Babbel’s live online group classes will give learners the opportunity to practice the skills they’ve learned so far on our language learning platform in a real-life setting. When you choose a Babbel Live subscription for your team, every learner will have access to these group lessons with a certified teacher. Our didactics team created these custom classes, applying their linguistic knowledge for effective, practical business courses.
Why Is Babbel Live So Effective?
With Babbel Live, learners join a video call to learn the language with a professional teacher and up to five other people. This group aspect is a particularly effective tool, as it connects your employees to other learners and keeps them motivated throughout their language learning journey. Learners also get the chance to speak to people they wouldn’t otherwise—allowing them to meet new people from different backgrounds.
Our online group classes are especially effective for practicing speaking. This will strengthen your employees’ confidence to speak to people outside of the classroom, like clients, business partners, or coworkers. It’s a great way to overcome the fear of speaking a new language.
Employees can also book their lessons based on topic, which ensures that they practice the vocabulary most relevant to them and at the time that suits them best.
How Do Online Group Classes at Babbel Work?
Babbel Live classes have a similar setup to classroom lessons. You can select your level—from A1 up to C1—and if you’re unsure, you can take a test to determine which class would be the best fit. Each learner will receive a certain number of credits, with one credit equal to one lesson. We recommend that learners not use up all their credits at once. Instead, we recommend pacing yourself to complete a course—A1.1 for example—over a couple of months.
The way it works is simple: Learners receive an email from Babbel with a link where they can see an overview of the available classes and their credits. They choose a time, day, and teacher and click on the class to book it. They’ll get a reminder the day before and a follow-up email afterward with recommended reading and takeaways from the lesson. We use Zoom for the classes because it’s easy to use and has a lot of fun features that make the classes more engaging.
The Didactic Methodology Behind Babbel Live
From a didactics perspective, we believe it’s the style of teaching that really sets our online group classes apart from in-class lessons. Babbel’s lessons use a concept called Flipped Classroom. When you go to school, the teacher talks about grammar, vocabulary and sentence structure, but the way it’s structured, the students don’t get to practice speaking a lot. The way we’re doing it, the students talk a lot in class and study vocabulary and grammar in the Babbel platform.
It’s crucial that learners use their lesson time to speak and apply everything they’ve learned through the learning platform into a true-to-life scenario. When Babbel was creating Babbel Live classes, the didactics team reviewed how all different resources could be combined into one, blended learning product. We use movies, podcasts, articles, cultural knowledge, apps, and Zoom to teach language.
All the Babbel Live teachers add their own unique flair to the class and are encouraged to share their cultural knowledge with the learners. They don’t just explain how language works—they also explain the culture of the country. This is important because being able to speak with native speakers and develop cultural competence is a big motivator when learning a language.
Flexible, Affordable, and Fun
Lessons with Babbel Live are more cost-efficient than classroom lessons because it’s all done remotely, which means less overhead. Classroom lessons require the person to be on-site at a specific time, over a prolonged period. Our lessons are much more flexible, with participants able to choose a day and time that work with their schedule, which means there will be no more excuses to miss a class.
Group lessons will get learners feeling confident speaking in groups and will help get them out of their comfort zone. They are also great for consistent, long-term results. Babbel for Business also offers live 1:1 lessons as part of our Babbel Intensive solution. These lessons are best suited to individuals who need to learn quickly and in a short amount of time.
The Takeaway
The combination of different learning methods is not only effective—it’s motivating and fun! Using Babbel Live alongside our learning platform will provide a fun and holistic learning experience. If you’re interested in learning more about our blended learning method, visit our website or check out our eBook below.
What are the benefits of blended learning for your company?
In this eBook, find out more about the benefits of a flexible language learning method for your employees and why blended learning is the most effective method to learn a new language.
