e-Teaching
Online Teaching : The e-Teaching Community
Created on: 02 July, 2009 Members: 33099 | Community Link: http://e-teaching.wiziq.com

Do we need guidance or vision in finding effective and cheap method of teaching/learning EFL?

by Arkady Zilberman
Posted on 25 January, 2010

Learning English is the obvious market for Wiziq since there are millions of English learners around the world and no dominant market player - there are hundreds of them, and thousands of methods to teach/learn. Every teacher uses his/her own technique and nobody can tell teachers what is a better method.
It would be politically incorrect and even suicidal if Wiziq portal would dare to give some advice in this respect.

But teaching over Wiziq is not terribly rewarding, even for experienced practitioners. There are very few devoted learners who would order expensive lessons and would control their learning habits.

Let’s consider some mathematics. The average price of learning English in the USA or Europe ranges from $2000 to $10,000. Currently in China alone there are 300 million adults who must learn English as a foreign language (EFL) fast and who can afford spending in average between $100 and 400. Even at the lowest estimate it refers to the market of $30 billion.

How to find a solution to the acute problem of our time?
We need extremely effective and cheap method of learning EFL.

Social Networking is not a solution; these types of web sites allow language learners to register and sort through random lists of people who are equally at a loss as to how to learn a language. They need more guidance than that.

Wiziq at the current paradigm is not a solution either: it has more teachers than students. Even the most experienced teachers are not capable to provide 4 times faster learning that is also 10 times cheaper.

To become the central portal for all EFL needs, it is necessary to drastically decrease the price of services by increasing the number of students in the online public classes, using blended learning and implementing self-training software.

Blending self-study with public lessons online will have a great synergistic impact on the whole process of learning. The ratio between self-study and online lessons will vary from 10% to 90% and will depend on students’ motivation, financial state and preferences. Private lessons will be used by less than 10% of total EFL learners.

Necessity is the mother of invention. The above assumptions are transparent and logical. We need visionaries who will facilitate the creation of inventions capable to solve the necessity of our time and Global Economy.

by George Machlan posted on 25 January, 2010
Well said, and as I am already a practicing 'Language Bridge" speech coach, I will leave the critique to others. Within a month we will be introducing a business English class devoted almost entirely to your simultaneous repetition methodology. An organizational meeting will be held next Wednesday, here is the link:
http://www.wiziq.com/online-class/245519-project-management-for-esl
by George Machlan posted on 26 January, 2010
Why Anne, didn't anyone tell you? All of my alternate personalities! ;-)

A couple of my friends at work will be assisting in a rather ambitious course for Project Management.



Or it could be the "Royal We" as I sometimes think of WIZIQ as my private little kingdom. It's an ownership thing, a little presumptuous, but I and hopefully, many of you, consider this more than an adopted community but a home that you too own.



PS here is the attendant blog:

http://pm4esl.blogspot.com/
by George Machlan posted on 09 February, 2010
I am still having trouble with a total embracing of Arkady's methods. But, I am still working through my transformation into an online teacher who will be something new, not seen before. Arkady is one of the pieces to the puzzle of who I am becoming, as many of you at WIZIQ are. My instincts tell me that Arkady is on to something. I will let you guys know if and when I know what I am talking about.

FYI, the Business English portion of the "Project Management for ESL" will be almost exclusively patterned after Arkady's methods (particularly simultaneous repetition). We shall have some empirical results to continue the discussion after that runs its course (20 weeks).

I continue to encourage and exemplify the method in a casual way with most of classes. The student's are very receptive to the method, but it is not demanded nor used exclusively therein.
by Anne Fraser posted on 26 January, 2010
I am very interested in this topic and agree with what has been said. Being new to this, I won't comment further just now! I'll certainly look at the link, but George - who do you mean by "we" (will be introducing..)
thanks
by Kapil Mehta posted on 26 January, 2010
Hello Mr.Zilberman-

I really loved the idea that we need a destructive force to disrupt existing business practices. Believe me we at WiZiQ breathe such a thought. Our vision as an organisation is to route maximum traffic to on line world and bomb the barriers of face to face learning.

There obviously is a fine line between genuine inspiration and imitation and we believe the simpler we make technology and give others a chance to harness the goodness out of it the more effective learning will become. Empowering communities to become self sufficient and give every person who has the knowledge to become better financially by using our platform to spread education.

Each time a company/person decides to egg out such innovative thoughts and provide a base on which further improvements shall be based takes time. We have a great product but we know we have to make it even better. Teachers use our tool to teach but we want to maximize their attendance log. Students have access to world class faculty though their are certain bottle necks and we want to steam roll them. We feel your valuable feedback and our distancing from complacency will help you win and make us better.

Enjoy Teaching!
Kapil
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