Interview with an online magazine

In today's post I publish an interview I did with an online magazine. It is an interesting comparison between my experience as a language teacher and explorer of new technologies for teaching, and the magazine's market research on the same topics.

How and when did the need arise to create a website and be present online in order to offer your services in the language lessons market?

At the beginning of my experience I worked for language schools, teaching German and Italian. Very often I received requests from the schools for someone who wanted to learn German but with a teacher who also spoke Italian.

I soon realized I was one of the few bilingual German and Italian teachers in Munich. So I began to think about the possibility of breaking away from the schools and offering my courses independently. Hence the need to have a website, initially aimed at Italian students, today addressed to anyone who wants to learn German.

Obviously it wasn't easy; getting to this point has required and still requires a great deal of resources and time.

We noticed your innovative service for online group German courses. Have you noticed interest in this kind of service? Do you believe that the digital communication of the web (video tutorials, live online courses) is helping to increase the interest in starting to study or deepen new languages? If so, how much?

My online course service started recently (January 2017) and unfortunately it is struggling to take off. It is still too early to hazard conclusions about the reasons for the poor interest in online courses. But sooner or later I will have to ask myself whether this type of course is simply not in demand, or whether I am the one who is not able to intercept the demand.

As far as I'm concerned, I consider the online course a convenience for the student, who avoids having to go to a school. In addition, the student has the opportunity to learn with a native-speaking teacher, something that I imagine is not possible everywhere. For example, I don't doubt that in a big city like Beijing there are native German teachers, but I'm not sure the same applies to Guangzhou, in south-east China.

Regarding the second question, I believe that the 24/7 online era has opened a door to the world of language courses. Whereas once it was necessary to devote a few hours of a busy day to learning, today you can devote a couple of minutes between one activity and another: all you need is a smartphone with a YouTube connection to watch a couple of minutes of a video tutorial. And ultimately make better use of the time available. Obviously the financial aspect also plays a role: many resources on the web are free, unlike traditional courses.

In my experience as a teacher I have seen that there are two types of students: those who learn because they like the new language, so as a hobby, and those who need to learn, because for example they live in a country whose language they don't speak.

The former turn to new technologies such as PC courses, YouTube videos, smartphone apps. While the latter, more often, turn to traditional courses with a teacher physically present.

In Italy, during 2016, we noticed a strong growth of interest in Polish and Japanese courses, a decline in German lessons (about 8% of the total); English is in first position (at 35%), while Spanish and French are stable (11% and 6% respectively). Comparing with your experience and the language courses you run: have you noticed any differences compared to our data? Do you confirm that English is the most requested language of 2016? What do you think the trends of 2017 might be?

Unfortunately I don't know the Italian market. As far as the German market is concerned, I have noticed a boom in the supply not only of courses but also of German books, and language schools have sprung up like mushrooms. This happened a couple of years ago, when there was the new wave of refugees migrating to Germany. In general, Germany is a country that welcomes many migrants, which is why the demand for teachers and German courses is always very high.

As far as I'm concerned, I can say that in a couple of years I went from having 50% German courses and 50% Italian courses to a clear predominance of German courses: 80% versus 20%.

I haven't, on the other hand, noticed a growth of interest in Polish, as you recorded in Italy. Polish is one of the languages I speak fluently and I could even teach it, but the demand in Germany is almost non-existent. 

For 2017, I hope that more and more people realize how enriching it is to learn a new language and decide to undertake this path, no matter which language they choose and which method, traditional or modern.

*Image courtesy of Freedigitalphoto.com and emily9