What to Consider Before Buying Kaplan Tutoring Sat

What to Consider Before Buying Kaplan Tutoring SatKaplan tutoring sat is a software package that is very widely available on the internet. This software can be purchased for as little as $75 USD. It is essential that you know how to use it to make sure you are getting the best possible results from it. There are several points that need to be considered when you want to buy tutoring software from the internet.The first thing you need to consider is if you will actually be using the tutoring software with your tutor. The Kaplan tutoring sat comes with a full license to use. This means that you can use it with anyone that you wish and as long as they are using the program.When it comes to purchasing a license, the most popular way to do this is to use the Kaplan review site. You can find reviews on the software and discuss it with others. If you feel uncomfortable talking about it then you may want to turn to some of the other Kaplan related forums. These are also free to post in and w ill likely lead to more people wanting to talk about their experiences with the tutoring software.You can find out whether or not people are happy with the Kaplan tutoring sat. If you feel that the tutor you are getting is not getting the best results from the software, then you can complain to the other users. Kaplan will put together a report based on the complaints from their users.The first step in using tutoring software is to register your name with Kaplan. Kaplan does not provide instructions about how to register, so you need to make sure that you fill in your name and email address. This is required in order to use the software with anyone.The next thing you will need to know about the tutoring software is where to download it. This is where you will have to pay a fee for this. Most of the tutoring software on the internet come with a registration price, which will require you to buy the software or have to buy it separately.When it comes to learning how to use tutoring sof tware, there are plenty of things to consider. If you have doubts about the Kaplan tutoring sat you are considering, then you will probably have a difficult time trying to learn it. So make sure that you are not rushing into using it with your teacher before you have looked into it carefully.

How online tutoring enhances professional development of your child

How online tutoring enhances professional development of your child 0SHARESShare Today, the education industry has widely adopted online learning and distance education. Most of the schools partner with online tutoring services to facilitate their students with extra help and assistance from trained and professionally skilled online tutors. Online tutors are competent enough in their content knowledge and pedagogical skills that use effective methods which benefits lot of private and public schools and college students. High performing online tutoring programs not only focuses curriculum but targets initiation of critical thinking, problem solving and real-world investigations among the students right at the school level. Today, reputed online tutoring websites are initiated by education reformers. They target to serve every need of all the students belonging to small and big schools, colleges and learning communities with personalized tutoring. They have designed broader programs catalog that benefits student with special education, credit recovery, advanced courses, thus make them ready to meet skills of future workforce. The interactions that take place in online learning are at the heart of enhancing professional development of the students. Expanded tutoring time and initiatives to access quality online programs build high level of student’s engagement. The skillfully blended digital instructions, resources, assessments and dynamic interpersonal interaction build the sense of community. Similar to traditional classroom, online learning get boost up when online tutors actively remain involved in learning process, guiding through lessons and clarifying each instructions to the student. Frequent communications, scheduled and instant tutoring, feedback, skill checking improve student’s learning. Each of this pedagogy enhances professional development of your child. [starbox id=admin]

10 Mind-blowing Research Findings to Supercharge Your ESL Lessons

10 Mind-blowing Research Findings to Supercharge Your ESL Lessons Research Findings I presented the following 10 research findings at the Rascals Conference in St-Hyacinthe, Quebec, on June 4th, 2018. The handout is here. Get the error correction card game that I described. The PowerPoint and references are below. I have created a web version of the talk that I gave and uploaded it to YouTube so that if you missed my talk or want to share these mind-blowing findings with your colleagues, you can. I have included 9 x 2-minute discussion questions to stimulate discussion and help you supercharge the ESL pedagogy in your at your school. Please share and comment. It is difficult to improve without feedback, so please let me know how I could improve my talk. Research Findings 1. Teachers are inept and deluded (Kruger Dunning, 1999). More than 90% of teachers think that they are above average (Cross, 1977).Teachers are inept at recognizing our ineptitude because we don’t know what we don’t know and because we interpret the absence of complaints as a success.We underestimate how long it takes to learn skills we ourselves have mastered.We overestimate what our colleagues and students know. 2. Effect-size indicates that some interventions work much better than others, despite what teachers believe. Smaller class sizes (20-30 students) learn more than class sizes of about 80 (d=0.21) because smaller classes permit group work and more feedback on classroom behaviors (Hattie, 2009).Computer-assisted learning (d=0.37) is 75% more effective at improving student performance than a smaller class size because of the volume of timely feedback it can deliver (Hattie, 2009). 3. Firing 10% of the worst teachers will dramatically improve education (d=75) and stimulate the economy (Hanushek, 2011). Firing 8% of the worst teachers in the U.S. would raise the level of education to that of Finland.Replacing an average teacher with an above average teacher adds $400 000 of value to the economy every year based on calculations of derived demand. 4. Degrees and experience have no effect on teacher quality Degrees and experience have no effect on teacher quality (Hanushek, 2011).Teacher quality only improves in the first 3-5 years of a teacher’s career unless other measures are taken. 5. Teacher quality is best improved by making 3 changes to the way you teach: video-recording your teaching to watch and analyze for improvements (d=88)maximizing the clarity of your feedback by refining your instructions and explanations (d=0.75)and developing good student-teacher relationships (d=0.72) 6. Teachers routinely sabotage student learning: Using textbooks and lessons with irrelevant colour pictures compete with the text for the student’s attention and activate the wrong schema, making new information irretrievable (Harp Mayer, 1997; Mayer, Heiser, Lonn, 2001).Over-emphasizing formal registers in courses for non-fluent (100 101) learners reduces integrative motivation when those students are placed in informal social situations (Segalowitz, 1976).Prioritizing argumentation and debate in ESL reduce interest-based motivation to speak, group cohesion, and therefore group productivity (Poupore, 2014).Prioritizing argumentation instead of narratives in courses for business students leaves them unprepared for the most common business communication tasks in corporations (Jameson, 2001).Teaching the 5-paragraph essay encourages anti-scientific thinking (Berggren, 2008), and its overemphasis at college leaves students unprepared for the range of writing tasks they will face in the workplace and universityâ€"and teaching onl y the 5-paragraph essay has a deskilling effect on teachers (Moss, 2002).Failing to align objectives, instruction, and evaluation tasks reduces achievement by up to two standard deviations (Cohen, 1987). The failure to align CEGEP ESL courses is most evident in the continued use of discrete-item grammar tests and academic writing tasks to test a range of verb tenses. Academic writing contains only a high frequency of simple present verbs (Biber et al., 1999). In contrast, narrative writing tasks containing quoted speech can reliably elicit modals, simple present, present continuous, simple past, past continuous, present perfect, and future (will and be going to). 7. Disciplinary removal is ineffective at teaching the social curriculum (Skiba Peterson, 2003). The social curriculum is more effectively taught through presentation of positively framed rules, practice, and feedback, and by using colleagues to communicate expectations to students 8. Production (even silent mouthing) enhances explicit recall better than silent study (McCleod et al., 2010). Circling, underlining, and highlighting have only a small effect on explicit recall compared to saying words aloud, miming, drawing, or mouthing words. 9. Reciprocal teaching has one of the largest effects (d=74) on student learning (Hattie, 2009). Learning effectiveness pyramid Getting students to teach each other has three times the effect of smaller classes. Rather than trying to reduce the student to teacher ratio further, it is much better to get the students to take turns teaching each other by leading discussions on weekly readings. The effect comes not so much from the pedagogical skills of students but from their desire to master the material when it is their turn to teach. 10. Self-reporting grades (d=1.44) and formative exams (d=0.90) have the biggest impact on student learning of all the interventions reported in the scientific literature (Hattie, 2009). Simply getting students to predict their score on an exam makes them work harder to achieve that score. Self-reporting grades is a kind of goal setting activity that has about twice the effect size of reciprocal teaching.The second best classroom intervention imvolves giving formative exams. Getting forewarning about ones performance on an exam allows the student to concentrate on areas of weakness that were not visible to them before. PowerPoint Presentation This is an embedded Microsoft Office presentation, powered by Office Online. References Berggren, A. (2008). Do Thesis Statements Short-Circuit Originality in Students’ Writing? In Originality, Imitation, and Plagiarism: Teaching Writing in the Digital Age. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.3998/dcbooks.5653382.0001.001 Biber, D., S. Johansson, G. Leech, S. Conrad and E. Finegan (1999), Longman grammar of spoken and written English. Harlow: Pearson Education. Cohen, S.A. (1987). Instructional alignment: Searching for a magic bullet. Educational Researcher, 16, 16-20. Cross, P. (1977). Not can but will college teaching be improved? New Directions for Higher Education, 17, 1-15. Duxbury, A. R. (2008). Speaking my mind: the tyranny of the thesis statement. NCTE English Journal, 97(4). Retrieved from http://www.ncte.org/journals/ej/issues/v97-4. Hanushek, E. A. (2011). “The economic value of higher teacher quality. Economics of Education Review 30: 466-479. Harp, S. F., Mayer, R. E. (1997). The role of interest in learning from scientific text and illustrations: On the distinction between emotional and cognitive interest. Journal of Educational Psychology, 89, 92-102. Hattie, J. A. C. (2009). Visible learning: A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement. London, UK: Routledge. Jameson, D. (2001). Narrative discourse and management action. Journal of Business Communication, 476-511. Kruger, Justin; Dunning, David (1999). Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing Ones Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. American Psychological Association. 77 (6): 1121â€"1134. Mayer, R. E., Heiser, J., Lonn, S. (2001). Cognitive constraints on multimedia learning: When presenting more material results in less understanding. Journal of Educational Psychology, 93, 187â€"198. MacLeod, C. M., Gopie, N., Hourihan, K. L., Neary, K. R., Ozubko, J. D. (2010). The production effect: Delineation of a phenomenon.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 36(3), 671-685. Moss, G. (2002). The five-paragraph theme. The Quarterly, 24(3). Retrieved from https://www.nwp.org/cs/public/download/nwp_file/467/The_Five-Paragraph_Theme.pdf?x-r=pcfile_d Poupore, G. (2014). The influence of content on adult L2 learners’ task motivation: An interest theory perspective. Canadian Journal of Applied Linguistics: 17, 2: 69-90. Segalowitz, N. (1976). Communicative incompetence and the non-fluent bilingual. Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science, 8(2), 121-131. Skiba, R. Peterson, R. (2003). Teaching the social curriculum: School discipline as instruction.Preventing School Failure, 47(2), 66-72. Please follow and like us:

Do I Really Need to Know the Krebs Cycle

Do I Really Need to Know the Kreb's Cycle MCAT Medical School Admissions Since the introduction of the biochemistry section to the Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT), premedical students across the country have bemoaned its addition to the exam. As a first-year medical student who just finished my biochemistry block, I am coming to realize the importance of learning the Kreb’s cycle and other seemingly arbitrary facts. This article is intended to provide tips and tricks on how to learn and memorize some of the more complex portions of the biochemistry section of the MCAT. I also hope to provide some clinical relevance to help motivate you in studying this dense material. Memorizing biochemical pathways such as glycolysis and the Kreb’s cycle can be intimidating just based on the sheer volume of information. The key to memorizing these pathways is to first identify the important steps. These often coincide with the use of molecules such as ATP, GTP, NADH, and NADPH due to their irreversible or redox reactions. The highest yield studying comes from knowing these steps cold on your MCAT. Location also become an important factor physiologically. For example, the enzyme glucose-6-phosphatase is only found in the liver, meaning that glycogen can only be broken down in the liver. Lack of enzyme activity from glucose-6-phosphatase or glucose-1 phosphatase for example result in glycogen storage diseases such as Von Gierke’s or Pompe’s disease. These enzymes are critical for storage of glucose in glycogen or release of glucose from glycogen. There are many diseases linked to glycolysis, glycogenesis, glycogenolysis, Kreb’s cycle, urea cycle and many ot her biochemical pathways that are life threatening and require a strong understanding of how these pathways operate. After you have memorized the key points in biochemical pathways, there are a few ways to fill in the blanks and memorize the remainder of these pathways. An easy way to memorize these pathways is to find steps that make sense intuitively. For example, citrate is synthesized from oxaloacetate by the enzyme citrate synthase. A more complex example is that isocitrate converted into alpha-ketoglutarate through a dehydration reaction by isocitrate dehydrogenase. As you go through the pathways, try to use your vocabulary and understanding of structures developed in organic chemistry to make these steps more logical rather than using brute memorization. You will remember the steps better and it will reflect in your MCAT score. Finally, when all else fails utilize the memory palace! The memory palace is a favorite tool of medical students and can be found in a great Ted Talk (click here). To keep it simple, the memory palace is a way of linking words to visual cues. Typically, the person memorizing uses a place that is familiar to them such as their childhood home and mentally walks through the house as you go through the steps of memorization. For example, as you progress through each step of the biochemical pathway, you enter a room with visual cues that remind you of the molecules and enzymes linked to those. This technique is used by professionals who compete in memorization competitions and has been shown to be very effective. For example, if I was trying to memorize glycolysis, I would imagine myself at the front door of my house holding a bottle of ‘glue’ which sounds like glucose and on the front door there is a hexagonal wreath which represents the enzyme hexokinase. As I reach to knock on the door I see the number ‘6’ on the knocker which represents that my glue will become ‘glucose-6-phosphate’ when it interacts with hexokinase. I’ll stop here and let you continue to play with this technique on your own. Studying these pathways now will prove to be a great asset to you both in improving your score and when you begin medical school where you learn at a very rapid pace. Put in the time now and you will be glad you did later on! About the Author Jordan Salley is one of MyGuru's most accomplished MCAT tutors. Clickhereto learn more!

Journalists Are Not The Enemy

Journalists Are Not The Enemy via @realDonaldTrump While Trump is not the first president to criticize the media, he is the first to declare the media as the enemy of the public, and this allegation should not be ignored. After all, the definition of an enemy is a hostile force, which harms someone or something else. So is the media truly damaging the public? The media cannot directly or physically injure individuals; however, it is possible for the media to indirectly harm the public via legitimate fake news coverage. Although, there are certain fictitious news stations and publications that are exceptions, for example satirical news sources like The Onion. It is critical to note the importance of free press. After all, how would the public have found out about the President Nixon’s Watergate scandal? While the merit for free press should be prevalent, it is vital that the public should also be free to draw their own opinions of a specific news outlet and know how to determine whether or not a particular article has merit. According to Shepard Smith, a Fox News anchor, Fake news refers to stories that are created often by entities pretending to be news organizations solely to drive clicks and views based on nothing of substance. While sources such as the New York Times, NBC News, ABC, CBS, and CNN may not report favorable opinions regarding particular news, these networks are not fake news. Smith continued to defend sources, such as CNN, by stating, Its [CNN] journalists follow the same standards to which other news organizations, including Fox News, adhere.” Although slight, moderate and severe bias can be present in a news outlet, bias does not conclude whether or not a source is fake. After all, CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, and the New York Times pride themselves on constructing factual news, and these sources would not knowing hinder their organizations credibility based on blatant made-up nonsense as Smith defines fake news. There are many components that construct an accurate, transparent and trustworthy news source. Credibility is key to determining whether or not a specific source is worth listening to and believing. However, there are many factors that are attributed to a given source’s integrity. Of which, a reader should evaluate a source’s authority, accuracy, and its bias to conclude if the news outlet is indeed trustworthy. While the following criteria can assist the public in determining the quality of a news network, they do not justify calling a source fake news. 1. Authority: Obviously it holds more weight when a staff writer from the Washington Post, which has won the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting in 2008, covers a recent news event as opposed to a fitness blogger covering today’s news. Nevertheless, it is not to say that a fitness blogger cannot accurately research and craft an articulate news article; however, the fitness blogger would not have the same degree of jurisdiction as a news outlet, such as Fox News which has over twenty years of experience in news. Therefore, Fox News has a longer resume than the blogger, which would give Fox News more authority in news and politics than the blogger. 2. Accuracy: Are the facts, well, factual? Simple research can help you determine if figures and facts in an article are indeed correct. A quick way to determine if statistics in an article are factual, search for the same coverage from an opposing news source. 3. Bias: Bias has been around forever and will likely continue to be around forever, as everyone has a preconceived belief about nearly everything. While most media outlets are labelled as either liberal or conservative news, they are able to produce unbiased news. Even if a source chooses to take a slightly liberal or conservative take on a specific story, the source’s coverage can still have credibility, as they can include both views of the same issue. However, it is important that the public be able to differentiate between a story’s angle and bias. Thankfully, there are several types of bias that can be easily detected within the media. The ambiguity effect is a cognitive bias where there is a lapse in information. In the media, the ambiguity effect would be prevalent in quantities and statistics. For example, if a reporter stated that most people do not like a specific online publication, this is ambiguity effect. Instead of stating an exact or approximate figure of how many people do not like said source, the reporter used a vague term (i.e. most). The use of ambiguous terms is often used to promote a particular source’s sources or overall argument. Confirmation bias is where you agree with people who agree with you, or who have similar views as you. Confirmation bias can be present in both the general public as well as the media. It is present in the public, because people are biased toward news outlets who share the same believes as them; therefore, these individuals might be more inclined to believe a particular station’s new coverage versus a media outlet with an opposing view. However, you can easily detect confirmation bias in the media. A magazine that practices confirmation bias would likely quote like-minded sources, as opposed to sources that would contradict their content. Wording bias can exist in the media, where journalists can draw biased conclusions from leading questions during an interview. The questions themselves are not biased; however, the result of which can create bias in reporting. Wording bias can be detected in content if a journalist summarizes too much of an interaction, rather than directly quoting the source(s). Bias by omission is when a source omits the opposition’s argument and/or sources. Bias by omission can occur in a single news clip or article, or it can occur over time if a source omits the opposition’s side in multiple articles. Labeling bias takes place when a news source labels an individual or group of individuals to benefits the source’s argument. For example during the 2012 presidential election, select news outlets labeled Mitt Romney as a “snob” or an “elite”. Because of these particular labels, the public was able to develop a biased opinion of Mitt Romney. The media outlets that the POTUS has specifically accused as “fake news” are as follows: New York Times, NBC News, ABC, CBS, and CNN. All of which, are long-running news outlets. However, are they credible or are they indeed fake? According to the Pew Research Center, news outlets such as the New York Times, NBC, ABC, CBS, and CNN are all liberal media sources, based on their average viewers. Although these media sources might deliver some liberal spins on current events, according to the survey these sources are only slightly liberal, with the New York Times having the most prevalent liberal ideation out of the bunch. While too much bias is never inherently beneficial, especially in the media, the round table technique prevents any media bias from becoming overbearing. The round table technique is when members with opposing views review and comment on a topic or issue. The aforementioned method allows Fox News, a slightly conservative news source, and MSNBC, a slightly liberal source, to cover that same topic with different opinions. Ultimately, round tabling allows diversity to flourish within the media. Likewise, it is important to take into account whether an article can be categorized as a piece of opinion editorial (or op-ed). Op-ed articles are often written to portray an author’s particular opinion(s) about a matter, by disassociating that opinion from the actual publication itself. For example, my 3 Reasons The EPA is Already Great article is an op-ed, because I have expressed my personal opinions on why the U.S. EPA is a trustworthy and unbiased source for taxpayers to receive information from. While I have published this article on Uloop News, my opinion is not affiliated with Uloop News and therefore is not Uloop News’ opinion, nor is it factual even if it does quote or reference facts or factual events. While it is important to be vigilant of bias and credibility when reading the news, it is also crucial to recognize bias from the sources that criticize the media. It is a bit hypocritical that the Trump administration would out the media as an enemy of the people, or claim that specific news outlets are fake, seeing as members of the Trump administration have broadcasted their own fake news and are guilty of their own bias. During an interview with MSNBC on February 2nd, Kellyanne Conway, referenced the Bowling Green massacre, which she had claimed was an act of terrorism by two Iraqi refugees. Evidently, this massacre never occurred. Kellyanne later correct her statement, claiming that she had meant to say “Bowling Green terroists” during her interview. However, @CityofBGKY continued to revise her statement, clarifying that there was never a massacre in Bowling Green in 2011. @KellyannePolls @CityofBGKY Declinism is the ideology that an entity is declining, despite contrary evidence. Trump might think that the New York Times’ audience is on the decline; however, CEO Mark Thompson denies these allegations, by citing the 220 million individuals who accessed the publication in November 2016 alone. @realDonaldTrump Likewise, the Trump administration is guilty of bias by omission, after select liberal media sources were blacklisted from a White House press briefing on February 24th. Of the news sources barred from the non-televised briefing, BBC, CNN, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, POLITICO, New York Daily News, The Hill, the Daily Mail, and BuzzFeed appear to be the only sources that were not permitted during the meeting. While the White House has denounced rumors that the administration only barred news outlets with unsatisfactory views of the administration, the news outlets allowed into the briefing included noticeably conservative sources, such as Breitbart News, One America News Network and  The Washington Times, and Fox News. However, there were a few slightly liberal networks present at the briefing, including ABC, CBS, NBC, Bloomberg, as well as Reuters, which is not particularly biased. Though the banned press was not allowed into James S Bradys Press Briefing Room, they were allowed into White House Press Secretary Sean Spicers West Wing office. It is important to note that POTUS Trump is not the first president to prohibit a fake news source from attending a White House press event. In 2009, the Obama administration restricted Fox News from attending a briefing. Shortly after the administrations turmoil with Fox News, other media outlets with similar and opposing views proceeded to protest press briefings that excluded Fox News. Like in 2009 and 2010, the present White Houses dismissal of hand-picked news networks has resurrected a detrimental dilemma for the public. Hand-picking certain media outlets for a non-televised discussion creates media bias, as it manipulates the coverage that is permitted to be released to the public. Because Trump appears to be biased against mildly liberal news sources and is also practicing a cognitive bias himself, he is not likely a credible source to gather information from. It is beyond deplorable that POTUS Donald Trump would make the broad accusation that the media is the enemy, particularly since 1992  256 United States journalists have been killed in the name of their job, which is to gather, dissect and curate information for the general public. In addition to comprehending what is and isn’t legitimate fake news, it is important that you voice your opinions about the credibility of the media, by completing the Trump administration’s Mainstream Media Accountability Survey.

Troubles with Maths

Troubles with Maths Troubles with maths? Calm down and get yourself a maths tutor!, says one of our math tutors in Gainesville, FL. TutorZ connects you with the best math tutors nationwide for tutoring and homework help. All our tutors are qualified professionals, because we wont settle for anything less than the best when it comes to your childs education. At TutorZ you will find a good math tutor who is understanding and affirming, patient, trustworthy, and able to adapt to each childs needs.

A New Learning Challenge for 2013!

A New Learning Challenge for 2013! Hey language learners, make 2013 the year you learn a foreign language! Dont let this be another year of slow progress. No matter what level or language, we know you can make real progress at italki. In order to help you, were offering: ITALKIS JANUARY 2013 LANGUAGE CHALLENGE in partnership with OPENLANGUAGE Take 10 sessions with an italki teacher in January and receive 3 months of free language lessons from OpenLanguage. If you are serious about learning a language, this is a fantastic opportunity to get live one-on-one lessons AND access to great language learning podcasts, PDFs, and study tools. After taking the language challenge, you will definitely make progress towards becoming fluent in 2013! How hard is this to do? Last November, we ran our first italki Language Challenge. Almost 80 students pledged to take 8 lessons in 2 weeks, and more than 60 students completed the challenge. Thats roughly 80% of the students who pledged who received the prize. The bottom line is that its all up to you! Did it help people learn a language? Dont take our word for it. Here is what one student, Grant Macandrew, says: “I have been taking weekly lessons for over a year and had already planned a trip to a language school in China in December. I had been considering several lessons a week in order to prepare for the class and this [the italki November Language Challenge] motivated me to do just that. The pressure of being ready for class plus the extra hours I spent with tutors has increased my Mandarin learning and I feel more confident in being ready for the upcoming classes. I will consider 2 to 3 lessons per week in the future with italki.” If you are serious about learning a language, go to the January 2013 Language Challenge page. Take the pledge and learn a language this year! Sign up for the January 2013 Language Challenge! More about OpenLanguage: We are delighted to be working with Openlanguage to provide this amazing prize for italki students who complete the Language Challenge. OpenLanguage is designed for busy people, and allows students to learn a new language on their computer, tablet, smartphone, or even smart TV. OpenLanguage offers lessons in English, Spanish, French, Russian, Arabic and Italian. A New Learning Challenge for 2013! Hey language learners, make 2013 the year you learn a foreign language! Dont let this be another year of slow progress. No matter what level or language, we know you can make real progress at italki. In order to help you, were offering: ITALKIS JANUARY 2013 LANGUAGE CHALLENGE in partnership with OPENLANGUAGE Take 10 sessions with an italki teacher in January and receive 3 months of free language lessons from OpenLanguage. If you are serious about learning a language, this is a fantastic opportunity to get live one-on-one lessons AND access to great language learning podcasts, PDFs, and study tools. After taking the language challenge, you will definitely make progress towards becoming fluent in 2013! How hard is this to do? Last November, we ran our first italki Language Challenge. Almost 80 students pledged to take 8 lessons in 2 weeks, and more than 60 students completed the challenge. Thats roughly 80% of the students who pledged who received the prize. The bottom line is that its all up to you! Did it help people learn a language? Dont take our word for it. Here is what one student, Grant Macandrew, says: “I have been taking weekly lessons for over a year and had already planned a trip to a language school in China in December. I had been considering several lessons a week in order to prepare for the class and this [the italki November Language Challenge] motivated me to do just that. The pressure of being ready for class plus the extra hours I spent with tutors has increased my Mandarin learning and I feel more confident in being ready for the upcoming classes. I will consider 2 to 3 lessons per week in the future with italki.” If you are serious about learning a language, go to the January 2013 Language Challenge page. Take the pledge and learn a language this year! Sign up for the January 2013 Language Challenge! More about OpenLanguage: We are delighted to be working with Openlanguage to provide this amazing prize for italki students who complete the Language Challenge. OpenLanguage is designed for busy people, and allows students to learn a new language on their computer, tablet, smartphone, or even smart TV. OpenLanguage offers lessons in English, Spanish, French, Russian, Arabic and Italian.