Courses or ILL?
In the business world, some companies encourage their employees to study another language by taking a course, by taking a course and doing ILL, or simply by doing ILL. The AOK philosophy is that depending on your schedule, objectives, level of speaking, the way you learn best, and assuming that the course meets your needs, all three systems can be successful.
As some students at all levels have discovered, to learn ILL takes an initial investment in time and effort, but it can pay off in the long run. For some, it´s more productive to use ILL in conjunction with well-run foreign language class than to use it on your own without the class. This seems to be particularly true for beginners if it’s their first foreign language. In classes as opposed to ILL, a lot of the work is done by the teacher, and the students have others that they can interact with.
However, the proper use of ILL strategies sometimes makes it more practical for students to learn on their own instead of taking a course – they can determine their objectives themselves through informal tests and self- assessment, whereas some courses don´t provide exactly what they want to learn and are also expensive and time consuming to attend. For example, an adult can use ILL effectively to prepare for a certain event at work.
Nevertheless, it´s important to remember that university classes can be very productive to attend. The professors often have good materials and proven success teaching English. Also, the students are usually competing for high grades, have a high energy level, and usually like to practice conversation. Finally, at a university the student usually has access to a combination of very good materials and learning assistance.
For these reasons it can be difficult for ILL students to compete with compete with courses at a university. It´s felt by some that if an ILL adult learns the equivalent of two semesters of university courses in one year, that´s very good progress!
When might you want to study a language by taking a course, when by doing ILL, and when by doing both?
1. If you are interested in preparing for an international exam at the intermediate level, it might be best to take an exam preparation course and also do ILL.
2. If you are interested in learning English for your job and are at the beginner or advanced beginner level, you might want to take a course.
3. If you are at the pre-intermediate level or higher and want to improve your career English, you might want to do just ILL if you enjoy being in charge of your own program and don’t have a limited amount of time.
(To find out more about ILL, please refer to the page ‘The Development of ILL’ on this site.)
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