We teach employees English: the experience of Edison

"Moving from the one-room schoolhouse to the one-world schoolhouse is now a reality” ( Cisco Systems )

“One-room schoolhouse” is an American rural school from the time of Mark Twain; Tom Sawyer studied in this kind of training, which is still familiar to anyone who attended any courses, including English. Not too progressive for the world of cloud services and global video conferencing?


We studied English with this guy.

English is the point of access to all the opportunities that modern IT specialists have: from advanced training to working for Western customers for strong currency and employment in Western companies (regardless of whether you plan to stay in Russia or work abroad). Entry into foreign markets and foreign customers was a milestone in the history of our company - and in this post, OTUK school head Alex Jude will take the floor (she will tell you how he taught English to Edison employees).

The overwhelming majority of modern IT professionals familiarized themselves with English in schools, mainly until the 2000s. The Russian / Soviet school system was poorly balanced, giving excellent grammar and reading on the one hand, and zero comprehension and speaking ability on the other. This affects the way Russian people speak English now, living with such a legacy of the past.
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It is logical that you will speak English poorly if you have never lived in UK / USA, have never had contact with a native speaker of English, have never really been interested in learning a language (possibly as a result of a negative experience in school). This becomes a real obstacle when you strive to be ahead of the game: to expand our business portfolio and attract more international customers.

How in Edison coped with the problem

Having made English their priority, EDISON began with a traditional approach, the very one-room schoolhouse: local Russian teachers, mixed according to their abilities, textbooks, and so on. Lack of native speakers, mixed levels (some students simply pulled back), employees were busy at work at different times and could not always attend the class together, some lack of interest in the class and so on quickly showed the ineffectiveness of this project.

However, it was almost impossible to find qualified English teachers in Kemerovo, Tomsk, Krasnoyarsk, so the decision to switch to distance learning was obvious. This is how our acquaintance took place when Edison chose the British school OTUK (Online Teachers UK) for his experiment.

The company was tasked with: motivating employees to achieve a certain level of English, and only after that - full funding of language courses for them. The criterion is the completion of the Raymond Murphy Intermediate English Grammar in Use course. This ensures that only the most motivated and motivated employees will get access to free training (such a bonus or privilege). Most students completed this course in six months and improved their language skills to the upper-intermediate level (above average).

This meant an improvement in the company's global achievements, because it opened access to international tenders. At the same time, investment in staff for six months in a standard package per employee is no higher than the cost of an average gaming laptop ).

English Lessons by Skype with OTUK

The classes are focused on the one-on-one approach based on the individual needs of the student (in this case, an IT specialist). That is, the curriculum was adapted to meet the requirements of this particular business, so it prepared students to use English in specific situations related to work: software development requirements, sales by phone, correspondence, meetings, presentations. Courses are distributed in levels and arranged at a convenient time for the student, so that his work is not interrupted. Classes were taught by qualified British English teachers via Skype using a webcam and headset. All downloaded lessons are saved, and the progress of the study is monitored, which is periodically reported to the head of the company. The staff was interested and highly motivated to learn, because the courses were relevant, modern natural English was used.

"Edison" chose the standard package: 2 lessons per week, 45 minutes each + independent solution of tasks between classes. The term of study for each student was about 6-8 months. The objectives of the course were very specific and aimed at improving conversational skills in work situations, as well as in some formal (for example, e-mail correspondence).

Especially for this article, Edison employees shared their learning experiences:

Immediately conquered the warm attitude of the teacher, openness and attention to my interests. It just unleashed my tongue. It was impossible to stop me - I wanted to share my thoughts with him. This, in my opinion, is not enough for many teachers, including school and university - a human, non-formal attitude. This is the most vivid impression that I have left from learning.
- Anton, the developer of "Edison".

I liked that the teacher, being an Englishman, knows Russian well. Firstly, sometimes it happened that something needed to be discussed, for which the knowledge of the English language that was current at that time was not enough, and then it was possible to switch to Russian - this was some relief, but it just saved some time. Secondly, it was possible to discuss some details of the semantics to which an ordinary Russian teacher could not pay attention at all, and a non-Russian-speaking neutive would not pay due attention to the translation into Russian.

The teacher made it clear how the English react to the common mistakes of Russian students. For example, mistakes in the use of time, which is why Russians often worry so much, are not as critical as one might think: the British can still understand (especially if this is some kind of exotic Future Perfect Continuous that is not used in practice). But, for example, an incorrectly used excuse can cause a real misunderstanding. It helps to concentrate on the important.

I learned interesting things about English in general. For example, English consists of two layers of language: it is a kind of two languages ​​in one. The first is the Old English Proto-Germanic layer, the ancient basis of English. These are simple, like five kopecks, words like take, get and so on. The second layer came from France, probably with the Norman conquest; this is a strong influence of French and Latin: all sorts of words like coalesce, acquire, etc. The first layer is mostly spoken language, phrasal verbs belong here. The second layer is literary. Thus, for many words of the English language, you can find two options from each "layer". For example, for the word "cemetery" there can be two different words - graveyard (from two Old English words grave and yard) and cemetery (French cimetiere, whose roots come from Latin). Such knowledge gives a greater understanding of the language and excites additional interest in its study.
- Michael, the developer of "Edison".

OTUK is distinguished from other online schools by the lack of prepared programs. We do not write courses in advance, but begin with the level and needs of the student and build each course around them. We have textbooks and self-made material that we often use, but not one course is different, because each student is different. Let's assume that we have a collection of building blocks ... each course can be created using these blocks with the addition of other elements that we have not previously used. The traditional methods of the ESL class are similar to the rigid manner of education in the Soviet school. This is what leads to the extinction of students' interest in the language. I had the same experience when I was learning French and German at a school in the UK. That is why I do not speak these languages ​​now. Our approach is different in that our one-on-one courses give us the opportunity to specifically focus on the needs and interests of the individual. Over time, the course develops on the basis of feedback from the learner (or from their boss). Textbooks are aging and losing their value, and our material is always up-to-date and meaningful, since we use real content from the Internet and other sources. For example, we could use an IT textbook written in 2001 with vocabulary such as “disk”, or we could read an article from a website, written 5 days ago, about the latest technologies that will replace flash memory. What material would interest you more?

Two words about alternatives

Other Skype English schools in Russia usually invite cheap Russian teachers of English from the provinces to reduce their expenses and maximize profits, or they are looking for American teachers from the provinces who will take less than the British, but will often be less qualified. For example, the majority of those who have English native are monolingual and do not even know the grammar of their native language. We use tutors from the UK who have their own experience in teaching foreign languages. Therefore, they are “on the same page” as our students. We have several teachers who now have a good experience with IT guys, so we all have a big interest in this niche. Another difference is that we are still a relatively small school, so we can afford an individualized personalized approach. Large players in Russia are often more interested in quantity than in quality in order to have more traffic (financial and organic). In our case, if we lose students, then the business will close. Therefore, a high level of teaching must be maintained constantly.

A brief summary for those who do not want to read everything

If you summarize the experience of teaching Edison English staff as briefly as possible, you get the following:

• E-learning for IT professionals is natural and comfortable;
• Individual classes are more productive than group classes;
• Training is focused on personal needs, not on the necessary compromise, as in a group;
• Most IT people are introverts. One-on-one online training is the perfect way for them;
• Courses OTUK sharpened by the IT-sphere;
• Faster progress, and therefore a better ratio of time / money spent;
• A wider choice of online teachers (especially native speakers of English) compared to local ones in a Russian city;
• A more flexible schedule, allowing you to conduct lessons in your free time;
• There is no reference to the locality: lessons are held regularly and even business trips do not interfere with learning, so progress is always visible.

One last thing: Skype lessons are just Skype lessons. The main thing in learning a new language is to stop treating this process as a study, making it a part of your life, seeing the language as a “bridge” to your goals, and not as the goal itself. Read articles and books in English, listen to podcasts, watch movies and TV shows and, most importantly, communicate with native speakers - at work, for acquaintance and so on. With this approach, any lessons will become a truly useful and effective support in communication. The task of the school is simply to offer a more convenient format.

PS A couple of useful materials from the site OTUK, while in Russian (for beginners ;-)

• The best mobile applications for learning English
• Best YouTube video feeds for learning English in a new format.
• A quick tour of the new Google Translate app.
• A brief overview of social networks for learning English

Any comments on our methodology or would you like to share your experience? We will be glad to talk in the comments, in our group on Facebook or Vkontakte .



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We teach employees English: the experience of Edison
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