How 40 grammar topics and 2000 words made an industry of several hundred billion dollars (part 1 of 2)

54750 letters in 5 years. With different variations of the same question: "How to learn a foreign language."

My name is Elena Shipilova and my company has been teaching foreign languages ​​online since 2010. On average, during these 5 years, about 20-30 letters passed through me with similar questions about learning foreign languages, problems that prevent me from speaking in a foreign language and tasks that force ordinary people to take on foreign languages. The estimated number of letters for these 5 years is 54,750.
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This figure is the best marketing research in foreign languages ​​that you can imagine; therefore, I will not write about my conclusions on the basis of my imagination or custom marketing research (we all know how they are carried out), but on more than real statistics.

In foreign languages, there are only 2 main problems that a student must solve for himself:

• outgoing - a problem with the "speaking" of the student;
• Incoming - a problem with understanding what he was told.

I wrote for a reason that a foreign language consists of a maximum of 40 grammar topics and constructions on which our sentences are lined up. For filling these constructions with words, an ordinary person will have enough 2000 foreign words with his head to express himself clearly and understandably himself and to understand what his interlocutor says. I have compiled a table of these grammatical topics on the example of English with real examples of sentences in Russian, so that it is immediately clear in which cases what construction we need. I'm still afraid to put a link to a table on the site, so that those interested can find it on their own.

And the most surprising thing is that these 40 grammar topics and 2,000 words have successfully created jobs for many decades, both for teachers and now for web developers around the world.

And I wondered: are these topics so complex and poorly remembered words or are they holding the client (student) as a complete idiot?

What sell in foreign languages

In a good way, sales in foreign languages ​​are no different from sales in a regular supermarket: the buyer leaves his money for the goods that solve his current problems with food, clothing, comfort, health, and so on.

The well-known principle of the correct sale says: “The sale must solve the problem of the client” That is, we sell not what we have in stock and what we personally like as sellers, but what the customer needs.

In foreign languages, in fact, this principle does not work.

I repeat, I’m not writing about all the conclusions because I want to seem smarter than everyone, but on the basis of the statistics that I have in my hands and which, just the same, is the key to solving this eternal topic for discussion “how to learn a foreign language tongue".

What teachers sell

What they themselves know, can and love:

1. methodology;
2. methodology;
3. grammar;
4. phonetics;
5. morphology;
6. pronunciation technique;
7. exercises and dialogues;
8. a selection of video lessons and audio materials;
9. terminology;
10. basics of pedagogy.

In other words, all that they were taught at the university.

What do web developers sell?

What they use and what they like:

1. gamification;
2. progress statistics;
3. usability;
4. design;
5. IT technologies;
6. wave theory of memorizing words;
7. word memorization programs and applications;
8. frequency dictionaries;
9. thematic courses;
10. content from youtube, TEDa, etc.

In other words, everything that you are used to using in games and on all IT sites on the Internet.

What does a student want to buy in foreign languages?

Trite, but for their hard earned money, the student wants to buy the result. And that's all.

In my case, for the target audience with which we work (women and men 30-65 years old), the result is the ability to use a foreign language in our life to practice in real life situations with real people.

This means that the result may be the ability to independently go to doctors, pharmacies, look for housing, negotiate by phone and in life about the terms of renting an apartment, arrange children in kindergartens and schools, daily communication with a foreign husband and his relatives, hiring, meeting with partners, meetings with colleagues, passing the exam, passing an interview both by phone and in person.

However, one should not think that this is a primitive “everyday level”, which everyone is so afraid of, that is why they immediately mark business with English, for example. For all the above tasks, you need to have a very good vocabulary from the words “bread”, “milk”, “buy”, to the highly specialized terms “survey”, “delivery dates”, “banks”, “currency”, etc. Grammar doesn’t need so much, but it still needs to be learned and brought to automatism in speech. Business English differs from “everyday level” only in vocabulary.

To achieve such a visible result from the student need time investment. With self-study, this time is most often measured in years. If you invest in the right system and the teacher, this time can be reduced to a few weeks.

A very important key point: study takes as much time as it is devoted to .

However, for an increasing percentage of students, websites and teachers “make” the very process of learning a foreign language the result . It is economically unprofitable to teach a student a foreign language quickly. So that he would not return to his study, but use him in everyday life.

The concept of “the process of learning a foreign language” was introduced and introduced into the masses quite consciously to increase profits. This is when everywhere they write about something like “for themselves and their self-development”, when the process of learning languages ​​is something like a hobby. This is when the result is not needed, but the process itself is interesting. Or when they talk about the result, but they lead to it in a roundabout way, gradually “giving out” the client.

Every day I receive letters and comments with specific questions about how to start speaking a foreign language, how to learn and remember the right words, to use them in a conversation with the consul, how to hear what you are told in the hospital, how to pass the A1 level exam. AT 2.

And there are very few letters with questions about which song, film or program you can use to learn the words for yourself under the theme “breeding pedigree in the home” or to compare the pronunciation of the word “terrible” in English just for its common development .

About the impact on this audience (the category of the "process of learning the language") have web developers who are taking money in foreign languages, I will tell in a separate article.

Category that uses the “learning process”

1. students;
2. students;
3. pregnant women and women on maternity leave;
4. most IT shnik.

And this category is not solvent:

1. the student simply does not have his money;
2. the student himself is poor;
3. a pregnant and maternity woman has other priorities;
4. IT-person is not morally ready to pay money for what, as it seems to him, he himself seems to be able to find on the Internet for free.

More precisely, this category of people is willing to pay a little money for being “fed” under the guise of a foreign language:

1. points collection;
2. transitions to a new level;
3. improved statistics and progress;
4. beautiful pictures;
5. voice acting words;
6. a selection of top-most interesting books;
7. the opportunity to add friends and discuss with them a new film.

Only in this case it is not paid for the language itself, not for the practical result, but for complacency , they say, fuff, I worked out today, today I am a good fellow. The feeling that I am in a foreign language, I am in a trend, prompts to pay, but, again, this is not a payment for the foreign language itself, it is a payment for inner peace and for the boring process of supposedly studying.

It’s quite easy to work with such a category of students, and it’s quite easy to earn on it : a symbolic amount of 500-2000 rubles per year or for VIP-status / premium account or info course and everything is a foreign language in your pocket. Such a magic pill. It is this category of so-called students, and, more precisely, the market offer for artificially created demand of these students created such a tasty morsel of the market for those who want to earn in foreign languages ​​and earn.

It turns out that web developers or pseudo-teachers once again solve not the problem of those who need a foreign language in practice in action, but the problem of those who need the appearance of learning a foreign language, who seem to be interested in the process itself.

It turns out that in foreign languages, more precisely, in the modern business model of foreign languages, there is a trick and deception from the beginning - problems are not solved to achieve a result, but to enjoy the process. Although everyone says that in a foreign language they need a result.

There is a substitution of concepts: the student under the guise of the result of selling what is easiest to sell and buy.

Modern client psycho

In foreign languages, you need to clearly understand that there are 2 completely different client psycho-types, with which you also need to work in different ways:

1. one that pays a little money for the process;
2. the one who came to a foreign language is not of his own free will, but circumstances compelled him.

The first psycho is those who teach for themselves.

The second is those who need “for yesterday” and for a specific life goal (exam, relocation, work, adaptation).

So, in order to work qualitatively with the second category of people, they, first of all, need to knock the crap out of their heads, which is sold for the first (having fun, go to a new level).

The second one has to explain that the TOEFL exam “for yesterday” or an interview with a German company in a month cannot cost 1000 rubles and 30 minutes a day.

Every time, when faced with such situations, I mentally say “thank you” to those service providers for “learning” foreign languages ​​who have planted such a pig.

The whole market is not working on the result. The result to the market is unprofitable - the cash flow is lost. That is why almost the entire turnover creates the first category of people. The second is in most cases unprofitable. The errors of the teachers are too noticeable in the end, because in this case the result can be easily measured by the client (interview passed, free communication at the exhibition, work received). Therefore, it is cheaper to sell the process, and not the result.

In the second part of the article I will talk about existing business models in the teaching of foreign languages ​​online and how to work with the second category of clients and at the same time earn.