6 Ways italki Can Help You Succeed in Your School Language Classes

School is about to start! For many people, it has already started. Across the world, students from kindergarten through university are beginning language lessons. Some of them will reach proficiency in the language being taught, and many won’t. The fact is, most students who successfully learn a language don’t do it through school alone. After all, learning takes consistent practice and motivation that a few hours a week in a big group of other students can’t always provide. For those who are serious about learning their target language, italki is the perfect complement to school instruction. With the right planning and communication between you and your italki teacher, school language classes and one-on-one italki instruction are a match made in heaven!

Here are six ways that you can use italki to help yourself (or your child) rise to the top of the class.

1. Use italki to form a personal connection with the language.

The first language I ever tried to learn was Spanish. I took four years of classes in middle school and high school, but I’m ashamed to say that I barely learned how to count to ten. How did this happen? Well, I was young and had never met a native Spanish speaker before. I didn’t have a reason to learn, and I didn’t care. 

Italki offers you the opportunity to connect with friendly and engaging people who speak your target language as their mother tongue and are happy to cheer you on. Finding the right italki teacher can give you something that no book can teach: Motivation.

2. Spend some time during every lesson summarizing what you’ve learned at school to your italki teacher.

Summarizing what you’ve learned can help it stick in your memory. Simply tell your teacher that you would like to spend some time every lesson explaining what you’ve learned in your school class. He or she will be happy to help.  

If you have a young child who might not be able to explain things like grammar, you can have them hold up their textbook for their teacher to see. They can point to the pictures and say the words and sentences, sing the songs, and read the stories.

3. Make a list of vocabulary and sentence structures from your school class, and try to use them all during your italki lesson. 

Before the start of your italki lesson, get out a piece of paper and write down the key vocabulary words and sentence structures you’ve learned at school. Put that paper on the desk next to you during your italki class. Try to slip the words and phrases into your conversation with your teacher. Every time you successfully use a word or phrase, cross it off the list. Can you use them all?

4. Use what you’ve learned to interview your teacher.

Let your teacher know you’d like to interview them at the start of each lesson. Before the class, write down a list of ten questions that use the vocabulary and sentence structures you’re learning at school. If you are learning about the present perfect in the classroom, you can ask your teacher a series of “Have you ever….?” questions. If your child is learning fruit and vegetable vocabulary, you can help them prepare to ask their teacher if they like apples, bananas, onions, and so on. This exercise is especially useful, because often times in traditional classrooms, the teacher is the one asking their questions while the students only get to practice how to answer.  

5. Use italki to activate your foreign language brain before the test.

Studying is great, but if you can get your brain thinking in your target language, that’s even better. If you know that you’re going to have a test at school, why not have a lesson on italki early in the morning before school starts? That way, when the teacher hands out the test papers, your target language will be awake and active in your brain. A major benefit of italki is that you can find a teacher at any time of the day, even at five or six in the morning.

6. Ask your teacher to create customized study materials based on your school textbook.

Some italki teachers will be more than happy to create custom material for you to help you practice the content of your school textbook in class. You can simply send them photos of the pages you are studying. Just be aware that this will take your teacher extra preparation time. Some teachers might refuse or ask you to pay a higher price for the lesson. Look for teachers who advertise themselves as being willing to create custom content, or who have special packages available aimed at helping students. Perhaps some teachers who are willing to help you in this way will even comment at the bottom of this article, so that you can find them more easily.

I’m sure I’m speaking for everybody at italki when I say that I wish all students a happy and productive 2025-2026 school year. Hopefully, this can be the year you take your language learning to the next level.