Shiv on Learning

A key feature of Languagelab is the social community. The core of our offering (the English City People), the platforms we use to teach and interact with students (Second Life, Twitter, Blogs, Social Networks), and even our business model is designed around the idea of community.

Community is important for two reasons. First, when part of a community students interact outside of time-tabled sessions, they spend a lot more time using the target language than they would otherwise. The second is engagement, education strives to achieve student engagement, our lessons are designed to achieve maximum engagement, being part of a social community keep students engaged.

If a student only spends an hour or two per week using the target language it will take them a very long time to become proficient. Being part of an English speaking community lets them use the language a lot more. Every Languagelab student has access to 60+ hours of time with an instructor each week and this number increases as the number of students grows. A social community encourages them to keep using the language even when they are outside languagelab.

Our focus on community and engagement as part of the pedagogy makes Languagelab very different to other language schools. The English City People are characters in the city that you have social interactions with. There are relationships between the characters and a progressing plot which the students are part of and fascinated by. Instead of lecture based class rooms students find them selves part of an interactive soap opera, communicating with all the characters in real situations. The students relationships with the characters are as real as any on line relationship. (Occasionally too real.)

ECP has been repeatedly tested and redeveloped since its creation and now involves real lawyers, doctors, historians, Shakespearian scholars and more playing themselves, spending time in the city interacting with the students.

A great deal has come out of the community, events have been organized, story lines have changed, new groups have formed and activities have been created. The main benefit of course is that our students spend a lot more time using English and become proficient a lot quicker.