Self-study
One of the LC’s missions is to support lifelong learning and the autonomous study of foreign languages. Many reasons can cause someone to choose self-study. Some learners feel more at ease studying by themselves because they can progress at their own pace and focus on the skills they need to develop first. Other learners simply choose this method because they couldn’t find a suitable course.
Self-study has a lot of advantages. Mostly, it allows one to focus on the skills he or she needs most, or to concentrate on his or her weaknesses, as for example: improve pronunciation, grammar, listening or reading, following his or her needs. Unfortunately, self-study also has a lot of disadvantages. For example, it is difficult to improve one’s pronunciation or active skills like writing and speaking while working on one’s own. However the most important problem is motivation. We usually start a self-study process full of good faith and stamina but it is difficult to maintain momentum on the long run. That’s why the LC presents learners who wish to start learning German, Italian or Spanish on their own with three programmes:
- tutorials, where learners can ask for guidance on which materials to work with, come with precise questions or work their speaking skills;
- bilingual tandem programme that brings together two people speaking different first languages who can work together teaching their first language and learning their partner’s first language;
In theory, these programmes are organised for the languages that are taught at the LC : English, German, Spanish and Italian. Bilingual and monolingual tandems are more flexible and can possibly be offered for other languages.
