During the 16th century, Spain became the world’s first global superpower, with an empire stretching east across most of Europe to the Philippines and India and west across the Atlantic to the Americas.
Spanish is one of the most popular languages for people to try and learn, with somewhere in the region of 20 million students currently studying it in some capacity. The language sounds beautiful, is widely used, and has a number of other benefits, which combined make it stand out from other languages. It’s spoken in many diverse areas of the world, so Spanish speakers benefit from being able to communicate with all kinds of people in all types of situations in Spanish-speaking countries and beyond.
There are a number of pros and cons available for both offline and online learning.
And today, we get to explore all of them! Yippee!
So lets get going!
Online courses are great for teaching foreign language learners vocabulary. You can easily find online flashcards and flip through new words at your leisure.
These are easy to learn in an online Spanish course, especially if you are good at memorizing things. Many courses present verb conjugation charts, which demonstrate how each verb is supposed to look in each tense and pronounce conjugation. These online charts are easy to understand and easy to apply.
This is where an online course may prove to be a little unsatisfactory as grammar is difficult to explain and the point may not be comprehended by the learners. The grammar point explanations are often confusing or vague. The downfall of an online Spanish course is that no one will be able to explain grammar points you don’t understand. A tutor, on the other hand, will go over any grammar problems you might have until you fully comprehend them.
Most online courses consist of listening comprehension segments. You can play a video or audio recording and try to understand what the other people are saying. But, if you don’t understand something, you cannot ask anyone to clarify the information for you. Working on listening comprehension in person gives you the ability to ask your tutor to repeat or rephrase.
Unfortunately, online language courses do not teach students how to speak and how to make their accent sound authentic. Without constant practice with a teacher or tutor who can listen to you and what you speak, you will not fully acquire the skills you need to be successful. Speaking Spanish is about more than just learning vocabulary or remembering a few verb conjugations. It is about quickly being able to process and accurately respond to whatever anyone is talking about. The best way to learn how to speak Spanish is with the help of a live Spanish tutor.
In short, online Spanish courses are great for learning the written component of Spanish, but not as effective for the speaking portion. A qualified Spanish tutor with one on one practice is the best way to become better at speaking Spanish.
