Organising a school language exchange program is a long and time consuming process for teachers. It is usually an activity that must be coordinated on a volunteer basis, outside of school hours, by dedicated teachers. The logistical and bureaucratic issues that teachers must now overcome to organise a successful language exchange program have contributed to a decline in the number of schools offering a language exchange program. This decline has alarmed the British Council, who see the enormous benefit which such programs provide to a child’s learning experience. In November they launched a campaign to reverse the trend. In view of the issues faced by schools in organising language exchange programs, schools and pupils are relying on new ways of offering their students language immersion opportunities outside of the old model. A successful language exchange does not have to be directly organised by teachers; the internet has revolutionised education, at Lingoo we use it to facilitate language exchanges arranged directly between families, removing the need for the schools to intervene, or for teachers to dedicate personal time to arranging stays.
How Lingoo Can Help Teachers
The Lingoo exchange platform allows parents to find families in the country native to the language their child is learning and arrange an exchange. Rather than organising exchanges, schools can encourage parents to use the Lingoo platform to arrange exchanges. These could then be arranged during holidays or a period of the school calendar allocated for Lingoo exchanges. For teachers, this removes the health and safety challenges and red tape that form part of a traditional exchange, whilst ensuring children can still take part in a language exchange. Lingoo work with a number of schools in this way, and have a partnership scheme that provides parents discounts on using the Lingoo platform.
How This Benefits Parents
This would give parents the ability to find an exchange family and communicate with them before making a final decision. This provides peace of mind and control over the exchange process for their child and flexibility over when it takes place.