Videoconferencing tools, like Skype, etc., are being increasingly used in language education worldwide. Despite assumed socio-affective and pedagogical benefits of using webcams in synchronous online language lessons, such as the feeling of copresence or the possibilities of non-verbal communication, little is known about attitudes held by experienced online teachers towards webcams and their actual use of this tool during private online language lessons. This study interviews 20 experienced online language tutors and 20 adult students about their attitudes towards webcams and their use of webcams. The findings suggest that most teachers and students only used webcams at the start of their lessons for socio-affective reasons and discontinued the use of webcams after the first 2À3 weeks. Some common reasons for reducing the use of webcams were the perception of 'webcamming' as a more tiring mode, the feeling of self-consciousness and privacy concerns. The study calls for more research on the use of webcams, webcam-specific semio-pedagogical skills and suggests directions of future studies.

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Private tutoring is a common and worldwide phenomenon. However, there is a dearth of up-to-date research on private tutoring compared with that on institutional one-to-one teaching, which could be explained by challenges associated with data collection. This article proposes using publicly available online advertisements of private tutors as a method of acquiring data on private tutoring practices. It describes a two-stage study which employed this technique to investigate private tutoring practices in Moscow city. The first stage of the study looks at the subjects which are commonly offered for tuition in Moscow city, and the second part qualitatively analyses 32 profiles of top-ranking tutors in order to identify potential attributes of a 'high-ranking' tutor. The particular focus is made on the demographics and self-presentation style of private tutors in Moscow. The findings show that while the majority of tutoring services in Moscow seem to target school students preparing for the Unified State Examination, the most frequently offered subject is English for Speakers of Other Languages, possibly due to a larger target clientele (both school students and adult learners). Other findings include a difference in self-presentation style between two groups of private tutors: those who offer schoolcurriculum subjects, and those who tutor foreign languages.

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