A language school for your in-company language courses: how to ensure you’re making the right choice.
In-company language courses often represent a significant financial investment. In order to maximize your chances of success, make sure you choose a language school that can provide quality services. Five criteria to keep in mind for finding the best language courses:
1. Teacher training
Anyone who has traveled knows: one of the first options to earn some money abroad is teaching language courses. I am French, I know my mother tongue, I can teach French courses, right? No. Wherever you are in the world, they require teachers who have been professionally trained, if possiblem both pedagogically and linguistically.
2. The teacher’s specialization
Language courses for adults aren’t taught the same way as courses for children; a one-to-one class is not managed the same way as a group class of fifteen students; in-company training is different from other types of training. Therefore, you want to ask your language school to provide you with teachers trained specifically for the type of teaching you need.
3. Adaptability of the syllabus
The employees of the language school that provides you with language services know their stuff – at least, you should expect that they know how to plan an in-company language course, how to set objectives, how to lead a group, how to transfer knowledge, etc. But at the end of the day, it’s you who knows your needs and goals. Make sure that the language school you’ve chosen has the required adaptability to make their courses suit your needs and achieve your goals.
4. Objectives
Whether we’re talking about a course in Spanish, Chinese, or English, learning a new language has many benefits for a company’s employees. However, this training should also benefit the company itself. For this to happen, it’s important to set objectives and it’s necessary for the language school to be committed to its students achieving these objectives. This requires:
- personalized and realistic planning,
- monitoring throughout the student’s progression, and
- regular assessments.
Your language school must be able to provide these services.
5. Pedagological materials
During the interview, ask to take a look at the teaching materials used. Even if you don’t know anything about pedagogy and if you don’t understand a word of the language that is being taught. Just to take a look. Because – believe it or not – language teaching is a science that evolves and progresses. Languages are no longer taught as they were back in 1950. Not even as they were in 1990. So make sure that the methods used are relatively recent, and say no to cassettes…
Alternatively, and this is quite recommendable, ask the language school to give you a list of clients and do a little investigation on the internet, just to see what is being said about it…
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