Are English Lessons on Video Better than Live English Lessons?

... the things she learned six weeks ago. Her progress was great, but in fact her real skill had not change very much. She still could not speak much Spanish and listening to even simple things was still very difficult for her. She thought live classes were supposed to be the best.

Live Classes

Live English Lessons in many Schools move on and on. Each lesson is a new lesson. In fact, many schools have 'circular curriculums' which allow new students to join a class anytime. Of course, this means they do not review previous lessons. What do you do in these lessons?

You Hear, practice a bit, and understand

Of course, you are learning and practicing in these classes. You practice listening and speaking the points in that lesson. You will understand them fairly well by the end of the lesson. And of course you will have a feeling of learning.

You feel like you are getting smarter

What a wonderful class! You can do something better at the end of the class then you could at the beginning. You know something new and you even built your skill a bit. These feelings are good. But be careful.

But You Can't Keep that Gain

Your feelings of learning and building skills maybe short lived. After a few weeks, you are studying something very different and the skills you learned first are now getting weak. In fact, after a few months, you might have large gaps that you have forgotten.

You Need Solid Review

Are you like Linda, full of good feelings and forgotten lessons? Without solid review from class to class, your gains become losses. Your total progress amounts to the last few lessons. And you will discover your growing self esteem starts to burst like a bubble. You may feel bad, like you are a bad student.

With Video, You Have a Chance to Review

This scene changes when you have access to videos for lessons. English lessons on video will not change. The same words are there when you listen tomorrow. They are like books. I frequently re-read books. And I learn more the second time.

You can review for listening

Listening the first time introduces the script. But you haven't really learned it yet. Even if you listen three or four times, you will not notice everything. You have to listen a few days later and then a few days after that. And with video you can shadow without feeling rude. You can stop the video the repeat what you heard for practice. And you can do that again and again.

You Can Review for Meaning and Practice

Then when you have mastered shadowing and repeating you can watch the video again to master the meaning. But more important is that you can practice on a scientific schedule. You can do spaced repetitions, and increase the spaces for maximum learning.

You Can Review at Your Convenience.

You do not have to wait until the next lesson to review with the teacher. Especially now with small mobile devices like ipods, and smartphones, you can review almost anytime, anywhere. That allows for the best kind of reviews: short and frequent.

Video Offers Great Power not Available in Live Courses

If you have a chance to get a video based course, take it! You may need some time to adapt to the learning style of the course, but once you do, you will be amazed at the results.

Summary:

Don't be fooled like Linda was. Live courses can give you the feeling that you are learning when you don't actually build lasting skills. Moving to the next topic gives a feeling of excitement and accomplishment. This feeling is hollow. You need to review and video lets you review for meaning and for listening practice to build real skills.

Use the video supported mini-lessons on this site for your English lessons. Start learning how to use video lessons.