This would be extremely useful for students, it will help them narrow down the choices when looking for the best tutor for them! Great idea! :)

Cool idea!

Great idea!!

Interesting idea. I know for students, they can set their language proficiency when they sign up and even change it later. For teachers, I don't remember having this option when signing up. It was just "set the language(s) you want to teach" or something to that effect. Being able to set your proficiency level in your teacher profile and then allowing students to search on the different levels would indeed be an awesome feature, even though not every language out there can have a "native speaker." Haha.

Great idea!! =)

I think this would greatly reduce the amount of lessons with teachers who are not native speakers of the target language.

Steven - good point that "not every language out there can have a "native speaker." " :D And I don't mean just html or php (I know that's what you had in mind, roght?) but also Esperanto or Latin... hehehehe

Indeed. I was actually thinking of Esperanto at the time..hehe.

Oh good - I was going to worry about you Steven, if you said html was your first language!

hehehe hey coming from a family of computer programmers, sometimes I feel like HTML *is* my first language :D

This may reduce the sessions for non-native speakers, but it is my right as a student to get a native speaker if I want one. So, I say a big YES.

I don't see why not. Tutors however should be reminded that they need to go back and specify this in their profile after the option is available.

I agree with Marianne. Advanced and upper intermediate students need to practice more with natives. Although I teach English, I tend to tell intermediate and advanced English students to communicate more with English Native speakers.

I agree with Liz. Currently I look through all profiles and search for native speakers but it would be easier if it was filtered for me.

Yeah, there should be a distinction. But I guess, it's redundant inasmuch as the ABOUT ME profile will show whether a tutor is a native speaker or a tutee is a beginner.

We can considered doing something like this, but since we specialize in more than languages, it isn't a high priority. For example, I don't think we have any native GMAT or Visual Basic speakers :)