Language learning through Skype with la Academia – it’s great for intensive language study! We have enthusiastically embraced language teaching with Skype at la Academia, because it works.
There is research1 which indicates that web conferencing encourages students to play more active roles in their lessons. Students begin speaking more during calls and prepare more enthusiastically for their lessons. It also seems that students really enjoy speaking with others through these calls. They learn new vocabulary, idioms, and how to manage conversations.
At la Academia we offer Skype lessons which are great for the intensive study of a language. Use them ahead of an exam or business trip, or to boost the English skills of overseas employees posted to the UK. One of the great things about learning via Skype is the ability to connect with people wherever they are located. And it’s not just video conferencing. Skype enables us to take our students on virtual field trips so that students can talk with and interview experts in various parts of the world.
Many students have few opportunities to test their new language skills outside their lessons. Through the use of chat, video and messaging apps, students can chat informally in their target language throughout the day with other people who want to do a ‘language exchange’. Through informal, communication-based practice, students quickly progress and consolidate their learning.
For more information on Skype lessons in English, French, Spanish, Italian and Chinese as well as many other languages, contact our language school for details.
1 Elza Shuk-Ching Tsang and Barbara Pui Lai Choy Using Skype© to connect a classroom to the world: Providing students an authentic language experience within the classroom in CamTESOL Conference on English Language Teaching: Selected Papers Volume 5, 2009