I just completed a 7 day trial of Lingoda and I thought I would share my thoughts here. During that 7 day trial I took 3 French grammar classes.
Firstly, if you sign up for the 7 day free trial, put an alarm on your phone to cancel the trial before the end of the 7 days. If you don't, your credit card will be charged for a monthly subscription.
THINGS I LIKED:
- there is a reasonably good free test of your language level.
- you can read the slides for the class before it starts
- you can do a quiz before and after the class
- prepared materials involved interaction: reading, answering questions, going into breakout rooms, role playing
- teacher gives feedback on each student after the class
- you can rate each teacher and the class itself after the class
- 2 teachers that I had were friendly and competent
- while you can take any course that you want, they have collection of courses for each CEFR level and actually break each level down into 2 or 3 sub-levels. For B2 there is B2.1, B2.2 and B2.3.
- classes are in Zoom, and not some proprietary/flakey software
- when the free trial was over, it was very easy to cancel before a paid subscription kicked in
- the clases are completely in the target language
- you have access to every quiz and all of the materials for each class at every level
THINGS THAT I DIDN'T LIKE:
- only 4 languages: English, French, Spanish and German
- I find the classes a bit old fashioned: teacher is reading notes, then asking students questions in turn.
- teachers put the students on the spot instead of asking who wants to answer
- the feedback for each student after each class is limited and generic.
- the classes run for a full 60 minutes, which gives the teacher no breaks between classes and it means classes will start exactly on time and end exactly on time which leaves little time for chat chat with the teacher or other students
- not much opportunity for free conversation since each class has a lot of slides to go through
- if you don't cancel before the 7 days are over, you will be signed up for a monthly subscription
- there is no way to sign up for courses ad hoc, or as you go, you must sign up for some sort of subscription of X classes per month
- once the class is over, there is no way to interact with the teacher or the other students
THOUGHTS IN GENERAL/WOULD I TAKE CLASSES WITH THEM AGAIN:
- Although I find their sessions a bit old fashioned , I could see taking courses with them to brush up on specific points of grammar
- I prefer talking with tutors because if I sign up for 60 minutes, I can talk for 60 minutes. With a group classes of 5 students I can talk for 60 / 5 = 12 minutes, but then the teach has to talk for at least half that time, so maximum I can speak is 6 minutes. Granted, learning a language isn't just about speaking, it is about listening, reading, writing and learning grammar.
- Because I knew I would be called upon in class to answer questions from the slides, I would spend about 2 hours reading, understanding and answering all of the questions in the slides. Even though I found this boring, I was highly motivated to do it because I didn't want to be embarrassed in class by not knowing an answer. This got me to study the subjunctive for 2 hours, then discuss it in class for 1 hours... I have never been able to do that with a grammar topic before.
- I find that the company has very realistic claims about language learning, which are rare in this industry. They don't say you will be fluent in a couple of months if you are a beginner.
I think I would take classes from them again in the future to brush up on grammar, but I think tutoring services such as Italki are cheaper per minute of actual speaking. With a tutor I get detailed feedback on what I need to work on.
The Lingoda Sprint interests me as a way of forcing myself to study hard for 2 months and if done correctly, this would be free.
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