Acquiring new knowledge or skills online from home, remotely, offers many advantages. The learning process can be carried out comfortably, without having to travel, at any time and from any place, just by having a good Internet connection. However, it also requires personal effort and, for example, it is necessary to have dedication, perseverance and dedicate hours to studying to take advantage of the courses and get the most out of them.
There are disciplines whose remote learning can be complicated – for example, if you want to attend theater classes and put on a play with the rest of the students at the end of the course – but if what you want is to learn languages, the Internet has become an a very helpful, tremendously useful tool, from which you can get a lot of use whether you are starting from scratch or looking to perfect a language.
If you have already decided to study English, French, German or any other language through the Internet, in this article you will find the best advice so that your effort does not fall on deaf ears and you can make the most of your desire to learn remotely. .
What you should keep in mind when studying languages online
-Choose the best course. Now that you have decided to study a language online at a distance, you should know that the offer on the Internet is very wide, not only for the most spoken languages, but even for minority languages. There are many mobile applications that promise to help with learning a language, as well as online academies and online training courses. Given so much offer, the first advice is to analyze the different courses well, know which institutions teach the classes and who makes up the teaching staff.
In this sense, it is not the same to learn English through a prestigious online course such as That’s English!, the distance English course created by the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training and taught in the Official Language Schools and is adjusted to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, than downloading any free application full of advertising or a pdf manual posted on an Internet forum.
-Know the offer of online resources. In the same way, when evaluating where to carry out online studies of a language, in addition to the teaching staff, the syllabus and the recognition and prestige of the school, we recommend that you evaluate the training offer of resources that it offers you.
Having, for example, personalized online tutoring, support classes, a virtual environment for students, access to books and complementary teaching material through an online library or even having a blog to share resources for learning English are differential elements that can lead you to take advantage of the effort dedicated to learning or, in its absence, leave your studies forgotten in a drawer.
Online language student commitments
In addition to choosing the best e-learning platform and a course of recognized prestige that not only provides a syllabus, but a complete offer of online resources, the language student through the Internet must assume – often, with himself – a series of commitments. Complying with them will bring you closer to success and maximum learning:
-Organize schedules and have discipline. Studying a new language requires organization and investing time in preparing classes, as well as in subsequently establishing the knowledge acquired.
Possibly, additional exercises and tasks will have to be carried out beyond the teaching hours, so it is essential to organize and allocate at least a few hours per week to studying the new language. Perseverance is everything if you want to advance in learning.
-Practice, practice and practice. Whenever possible, it is advisable to practice the language you are studying with teachers, other classmates… but also in Internet forums, go to language exchange meetings or even make “pen pals” with whom you can correspond in English or language that is being perfected. Recording yourself speaking or reading in that language and then listening to yourself also helps you achieve more fluency.
In the same way, it is recommended to “listen” and listen to music in that language, watch movies in their original version or television programs from stations that broadcast in the language being studied.
-Set a goal and… fulfill it. Without an end goal, it becomes very difficult to walk the path. In this sense, it is important that you establish objectives, know what you want to achieve and establish the time you will need to do it. Be consistent with the time you can dedicate each day to learning, but set a goal and try to achieve it by all means.
For example, you can set a goal to be able to maintain a conversation before summer vacations and trips to that country arrive, or learn a certain number of new words a day… or even maintain a conversation with a native person at least once. once a week. Achieving those small achievements will motivate you to continue advancing in the study of the chosen language online.
