Online learning: helpful or a dud?

[chewie999]

Hi all,

I'm wondering whether anybody has tried online learning including using 1-on-1 teaching (using Skype or another software). First, is it an effective method to learn. Second, does the real time communication with a teacher help.

Thanks

[mikeedward]

Hey, I just did 2 months of 1-on-1 sessions with a private tutor in southern China, via Skype. I recently stopped taking the lessons because my wife just returned to Canada. I was doing 2 lessons per week, each one for an hour. I found it to be a huge help.. it was the first time I'd really tried to verbally use my previous knowledge gained from 3 years of self-study. I feel it really gave me the boost to cross over into actual conversation instead of just knowing a lot of words and never really trying to speak, other than repeating something. The day after the lesson, my tutor would send me both a doc file and mp3 of most of the new words and sentences that we had used during the lesson (with her reading them, with pauses for repeating).. those mp3s were really great to listen to because they contained vocab and sentences I use in daily life. She would also read me short stories (5-10 sentences) to me, and she'd ask me various questions about them.. pretty awesome, and keeps the lesson moving if you don't have much to chit-chat about. Also, while on Skype, she could also type out the characters whenever I had a problem understanding them. Anyways, there's an article about her below.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/bizfocus/archives/2007/04/01/2003354837/print

Mike

[Senzhi]

There's always been big discussions about the value of e-learning.

Personally, I think it can be great for people not having easy access to other forms of education (e.g. people living very remote), and if organised by an established educational institution, such as universities. Think of MBA courses, accountancy, physics, mathematics, etc.

For language learning, I would not consider e-learning as the sole means of learning a language, but more as an added value. I strongly believe a class-room based approach or face-to-face learning with a qualified teacher should be primary.

However, in language learning, I also feel sad to see too many businesses coming up with their 'e-learning'. From my personal experience, they are great business, but do not offer that much educational value. They're also quite expensive for what they offer. They may be an added value, but nothing more.

From a teaching perspective, I've had, like probably many others here on this forum, many requests to start teaching people through MSN, Skype and the like. I always refuse, as I personally find it a very difficult way of teaching: I am used to receive non-verbal feedback from the student (e.g. facial expressions) and I don't feel I get this from the internet.