Online English Course: Study and Learn a Language at Home

? English is the language of international communication ?, who has not heard of this? It may seem commonplace, but it is true: English is the most widely used language in international situations, be they professional, legal, study or tourism.

English speakers can communicate with more people and this implies more career possibilities (international job and study markets), less or no entanglement in international travel for lack of information, and even a simple Google search as? Home remedies? for a headache? returns more results in English than in Portuguese.

In fact, time to get a job, some countries like Scandinavians no longer see English as an advantage but as a minimum requirement. Brazil is moving in this direction, with more companies concerned about having English-speaking employees, according to the report? English Learning Demands in Brazil? prepared in 2014 by the Data Popular Research Institute. The report itself points to a solution for those seeking to learn the language: online English courses. Here are some options to start your English course now.

10 English Courses You Can Take Online

1. Duolingo: Duolingo is one of the most used sites for learning English. Free and with explanations in Portuguese, it offers lessons from the basic to the most advanced. Duolingo also works as a social network where you can add friends from all over the world. This gives you the possibility to exchange languages: you know an American, for example, who wants to learn Portuguese and you can combine to talk part time in English and part in Portuguese. There is also a discussion forum, the 'conversation', where users exchange tips.

2. TalkEnglish.com: Do you prefer a course with more language immersion? Then check out TalkEnglish. Although you have the option to view the explanations in Portuguese, it is also 100% English and offers over 900 English lessons and 9000 audios, plus extra lessons, questions and discussion forum. One of the biggest attractions of the site is the possibility to download the full package for desktop, Android or iOS and practice offline, all for free.

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3. Livemocha: Another very popular course, Livemocha offers free lessons for the basic course and paid for the most advanced levels, the Active series. Livemocha uses a self-rewarding system where you unlock content as you complete your lessons and help other users stimulate interaction and learning dynamics. Livemocha automatically suggests partners to switch languages.

4. BBC Learning English: England's most important news center is great for mid-level speakers. Because it is completely English, it makes you stop using Portuguese as a crutch to learn and thus get rid of addictions like always translating from Portuguese to English. The course is well structured and offers a multitude of textual and audio genres: literary texts, news, conversations etc. There is also an extensive area for pronunciation practice as well as grammar and vocabulary exercise topics.

5. Learn American English Online: Similar to the BBC course, this is also an immersion course, but offers lessons from the basic level. Features include downloadable materials, chat room, videos, sayings. The highlight of the site goes to the possibility to record your voice reading the texts and then compare with the original recording.

6. Jerry's English Online: Very popular, the Jerry Costa course is one of the most complete in the market. For R $ 1400, the user will have lifetime access to the course, which consists of 11 modules and 40 video lessons, extra classes, questions on call, audio books, native speakers and a 30-day warranty to receive your money if you don't like the program. Since access is for life, the user can take the course at their own pace and return to it at any time.

7. English Live: One of the first online English courses in Brazil, English Live offers several types of courses that vary according to your purpose. There is the regular course, a Business English course, TOEFL and TOEIC preparation, technical English and travel English. English Live has native teachers, live lessons, including group conversation, course completion certificate, and face-to-face English speaking events throughout Brazil, the Life Club.There are two plans, the Online School, which costs R $ 149 per month, and the Private Teacher, with private and annual classes.

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8. Open English: With live classes that start hourly around the clock, Open English seeks to virtually reproduce a native teacher classroom in a class of up to 6 students. When the class is over, the user can still go online using lessons or other tools like some games or pronunciation tool. Price is upon request by calling (0800) 887-1474.

9. Education Portal: Conversation 24 hours a day, more than 8,000 interactive videos, the online English course of the Education Portal in partnership with Uol is made for Brazilians. In practice this means that the course takes into account specific difficulties of the Brazilian public such as the pronunciation of "th", for example. Following this same line, the initial levels have teachers who also speak Portuguese and are therefore aware of these difficulties. On their website the user can attend a demo class.

10. English Speaking Machine: Learning English with 100% authentic materials like movies, dialogues and songs, this is the idea of ​​the English speaking machine. The idea is to be able to understand and be understood without having to study monotonous grammar exercises. The course utilizes an immersion method where the user is directly exposed to the material without grammatical presentations, without translations, being forced to think directly in English. The course consists of 40 lessons of one hour and thirty minutes each and the user can access as many times as desired. The price of the course is 12 installments of R $ 145.17 or R $ 1490 in cash. If you do not adapt the course, you can cancel it within the first month without penalty.

Why take an English language course over the internet?

Check out the strengths and weaknesses of choosing to take a language course on the web:

Benefits:

For Professor Felipe Lima, the online course is a very rich option, quite diverse? and also very complete to learn a language. For him the main advantages are:

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• Available resources (translator, applications, dictionaries, etc.) in a single package, making life easier for students, especially the inexperienced who don't know where to look for supplemental materials;
• Schedule flexibility;
• Possibility of private lessons;
• Interaction with people from all over the world, enabling students to hear different accents.

Disadvantages:

• Flexibility requires a high degree of self-discipline;
• The dynamics are impaired since the student is most often alone with the teacher, making the "very civilized debate", as Felipe says, that is, very controlled and artificial, unlike what would happen in a classroom.

Is the online course for everyone? How to enjoy it better?

At first yes, but there are some caveats. People with low self-discipline may enjoy less of the course. Another relevant issue is that "the comfort you have in dealing with technology will greatly affect the access you will have to the course and your performance there," said Felipe.

Very shy people often gain confidence by practicing with a colleague before speaking directly with the teacher. Without this possibility in the online course, these people may feel embarrassed to be in direct contact with the teacher.

To make the most of it, Professor Felipe recommends three ingredients: discipline, autonomy, and planning. Discipline to avoid procrastination, accumulate content and stay too long without studying.

The autonomy comes for the student to explore on their own all the material that the course offers. Finally, planning comes so that the student does not risk concentrating solely on conversation or grammar, but evenly distributing their study time.

Listening to the voice of experience

Meet two people who have taken an online English course now and see what they have to say.

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Samara Melk, 28, law student, Estácio do Ceará University Center:

“I chose to take the course online because the Federal Government was offering English Without Borders in this modality for higher education students from the private school system. I thought it would be a good opportunity to learn English because at school I have always studied Spanish and yet not enough to establish any dialogue in view of the delayed language teaching in schools. In addition, there is the convenience of studying at home, at my own pace, being able to review classes as often as I like and to ensure a good certificate to add value to the curriculum and complement complementary college activities.When it comes to English Without Borders, where I study, there is also the benefit of being able to do TOELF for free, as the Government offers it from time to time, and this gives me considerable savings and the ability to see my own. level in the language. I recommend studying English online but parallel to a classroom course, because I think only online teaching is insufficient. In addition, online language teaching still needs to be better thought through. [For those considering starting] I advise you to have discipline even though you have flexible hours, not just settle for the content taught in the online course and always look for more information and study materials to complement, not accumulate doubts or absent much time from the course. .?

Pedro Vitor Almeida Lima, 26 years old, administrator:

“It is a very complete course. The only problem for me, at least, is the question you can ask at any moment and that's why you leave it there for another time. He has dictionary, grammar, slang, everything. Exercise has plenty and has writing. In what I did the class lasted 40 to 50 minutes and started every half hour. The teachers were native, I caught people from many countries. [The class] always with chat, where you can type in the teacher any questions, students can also interact, and the audio with microphone and headphone. Usually each one is given the turn to talk so that not many people are talking at the same time. In the end there was a dynamic [among the students]. Another big advantage is that you hear accents from all over the world. To get the most out you have to have daily commitment. Even having flexibility, you have to have a daily commitment because it is an excellent course. I recommend avoiding sticking to the conversation or thinking that when a module is finished you don't have to do anything anymore.

6 Tips to Speed ​​Up Your Learning

To learn a language, you need to expose yourself to it as long as possible in your day. For this, it is interesting to adopt some habits that will enhance your learning:

1. Sing English songs to develop fluency, using the Embrocast application;
2. Watch movies and series initially with English subtitles and then without subtitles;
3. Correspondence with foreigners using the course's own website or criminal (correspondence friends) websites;
4. Use English-language YouTube channels where you can also ask questions;
5. Gradually use another English-English dictionary, leaving English-Portuguese only for critical situations;
6. ReadLang is a website, extension for Google Chrome, and a smartphone and iPhone app for reading and listening. You can choose the level and number of words, and ReadLang generates text suggestions, some with audio. As a Chrome extension, you can enable it and use it on any English page. Click on the word and the translation will appear.

Whether it is an online or in-person English course, it is important for the student to understand that both modalities have their advantages and disadvantages. Much depends on the student and language learning never ends at the end of the book or even at the end of the course? Often this is just the first fruits of a beautiful tree that still has a lot to grow.

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