Choosing the right language training for your organization
When choosing a language training service for your learners, it is important to find a solution provider that delivers the type of results your company needs. A business setting, for instance, requires a service that will teach the nuanced language skills necessary for successful business communication.
The type of language training you choose for your employees will impact their engagement and success, so your organization needs to carefully consider the features and benefits that each one offers.
The importance of communication skills
The best language training focuses on teaching communication. Language training services that rely heavily on game-like activities and passive exposure to listening exercises will not teach your employees to negotiate with a client, give a sales presentation, or provide appropriate feedback to a colleague.
If your employees still lack the confidence and skills to communicate after months of learning, they are not receiving the right type of language training.
Merely doing activities like studying grammar and listening to pre-recorded conversations will not equip learners to negotiate skillfully, present information clearly, or collaborate effectively. Nuanced communication skills such as these need to be taught explicitly and practiced in context.
A workplace language training program must provide authentic opportunities for employees to rehearse the language they will need beyond the classroom. Practicing in real time gives them confidence they can communicate skillfully at work, too.
Look for a language learning solution that will provide your employees with ample training and practice with the social nuances of language so they develop the cross-cultural competence to engage in appropriate, effective communication with clients and colleagues. Ideally, this learning should happen in relevant contexts that provide rehearsal for real-world situations.
While learners can speak to one another in Zoom-based language classes, the complete lack of a shared space severely limits the types of role play they can engage in. Even in a physical classroom, role playing requires participants to imagine surroundings that the other learners cannot see. Developing true communication skills is vastly easier and more successful when employees can learn and practice the language together in a shared environment that is equipped with everything they need in order to have realistic interactions.
Recent advances in virtual reality mean your employees can tap into the power of language training through immersion and learn a language in natural contexts without even leaving the office - right from their computers.
Language training options
Most language training services for businesses fall into three categories: traditional eLearning platforms, language apps, and language schools. These three all share a common shortcoming - they do not give learners practice communicating in contexts that truly transfer to their jobs.
Apps and eLearning platforms tend to provide language exercises that have little to do with actual communication. And while online or in-person classes can give learners practice speaking together, they cannot provide sufficient context for practicing the nuanced, contextualized language they need out in the real world.
Because the learning context is limited to a screen or a classroom, learners using these methods are limited to awkward, artificial role plays that can’t be fully acted out.
Most people struggle to turn those learning experiences into real communication in an actual workplace setting.
IMMERSE was created as a better language training solution. Developed from the ground up to teach employees how to communicate confidently in real life situations, the platform includes dozens of fully immersive virtual settings where learners can interact with one another and the objects in the scene.
With IMMERSE, your employees get personalized feedback from native-level teachers while engaging in dynamic practice activities that develop real foreign language speaking skills. Whether they are learning the language skills to plan an event, handle customer complaints, or interview job candidates, IMMERSE learners gain concrete experience using the skills in context.
The VR/AI advantage
IMMERSE is the only company that combines fully immersive virtual environments, AI, and human interaction to create a learning context that prepares employees for real communication.
With IMMERSE, employees learn a language through interactions in authentic settings they can see, move around in, and interact with, such as a conference room, an airport, or a manager’s office.
Live lessons - expert language instruction tailored to individual learners’ needs
Learning is scaffolded, meaning that IMMERSE lessons start by teaching employees the language skills they need to perform a specific communication task, like negotiating a price, and then move through a series of gradually more independent activities. By the end of a lesson, employees are successfully performing the communication task on their own, in a contextualized setting that prepares them for having the same type of interaction in their place of work.
IMMERSE’s native-level language trainers use Emergent Language Teaching, providing bespoke teaching tailored to the needs of the particular learners present.
Employees also have plenty of asynchronous and live practice opportunities in IMMERSE.
Asynchronous activities - meaningful conversation practice with feedback, 24/7
Asynchronous practice activities are organized around the same communication tasks as the lessons to provide learners with maximum learning support. In addition to vocabulary and pronunciation activities, IMMERSE features guided conversation practice with AI conversation partners.
These AI-guided conversations are designed to steer learners through the same types of communication tasks they encounter in their live lessons. Learners choose the topic, and a ChatGPT-powered avatar guides them through a conversation adjusted to their proficiency level. If the learner makes an error during the conversation, the AI avatar will offer a correction and then continue the conversation.
Community - real interactions for increased confidence and speaking skills
Social interaction is a key component of successful language acquisition, leading to better learning outcomes and improving speaking confidence, and being an active member of the IMMERSE community helps learners reap these advantages.
IMMERSE offers a variety of live conversation events. Learners can find practice partners at the Language Exchange, mingle with other learners at Meetups led by our fun and friendly staff members,or set up a virtual space to host their own conversation practice.
Language learning providers: A side-by-side comparison
IMMERSE language training is several steps ahead of what is offered by mobile apps, schools, and eLearning platforms, and comparing it with other providers and products is a bit like comparing apples and oranges. Nevertheless, there are elements that can be compared side by side.
Platform Features
From an administrative standpoint, IMMERSE offers everything you need to implement and monitor an effective language training program for your employees.
Customer service will help you set up IMMERSE and use the dashboard to track your learners’ engagement and progress. Once enrolled, learners will have unlimited, 24/7 access to IMMERSE, where a placement instrument and progress tests will continuously guide them through their learning journey and help them choose the learning activities that will progress them towards their language goals.
In addition, IMMERSE frequently adds new content to keep learners engaged and prevent superficial learning based on rote memory and exact repetition.
Trainer and Curriculum Quality
The quality of the language learning resources offered by IMMERSE is unparalleled.
IMMERSE has an in-house curriculum team led by an expert curriculum developer who has authored numerous textbooks for Pearson and serves as a language program advisor to the U.S. Department of State. All learning materials, lessons, and activities are CEFR-aligned and created by our Education department using our communication-based, interactive learning approach.
Each lesson in IMMERSE uses a scaffolded design that supports learners as they move gradually from being introduced to a new skill to using it independently. This is an important distinction from other language learning programs, which often introduce a new concept, provide very structured practice, and then just move on.
IMMERSE lessons begin with the language trainer presenting the new concept and exploring the learners’ current knowledge. The learners then do a simple activity with words or sentences the trainer has provided. In the next activity, learners begin producing their own sentences using specific words and structures. Each successive activity provides progressively less support, until by the final activity the learners are engaging in an unscripted discussion of their own.
Learners’ level of satisfaction with IMMERSE lessons is very high. In post-class surveys, learners give our lessons an average of 4.9 out of 5 stars. Survey comments reveal a variety of reasons for these high ratings. For instance, the lessons “make even complex concepts easy to understand,” the teaching method is “engaging and fosters a supportive learning environment, and the language trainers are “friendly, professional, knowledgeable, and supportive.”
These lessons are delivered by IMMERSE’s stellar team of language trainers. IMMERSE recognizes that quality educators are paramount to delivering an exceptional learning experience. Candidates undergo a highly competitive and rigorous selection process, comprising multiple rounds of interviews designed to assess not only the candidates' expertise and teaching skills but also their alignment with our teaching model, curriculum, and pedagogical values.
Only candidates with substantial teaching experience, native-speaker level proficiency, and at minimum an undergraduate degree in TESOL or a comparable field are considered. In fact, 55% of our language trainers hold a Master’s degree and 21% hold a PhD.
IMMERSE language trainers receive extensive training and participate in regularly scheduled professional development activities. The Education team also routinely observes each trainer in class and conducts performance reviews to ensure the highest standards of instructional quality.
Engagement and Effectiveness
IMMERSE’s first-of-its-kind design has been proven by independent third-party university researchers to work better than other methods of language learning. People learn faster, stay more engaged, and become better language speakers when they learn in IMMERSE. One reason is that the focus on communication means learners acquire skills they can immediately use in the real world.
Another reason IMMERSE is more effective is because the learning experiences take place in context, such as a doctor’s office or a store. Contextualizing learning in this way creates several learning advantages. First, being able to fully engage with the scene, wandering around the store putting items into a shopping basket while talking about them, “embodies” the language learning experience. It has been shown that embodied activities activate a larger learning network in the brain than traditional language learning activities.
Embodiment helps language learners pick up new words faster, remember them longer, and understand them better. Also, when learners can role play interactions in a realistic environment, the language skills that they develop carry over more easily into the real world.
In addition, culturally appropriate communication is highly dependent on context and needs to be practiced in realistic settings and scenarios. Contextualization enables language learners to observe and practice how to express themselves politely and behave appropriately in the cultures associated with the language.
IMMERSE also improves engagement and motivation. Learners are less shy about speaking their new language in IMMERSE because they appear in the platform as an avatar, reducing feelings of “stage fright.” This reduced anxiety leads to increased participation. In addition, many learners genuinely enjoy their time in IMMERSE. The virtual scenes make interactions with other learners feel natural and interesting, and the sense of connection with others can make learning in IMMERSE feel like a rewarding social activity rather than a series of boring tasks.
In fact, IMMERSE has an active and supportive learning community. Learners gather in the social areas for informal, fun language practice and cultural exchanges, for games, and even for birthday parties and karaoke. Being part of a fun, supportive community of fellow learners increases engagement, motivation, enjoyment, and learning.
Types of Learning Opportunities
IMMERSE drop-in classes and community events provide your employees with live, personalized instruction and practice. Asynchronous practice features like guided conversations with AI make personalized practice available anytime, providing a comfortable space for employees to practice language skills on their own. The Commons is a place where individuals or groups can play games that incorporate movement and sensory input for embodied learning and engaging social interaction.
Consider which language training provider will support your company’s objectives
As with any product or service, choosing the best language training comes down to finding the best fit. Ease of use, languages offered, and price are clearly important factors to consider. Equally important is to evaluate exactly what your employees will be getting out of the training. Some questions to ask yourself include:
- Is the learning solution engaging enough to sustain employees’ motivation for the amount of time it takes to reach their language goals?
- Are the specific language skills that the product teaches aligned with the skills they need on the job?
- How easily and how soon will they be able to transfer what they learn to their workplace?
IMMERSE
Most corporate language training programs rely on uninteresting, outdated teaching methods and practice options that do not lead to fluency. Immerse is different.
IMMERSE is a one-of-a-kind language learning platform that will get your employees fluent fast. When you choose IMMERSE for your employees, you are choosing excellence. You are choosing a scientifically grounded curriculum, created and continuously updated with fresh content by a leading curriculum designer. You are choosing friendly, expert language teachers who have made it through our highly selective hiring process due to their high level of education, training, and experience. You are choosing access to immersive, carefully designed lessons that consistently earn high satisfaction ratings from IMMERSE learners. You are choosing engaging, contextualized learning that lets your employees learn to communicate with confidence.
The gap between IMMERSE and other corporate language training providers is significant. Our science-based design is unique. Only IMMERSE provides scaffolded, communication-focused language learning in virtual scenes that allow authentic practice in context. To learn more about why IMMERSE is so much faster and more effective, visit our article Why IMMERSE Works. Or visit How IMMERSE Works to learn more about IMMERSE’s features, curriculum, and learning tools.
