I was swamped with requests for online language training - "I need to learn Spanish" or "I would like to try learning Chinese online" or simply "I want to do Rosetta Stone." As my company is going global, our employees want to learn the local languages - but they don't want to go to classes -- they want to try an online solution for learning.
ROSETTA STONE
We started by trying out Rosetta Stone. This is the language program that you see advertized in airports and on TV and in airline magazines. So we offered it as part of our corporate university, and about 40 people "signed up" for Rosetta Stone in Spanish, Chinese, Thai, and other languages.
I even tried Rosetta Stone but not for business reasons. I was going on vaction to France and I needed to learn some of the language, and the folks at Rosetta Stone gave me a free license to try (which is a good way to get me to try something). I was immediately captivated by the format they use, which is unlike any other I have seen. You are asked to pick from four possible choices in a game format, and you learn by picking the wrong choice some times (in a safe learning environment, which is critical to adult learning) and getting eventually better at picking the right one. It is fast paced and for me it seemed a great way to learn. I did it for about 10 hours or so and learned a little French with it.
How did our employees do - the 40 that we bought Rosetta Stone Licenses for? They did an average of only 1.5 hours each. Only one person spent more than 10 hours. Why did it not engage them?
First of all, it is time consuming and must be done in front of the computer. For people who are already spending most of the day in front of the computer, spending even more time is not exactly appealing. They said they liked it... but didn't have enough time. So for this group of employees it wasn't a very good use of our company's money.
And I still needed to learn French as my trip to Paris was looming!
PIMSLEUR
I decided to try Pimsleur which I had heard was a good way to learn. I loved it. Pimsleur is a completely audio program, so I could do it in my car during my commute. It taught by repetition, repetition, repetition. And the situations that were on the Pimsleur audio classes were interesting - they kept my interest. One thing that Pimsleur has done is build the stories in their programs upon each other - so Lesson Two builds on Lesson One, for example. In Lesson Two you also re-learn and re-peat everything from Lesson One. So if you believe that you can learn from Repetition... this is a great way. I learned enough French to get along well in Paris! But because it is an audio-only program, I had to learn to read French on my own, but I thought that was kind of fun because I was surprised when I arrived to see how things are spelled. Now I am very fluent in Spanish, so French wasn't too much a stretch. The next year I vacationed in Rome and Venice so I got Pimsleur for Italian and was pleasantly surprised to find that it had the same format and vocabulary/grammar lessons as French. Even the story line was the same.
Bottom Line... Pimsleur is my top choice. But it is not the cheapest good option (which is Instant Immersion, see below).
OTHER OPTIONS FOR LANGUAGE LEARNING
We decided to do an evaluation/comparision of the different online/audio language learning options, and did a pilot test of Rosetta Stone, Instant Immersion, Learn in Your Car, and Berlitz . To do the pilot we selected several employees to try them out... these were employees that said they needed to learn a language for their jobs.
Upon completing the six week pilot, we found that Instant Immersion met our needs. It is the cheast option (so we can hand it out without having a compelling business case) and it is available in every language we needed, including English as a Second Language. The learners liked it because it has audio (listen in your car) as well as computer-based learning, and they said that made it more convenient. And they learned the basic vocabulary they needed. Berlitz was also good but did not get as high a rating as Instant Immersion. We also tried Learn in Your Car Spanish, which is good but does not have the computer-based part that Instant Immersion has.
PARTING THOUGHTS
I know that you can't "learn a language" using an audio or online program... it takes practice and a lot of hard work. (Language learning is something I am very familiar with as I am married to a university level language professor)(and it's taken me 30 years to learn Spanish, mostly from living overseas in Spanish-speaking countries for many of those 30 years). At my company we offer foreign language classes with real live teachers. But if you want a "chunky learning" approach - where you can learn while you commute, or learn just a few words or phrases with out much work or money, these approaches work well.
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comments:
Natalia Picado posted this comment:
Learning Spanish online works for every one. In some online courses you will have live Spanish tutor to help you learn how to speak Spanish..this is what called as conversational Spanish. If you really are aspiring to learn conversational Spanish. You can start today. Find a program that meets your needs and start learning today. program.----learn spanish online
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
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