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With the advancement of international trade and tourism, studying foreign lingo has become a necessity, achievable by myriad means, such as self study, private coaching, group classes, internet based learning or even shifting base to the country of such dialect, each mode of acquisition of such alien language, having its own pros and cons. Which method is then the best? This essay discusses, a few most effective ones, while also mentioning their respective drawbacks.
To begin with, self study, which has gained unprecedented popularity with the advent of self learning language apps such as Duolingo, Mylingo, which provide flexibity as also comfort of taking lessons at ones one pace, apart from the basic versions being provided free of cost, making them more popular in younger generation who are adept at using electronic gadgets. However, this method is often criticised as being in-effective apart from being monotonous as it lacks the interactive education apart from being less friendly for the elder population. For instance, a recent survey by a leading magazine, found that 70% users of such apps are below the age of 25.
Group lessons in class, ought to be mentioned as second, for the sheer economical advantage they present, apart from the advantage of practical learning, often in view of rehearsals of small skits conducted as a group, aiding to understanding of the nuances of the language. This, manner of learning is claimed by several people to be cumbersome, for instance requiring the pupil to travel to the class, so also providing less personal attention each member thereby slow learners are not able to cope up and often lag behind.
Last and the most efficacious is perhaps, the personal coaching, a learning led by a trained linguist, offering one to one training, at the stride of the learner, with special emphasis on pronunciation coupled with confidence built due to convenient interaction with the trainer, without fear of being disgraced by fellow students in case of errors. Inspite of the several brownie points, some do claim that this method is a privilege, targeting the elite due to the enormous costs involved apart from being not feasible universally due to dearth of experienced language trainers coupled with the strain to trace them. For instance, finding a trained teacher, for most foreign languages, has been found to be a challenge in rural areas so also tier II cities, as revealed in a recent report of the education department of India.
Therefore, in my perspective, irrefutably, personal tutoring tops the list of being the most effective remedy for mastering different languages, especially in metropolitan cities. However, making it cost effective so also more accessible, by training language educators even in smaller cities and country side, along-with maintaining a database for locating these trainers, will certainly benefit the language enthusiasts.
