Learning a language online

The time, I believe, has finally come for the online language course! At least judging by the massive success enjoyed by the market leaders, some of them with multi-million dollar annual sales to prove it.

Why would someone decide to 'attend', say, an online French course, rather than enrolling on a traditional course?

While there are a number of aspects to the language learning process that an online course cannot entirely cover (who do you practice speaking with, yourself?!), there are also plenty of advantages - here are three that I can think of:

1) Flexibility - an online language course can be picked up and put down, and while this can have its downsides (those lacking in discipline or organisational skills may not get the most from it), it is just what the doctor ordered for busy working people, parents and students who already have a full schedule offline.

2) Stickiness - an online course has a certain attraction that is hard to replicate in a classroom course, or when learning language from a book. Let's put it this way: how much time do people spend with their nose in a book these days? Now, how much time do they spend surfing the net? I rest my case. The online experience has a certain something which is irresistible, especially to the modern, hi-tech generation.

3) Interactivity - learning a language online is a rich experience. The textual portion is just the beginning. There are pictures, video, recorded dialogues and words that can be repeated at will again and again. Some online courses (see the BBC's French course for example) additionally make use of the power of Flash presentations to make the learning experience an even richer one.

The one thing that cannot be got online, as mentioned earlier, is conversation and feedback from a real human being, which is ultimately what language is all about! But some of the courses I have looked at provide some pretty good alternatives, such as dialogues in which the learner has to play a certain role, saying their bit in French from an English prompt, which simulates the nervy experience of speaking to an actual French person surprisingly well!

All in all, online language courses have come of age and represent a real option to anyone seriously considering learning a foreign language.