How Can Online Language Courses Help in Times of Social Distancing?

LanguageBird knows language learning is much more than a mere transfer of knowledge and online learning needs to provide the opportunity for natural conversations and sharing of not just the language, but also the culture of that language. That’s why we created our online language courses as a one-to-one experience where students interact with instructors’ live. Additionally, we want them to have a community of other kids to interact with and learn from. It’s always been important to us to connect students through language. In a time of social isolation, we would like to bring people together through learning, language, and culture.

The situation with the COVID-19 generated several social phenomena that were unknown to most of us just a few weeks ago. One of them is “social distancing”. Although it seems to be one of the most elemental (and effective) ways to fight the pandemic, social distancing has certain negative effects over people that we shouldn’t ignore. Teens who are informative social years rely on going to school as the place they learn academics but also and sometimes even more so how to socialize. 

A recent article by The Conversation indicates that “in times of stress and illness, being deprived of social connection can create more stress and illness. People who are lonely have higher levels of the hormone cortisol, an indicator of stress; show weaker immune responses to pathogens (…) Isolation can lead to depression, suicidal thoughts, and other clinical conditions,” Kids are affected just like adults by not socializing with their peers. 

LanguageBird’s Online Language Courses in Times of Social Distancing

LanguageBird knows that we have become experts over the years in online learning and have trained teachers to not only teach the subject matter but also to forge relationships with their students in a meaningful and connected way. All good teaching is in fact about relationships. It’s not about the subject matter as much as igniting passion and interest in the student through demonstrating the relevance of the topic at hand. 

We can achieve this now through technology that enables us to connect with the click of a mouse to people all over the world. For LanguageBird students, instruction is not interrupted at all. During this crisis, they have been able to move forward with classes as usual and maintain their routine and not miss a beat in their learning.

In an article published by the New York Times Dr. Neha Chaudhary, a psychiatrist at Harvard Medical School notes that ‘social distancing does not mean social isolation’ and promotes FaceTime, video chats, and even remote learning classes as a way to maintain social connections. We’ve been conducting accredited courses like this for years. Schools are scrambling but we know putting together a high-quality program takes a lot of time effort, trial, and error. 

LanguageBird’s online language courses have a very special role in today’s situation. For us, it’s always been about bringing people together and creating a community of tutors and students interacting and connecting. We want to give your kids a unique opportunity not only to learn a very useful skill as another language can be, but also the humanly enriching experience of having direct contact with other cultures; other realities.

We do believe that empathy is a fundamental part of this historical moment. We want to also give students the chance to have not only the pleasure of learning but also the ability to share this human experience with others. During this unprecedented time of quarantine, ALL students will be given access to LanguageBird’s resource center as well as Spanish, French, Mandarin, Italian, and German language chat rooms to connect with other kids studying that target language around the globe.  

LanguageBird’s Mission and Vision

Connecting with people around the world is now more important than ever. LanguageBird wants to give your child a full-learning experience not only in languages but also, in life. 

Feel free to call us at (844) 573-5076 or send an email to [email protected]