It has become almost trendy and fashionable to carry out language training online. At Elite Learning this is one of the services that we offer.
If we go back a few years, we will find that going on a language course necessarily entailed physically travelling to the language school, or transporting the trainer to where the learners are. This is now no longer the case.
Allow me to create a scenario…a group of colleagues from different departments within a company all need to improve their English.
One option would be the following: find a language school that is willing to send a trainer a couple of times a week, find a free boardroom to hold the sessions in, prepare books or photocopies, have a flip-chart or whiteboard at the ready, clear participants’ calendars and keep fingers crossed that the trainer will manage to arrive on time – depending on weather conditions, road conditions, public transport running on time, no illness.
Another option: send all the participants an email containing the link to a virtual classroom, set a date and time that is suitable to everyone, irrespective of whether the participants are at their work desks or not (thus ensuring that even if people are abroad on business trips, or working from home, they can join the lesson irrespectively), and you’re set.
By means of this example I have demonstrated that although we all know the extreme benefits of face-to-face learning, online learning can really make our lives easier, allow people to practice their English and improve their linguistic skills, without having to worry about where they are physically. I have found that learning a language online can be beneficial, since there is less stress associated with the actual setting up of a session. This is a great way of bridging the gap created by time zones and the fact that people who require similar training may not be in the same place at the same time.
I have not gone into the financial benefits of online training, since I think that it is obvious to everyone that online language training is naturally cheaper than face-to-face training. That said, online language learning, in my opinion, should be used when face-to-face training is not an option. It will be a clear-to-all, non-negotiable fact that the benefits of hands-on face-to-face learning are by far greater than online learning can ever be. However when there is a need for language training and the face-to-face model is not an option, thanks to technology, we now have a very feasible alternative.