, videos, movies, whatever. Sometimes legally, sometimes not.

The truth? There should be different student orientations, as there are different tutor orientations.
An orientation to use the platform and paypal to pay, ok.
An orientation to help in deciding which topic to study and to motivate to study only two or three topics, maximum. When people will be done with the very basics (free courses are almost only for beginners) people will start pretending a bit more. And if they indeed want something, they can be willing to pay.

The point is that in this eduFire the fire of passion is often missing.
There is the pale light of scarce interest, the mild wind that brings you from a subject to another.
We need burning fire.
And the staff, first than tutors and students, should help this fire to burn. It won’t work on its own. I can make all the efforts I want, but they won’t be very useful.

Yes, that’s right!

So if 12 people register for a free class and 3 or 4 turn up, then they are the ones who are interested. They are the ones worth spending time on, and *they are the ones who will come when it requires some financial commitment on their part.

It is so very easy for casual users to come here and get what they want – instant satisfaction. They sign up, they enrol in a free class, and hey presto, they’re learning.

But, people get addicted to the mentality that things such as the highly educated and professional tutors’ time should come for free! Yet, there is a premium attached to such attention offline! I guess people just disconnect from reality when they log on to the internet. They don’t see it as the same. If someone has an English Lesson in London with Tom in his house or office, that’s real, if the same person has a consultation online from their home in Hanoi with the same tutor Tom, it’s less real! How can we lessen this unspoken elephant-in-the-room type stigma?

Thanks
tom

Well Tom…. it all depends on the clientele…. I have my own business (both in real-life and online) and I don’t encounter such problems…. my trainees on the net don’t expect anything free because they’re serious and they have a purpose…. people who aren’t and don’t have a good reason don’t contact me (I don’t hide my hourly rate – which isn’t cheap! – so they know what to expect).

Expertise comes with a price tag! :P

I think that maybe the secret is to teach towards some exam or other. I know it shouldn’t be like that but personally I find it much easier to motivate myself to work towards a goal with a certificate at the end of it. In real life, I coach for the UK GCSE and A level exams and my students always turn up and work hard too. I just need to make that transfer to here somehow and probably widen my offering to American exams. I do think there is something wrong with the number of free classes here though – it just adds to the impression that internet is free and I do think we need to get away from that if the site is to be profitable…. still dreaming :)

Wrote an article (more like an essay) on where paying students come from

Talks about where paying students exist, how the successful students get them, and so on. Would love to hear your opinions, experiences and responses!

That’s an absolutely excellent article Koichi. Must try harder to get off my *^%$ and do something more inventive than complaining :)

Michael!…. what could I add to your comment?…. ;D Once again, it comes down to a suggestion I made a couple of months ago (and repeated more than once): eduFire needs two clusters…. one for the free classes and the classes tourists and one for the serious crowd expecting something out of the paid classes they attend…. pas sorcier! :) Smile!!!

P.S. Come to Ottawa, we have many sandy beaches around here!!!

I have said before that I fully support the idea of free classes for certain target audiences and purposes.

The functioning and validity of free classes does depend on what the classes are for.

There are many classes where people can drop in and pick up some knowledge and actually gain benefit.

However, a lot of the topics taught here are language and skill related and require learning in steps to ensure that the grounding is solid. It is not realistic for people to drop in and out of classes and expect to learn.

There is the issue of class tourists, people who register for everything and do not turn up most of the time. To me they are much more of a problem than people wanting things for free. They make it hard to plan for a target audience and impossible to arrange follow up.

And then we have the lets love edufire people. Fair enough, edufire provides many good things, a community (a meeting place for people with like interests), resources -flashcards, videos, groups. But this stream of unfiltered love does nothing to improve a community, in this case it does not even fill the collection plate.

People are paying on the internet for online teaching, it is not new, though the idea may be new to many people who have just started exploring learning materials online.

What should you do while you are here, hmmm, that is harder, maybe explain to people more about what they will get out of paid classes. It is difficult (technically) for a potential customer to phone you up and ask about your teaching style. What about the ones who have no intention of paying. I don’t see them as a problem, they were never going to be part of your audience or class.

If you are complaining about why won’t people pay I have to ask why are you trying to earn money on a site where most of the audience want something for free.

If you are saying there should be two groups of classes, two different sections of edufire then I agree, a free area and a clearly paid area.

Don’t hold your breath while waiting, that would require some decisions.

@Philip and Michael…. you guys are irresistible (BTW, did I tell you lately that I do looooooooooove you? :P)….

And (on a more serious note) here we go again: two clusters !!! I won’t hold my breath (in case it could be my last!)…. I want to go to my Ottawa sandy beaches this summer! :D

Isn’t it funny how all my free classes had always some partecipant and now that i am asking to be paid for it, nobody has enrolled??? I am happy i gave the free lessons (and i think in time i will keep giving some) because students got to know me and i got some nice feedback to put on my profile, and this helped me creating some reputation, but it would have been nice to get also some students!! never mind, I will not give up and keep on trying!

Hi Monica! Absolutely don’t give up. There are students out there willing to pay so it is just a question of marketing yourself outside of eduFire also and bringing them in. These things take time but you will be gradually building up a student base and being successful.

Good work Monica, keep going, it is sometimes hard in the face of apathy and a reluctance to pay.

I have met some really nice people through my free classes, some might choose to pay later, many really can’t afford to, but their feedback is useful and I learned from them. The free classes helped me develop class content.

I know that the experienced teachers are not dependent on that level of feedback because they have already have their teaching methods formulated/ set in place.

I regard the free classes as an information exchange, pretty close I think to one of the ideals of Edufire. I have to admit failure in my attempts to structure my free classes to appropriate levels. On my last try still ended up with people not reading the class descriptions or joining all levels of my classes. I don’t have that problem on another platform, there I selectively invite people to attend.

On edufire I have moved to delivering broadcast classes, basically I deliver content that is useful, and ask the participants to examine the material I am showing them. But the participants are limited to text responses and questions, which I try to answer by voice and using the Class notes facility.

Not an ideal arrangement but at least I don’t have to worry about technical failures such as people not being able to get their microphone to be heard.

I would still like to see more control of access so that I could select class members at the same level. I think that would lead to more free class people moving to paid classes in specific areas / topics.

I believe that people not being willing to pay, no matter how good your class is or how much they liked a free first class, is a fundamental flaw with edufire. Because of the availability of complete courses that are free (even if not in the same subject area), edufire is attracting a lot of students who can’t pay, but also the people who could pay are brainwashed into thinking that classes should be free or that their desired subject area will appear as a free class if they just wait long enough.

With a lot of effort I have now managed to get Latin and Esperanto classes going, even though people should be happy to pay minimum price. Still I sell more classes on Myngle for € 18 an hour than I sell here for $5 an hour. The student crowd is just completely different there, and none of them think they can get unlimited freebies.

Myngle have a different business model to eduFire and that’s ok. We’re not the same. If I had $5 for every new teacher that joined eduFire and said they tried Myngle and didn’t like it, I could afford something real nice. :))

The students here are not ‘one’ crowd and sure, there are those that only want free stuff. But there are also those that are willing to pay, hey even some that “only” want free classes sometimes pay. Check out the teachers with scores of sessions to see they aren’t short of paying students.

My advice is to read Koichi’s genius posts on marketing and the ‘free’ business model. It gives great insight in to not worrying about eduFire’s crowd, or Myngle’s crowd…. no, it’s about creating your own crowd, and there lies the secret!

Hmmm…. every teacher should create his/her own crowd…. but if eduFire would give a boost to it…. both teachers and eduFire would gain a lot! ;)
I know, everyone I know from the staff is advertising eduFire. But for the few things I can see, there are many single actions made by individuals. And not so many policies kept as a whole community.
Maybe I am wrong, this is what I can see from my iMac, without investigating too much.

I’m not advertising eduFire, just advertising that, like anywhere, online and face-to-face, some teachers have their own paying crowd, whether it’s solely through eduFire or using eduFire as part of their business, and others don’t. So it’s simply about finding out what the successful ones do differently.

I like your idea/observation that individuals do things and perhaps the whole community could do something where everybody would benefit. I think you’re on the right track.

I’m working to attract spanish students to edufire. Once the students are here, I’ll get my share of the pie also.

Yes, I know its double work, a) for edufire, b) and then for me. But, I’m gladly doing it.

I’m not going to wait for students knocking at my door.