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**** The Solo Sensei Newsletter - Volume 11 ****
September 26th, 2002
4972 Readers Japan-wide
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You are receiving this newsletter as part of your membership in FindaTeacher.Net. If needed, see remove instructions below.
IN THIS ISSUE
1. FindaTeacher.Net / SenseiSagasu.com News
2. Site Upgrades
A. Current Number of Browsing Students Displayed
B. Browse Page Revamped
C. Advanced Search Added
3. Will My Photo Appear on the Top Browse Page?
4. Tattle and Earn 5000 Yen!
5. Refresh and WIN
A. Longman's - "How to Teach Pronunciation" (3)
B. Oxford's - "English for Primary Teachers" (3)
6. More Helpful Tips
7. Purpose of the Solo Sensei Newsletter
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1. FindaTeacher.Net / SenseiSagasu.com News
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Teacher activity is up. Between 60 and 170 teachers log in daily to refresh/update/maintain their findateacher.Net record. Photo's are flowing in at higher rates that ever. Thanks for helping keep findateacher.Net in good shape.
Recent changes have made it easier and faster for students to browse for teachers, as a result, the increase in student/teacher introductions continues. Currently, between 40 - 125 teachers' contact information is being sent out daily. Since the last Solo Sensei (this newsletter) over 2200 teachers contact info has been sent to students. We hope you were among them.
Until recently, mostly individual students (and some language schools) had been using SenseiSagasu.com (the student side of findateacher.Net). Recently though, businesses are increasingly turning to SenseiSagasu.com's live database of ready-to-teach teachers for corporate classes. The top 3 responses from corporate clients as to why they use SenseiSagasu.com were: "cost effectiveness", "no middle men" and "ease of use".
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2. Site Upgrades
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Several major changes have been made to SenseiSagasu.com's browse page:
http://findateacher.net/cgi-bin/tsearchJS.cgi
A. Current Number of Browsing Students Displayed
The first noticeable change is the red number showing the number of students currently looking for a teacher. You'll notice students are browsing 24 hours/day.
B. Browse Page Revamped
* Students are now asked to type in the names of up to 5 places in which they would like to find a teacher (instead of only one place at a time as before).
* 10, 20, 50 or 100 summary records can be viewed at once (compared with only 10 previously).
* The full size teacher photo can also be viewed on this page if desired (instead of just the small Mona Lisa image). To see this, click the small box that says "Display Photos" (in Japanese)
C. Advanced Search Added
Advanced search is a powerful, time-saving, entertaining (?) tool for students looking for specific teachers. Now students can search for teachers according to:
* Age (or age range)
* Price (or price range)
* Gender
* Whether the record has a photo or not
* Country of origin
* Lesson type(s) offered
* Day(s) of the week lessons are offered
OR
* Any combination of these
So...if you know a prospective student in Shinjuku-ku looking for a Male, Canadian, French language teacher between the ages of 20 and 40 charging between 2000 and 3500 yen for a 1 hour private lesson on Sunday - let them know about SenseiSagasu.com. If they already know...tell them that their search just became a whole lot easier.
All of the changes just noted can be viewed at (Japanese):
http://findateacher.net/cgi-bin/tsearchJS.cgi
The former SenseiSagasu.com browsing method in English is still available at:
http://findateacher.net/cgi-bin/tsearchJSE.cgi
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3. Will My Photo Appear on the Top Browse Page?
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Most, but not all submitted photos, appear randomly on the top browse page (just mentioned).
If the findateacher.Net staff deems a photo inappropriate for some reason, we block the photo from appearing on the initial search page. However, 100% of submitted photos appear in the teacher records.
Reasons for photos being blocked from the top page include: poor photo quality, inappropriate content, group shots, photos of non-humans, or graphics depicting something other than the teacher.
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4. Tattle and Earn 5000 Yen!
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By answering our survey and/or telling us when a school contacts you, you could earn 5000 yen. Why? Well...
As you may or may not know, schools and matching services are increasingly using findateacher.Net to locate staff. This is fine with us BUT the price for schools/matching services to purchase teacher contact information is 15,000 yen (the individual student price is 3800 yen).
Weekly, we learn of a school or two that somehow didn't notice that the price was 15,000 yen (even though it is clearly displayed three times before the purchase can be made) so they accidentally pay only 3800 yen. When we contact them to ask for the remaining 11,200 yen, they usually pay up.
Anyway...we have a strong feeling this is happening more than we are aware. So we thought that if you would be willing to help us by letting us know if/when a school contacts you, we'd be happy to give you 5000 yen of the balance when we collect. That is, if that school happens to be one that "accidentally" underpaid.
Of course we would never reveal our sources to the underpaying school in question.
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5. Refresh and WIN
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A. 3 teachers will win Longman's "How to Teach Pronunciation" (w/CD) by Gerald Kelly (retail value 4100 yen). This book offers a straightforward intro to pronunciation teaching theory in the classroom. Presents techniques for teaching vowels, consonants, stress, intonation and fluent, connected speech. So don't just sit there unguidedly making funny noises....give this book a try.
B. Oxford University Press is giving away 3 copies of "English for Primary Teachers" (by M. Slattery & J. Willis, 3500 yen). This book/CD set provides advice and techniques for primary English teachers and encourages learners to use more English in the primary classroom.
To qualify for the prizes above, refresh your record in the findateacher.Net database (by logging in and clicking "Refresh") then email us at prize@FindaTeacher.Net. Include your postal mailing address and name of the prize you are most interested in winning.
Congratulations to last month's 5 lucky winners!
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6. More Helpful Tips
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A. Now that students can do an Advanced Search by the "Days of the week" a teacher is available - please be sure that the schedule you have displayed is your *real* schedule (not your schedule as it was (e.g.) 6 months ago when you first signed up).
B. Avoid getting yourself permanently auto-deleted by:
* NOT charging a higher price/hour than you have written in your record after meeting the student
* SHOWING UP for scheduled appointments with students
* NOT intentionally having more than one record for yourself in the findateacher.Net database
* NOT writing contact information in your "Comments" section (or any other inappropriate section of your record).
C. If you get multiple emails in one day informing you that you have been chosen by several different students, don't panic and put yourself on "Break" immediately. Wait until you see how many of those students actually contact you. Sometimes they don't.
D. As mentioned above, if you are listed in only 1 place, consider adding more places for greater exposure (to learn how see: http://findateacher.Net/solosensei/volume5.html)
E. Forgotten passwords can be retrieved from the findateacher.Net homepage:
http://www.findateacher.Net
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7. Purpose of Solo Sensei Newsletter
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The purpose of Solo Sensei Newsletter (this newsletter) is to:
* Provide updated statistics on the findateacher.Net / SenseiSagasu.com websites
* Detail any changes / activities of interest to teachers / students
* Provide you with info to help you improve your on-line findateacher.Net record so that you can get more students (and income)
Solo Sensei Newsletter is sent out on an irregular schedule (only when we have something to report). Solo Sensei Newsletter is proud *not* to bombard you with repetitive advertisement-like "articles". Past issues can be viewed at:
http://findateacher.Net/archive.html