Permit me to go ahead and get my views on classroom training right “out in the open.” Classroom training in language training does not really work.

Every study I have ever read or any experience I have ever had is conclusive regarding group class language training. Eight hours of group class is equivalent to one hour of one-on-one training as it relates to result. This makes sense. If you have eight people in a class for one hour, the most time any one student could get in "real" attention would be 7.5 minutes. That is not enough attention twice a week to learn how to speak well! Just figure it out if you are in a class with 20 people.

Why learning Spanish in a group class is not pedagogically sound:

In simple terms this means, “why it does not work that well from a teaching and learning standpoint.” There are three main reasons why learning in a classroom environment is slow, frustrating and ineffective.

1. You learn at the rate of speed of the other students in the class.

The class can only move as fast as the slowest verbal learner. Many times people will miss classes and then when they come back they will take up a large portion of the class to catch up. This isn’t fair to the other students who were there for the last session. Many times there are students in the class who simply cannot learn quickly. This is frustrating for both the highly capable learner and for the slow learner. The slow learner wants everything to slow down and the fast learner wants things to go more quickly. What ends up happening in most cases is that both types of people end up frustrated!

2. You practice with other people who do not know what they are doing.

In a classroom environment you are constantly hearing people who speak Spanish poorly. This does not help the new learner because it only reinforces poor pronunciation habits. The blind simply cannot lead the blind. Many times the good students are “punished” because they are asked to help the slower students. The bottom line is that if you are going to master a language in a relatively short period of time you cannot spend your time practicing with people who are just hacking away at the language. You need to practice with someone who knows how to lead you through the process properly.

3. You learn in a unilateral discourse rather than in an interactive process.

To truly master a language you must interact directly with the language. In a class a great deal of time is spent listening to an instructor talk. This is not the best use of your time if you are serious about mastering the language. You need to spend your time either directly interacting with the language (mastering vocabulary and structure) through interactive learning processes or practicing with someone who knows how to build your confidence.

There are other pedagogical reasons why a classroom language learning experience is very ineffective but these three are sufficient to prove the point. One needs only think of how many people are walking around with two or three years of high school and college Spanish who cannot carry a decent conversation to understand that this is not a good option from a learning standpoint.

Why learning in a classroom is not economically sound:

Most people are concerned about making wise investments with their money. Is learning with a group of people truly the most economical way to learn? Let’s find out by looking at a couple of different hypothetical scenarios.

Scenario #1

Let’s say you decide to take a group class to learn to become proficient in the Spanish language. At best, you would need three years of classes. That is a fact! Let’s “lowball” the price and say that each class down at the local community college or at the local private language school costs you $199 for 10 weeks of class twice a week for an hour each class. You say, “OK, I can afford that, I am signing up.” So you have twenty hours of class for $199. Let’s say that you do that four times a year. How much did you spend that year on Spanish classes? That's right, $796. How many years minimum will you need to take classes to speak well in the classroom environment? Three years. What is three times $796? That’s right, $2,388. Now, that wasn’t as inexpensive as you thought was it? When you factor in your lost time driving back and forth, gas, oil and possible lost income from not being able to speak well more quickly, it really adds up to much more than 2,388!

Scenario #2

Let’s say that Harry is 30 years old and has a job as a medical assistant. His annual salary is $40,000. A position becomes available for $50,000. The only problem is that the position requires that he be able to communicate well in Spanish. Harry goes and signs up for the local group class to learn Spanish. Harry takes three years to learn to communicate well. How much money did that Spanish class cost Harry? That’s right, $30,000 in lost revenue because he could not get the job plus the $2,388 from the first scenario to pay for all the classes that he would need to get up to speed.

Now, all of this makes perfect sense. Why then, do schools teach group classes knowing full well that the success rate of students learning to communicate well is almost zero?

Look at the numbers. Let’s say each student is paying $10 an hour for that class. Let’s say that there are 15 students in the class. How much is the school taking in per hour? That's right, $150 an hour. How much could they charge you if you were taking private instruction? Not $150 an hour, that’s for sure!

That, mi amigo, is why schools teach group classes. For pure economic purposes because they sure do not get results. They know it, and now, so do you!

Bilingual America is committed to results and therefore does not offer the option of a group class. Is that economically sound? No, it costs us a lot of money annually. Is it right? Absolutely, because we go to sleep at night knowing that we are offering only options that actually work and that produce solid results for our students.