Author: Martin Sketchley (Page 2 of 4)

An Honest Review of Preply for New Tutors

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For the past 5 years, I have been teaching on Preply and they market themselves as the leading market place which connect online language learners with potential online language tutors. However, I would like to share my experiences and offer an honest review of Preply for current and prospective tutors.

In this post, I will draw upon personal experiences and provide some more information about why I consider Preply is now placing profit above their tutors and students as well as the worrying trend that there are not as many paying students that has been claimed.

Brace yourself, this is a long read.

Going Back to Basics in the Classroom

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I have just finished a two-week intensive English course with Korean high school students that were to help them prepare for their academic studies at university. It was so nice to teach pre-intermediate to intermediate English learners as most of my students are high level. However, what I have noticed with young adult learners is the over reliance of technology and to have everything automatically translated or generated by Artificial Intelligence.

In this post, I am sharing my thoughts and reflections on getting learners less reliant on technology while also getting more comfortable and confident speaking English.

Why I’m Finally Upgrading My Sony ZV-1 in 2026

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I first purchased the Sony ZV-1, along with the Sony Handgrip, in July 2020 during the height of the pandemic with the aim of creating more dedicated video content for English teachers. This camera has helped me create around 120 videos on YouTube and I have also taken quite a lot of photos, yet I reach a stumbling block with the Sony ZV-1 for content creation.

The lack of interchangeable lenses has led to much frustration, and I have to rely upon the backscreen when taking a photo. Furthermore, when I take some talking head videos, it is a little challenging to keep myself in autofocus. I kept this little niggles to myself but it has reached a point where I find myself wishing I could have more ability to customise when setting up a photo or video, as well as changing the lenses for the shot. So where does this lead me? Getting a dedicated camera for both photography and videography.

Twenty Teaching Tips from 20 Years in the Classroom

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Well, I don’t know about anyone else but this year has flown by, and it reached the end of the year before I knew it. Therefore, I’ve written this article sharing twenty practical and personal tips that you could consider (or not) with your teaching. I hope this gives you some inspiration into how one could approach their teaching as well as their lessons.

https://youtu.be/_-Rh2tAKfFw

Five Personal Aims for the New Year

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In my previous post, I looked at what I had achieved over 2025. It was a rather long read, but in this post I am sharing five personal aims for the New Year. Obviously, most people tend to share the usual resolutions: stop smoking, improve their health, change their career. However, I am keeping my resolutions more grounded, but let’s start now.

A Review of the Year

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As it edges towards the end of another year here in South Korea, it is always a good opportunity to review 2025. As with everybody I suppose, much has happened this year personally and I have really not blogged as much as I had wanted. However, one thing that I have been working on busily is planning, filming, and editing video content for my YouTube Channel. So apologies if this website has been rather quiet of late.

Anyhow, let’s start at the beginning of the year.

The Challenge of AI and Teaching Writing Skills

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One of the courses that I teach in South Korea is a writing course to international students. Essentially, it is with this course students learn the fundamentals of planning, structuring, and writing an essay so they acquire the necessary skills to complete any future essay in their other courses. However, after delivering a course a few years ago, students were offered unfettered access to AI tools such as ChatGPT or Google Gemini, and I noticed an increase detection of AI usage with Turnitin. This obviously posed a range of challenges for educators and professors, regardless their specialism, to assess

After a few years of attempting to curtail student AI reliance or misuse, I am no where closer to where I was a few years ago, let alone establish any clear and detailed criteria to grade student written work, but I have experimented with and without the inclusion of AI. I am sharing what I have been able to establish over the past few years in relation to student writing and AI and I hope this helps anyone else that is in the same position.

Five Ways to Incorporate Newspapers in the Classroom

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Recently, I was thinking about ways to use newspaper articles in the language classroom and it reminded me of suggestions that I came across during the period of my MA studies many years ago. With the growing reliance on digital articles and webpages, it is sometimes nice to go back to basics without any smartphones, automatic translation, or AI summarising tools.

In this post, I share five ways to use newspapers in the English language classroom and how best to make such heavy reading accessible for language learners. It is notoriously challenging for learners to become accustomed to reading newspaper articles in English, let alone their first language. When I speak to my students, few of them get their news from printed articles with more reliance on short form content such as Instagram, YouTube or TikTok. Anyhow, with such ideas, hopefully it offers improved accessibility towards newspaper articles for English students.

You can watch the YouTube video above where I detail all five ways to incorporate newspaper articles in the the classroom and Channel Members will be able to access a free lesson.

How To Prepare a 25 Minute Online Trial Lesson

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In our previous post, we looked at how best to create an online teacher introduction video but the next step to potentially getting students is to prepare and deliver a quality trial lesson. It is important for potential learners to get a taste of your online teaching. In this post, I will share how to prepare a 25 minute online demo lesson to students.

You may also want to watch the following video where I share the process of preparing updated demo lesson slides for use during the initial lesson with such potential students.

For YouTube Channel members, you can access a copy of the slides that I have created for trial lessons of 25 minutes.

Complete Guide to Creating an Online Teacher Introduction Video

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For anyone who is wanting to teach English online, whether you are going to be teaching independently or for a platform, you will be required to create an introduction video. It can sometimes be a little overwhelming if you are unsure how best to create one, but in this post I will share the ultimate guide to creating an online teacher introduction video.

By following these steps in this post, you will learn how to plan, record, edit and create a professional and polished looking introduction video. I documented my process with the video above when I had to update my Preply introduction video.

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