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Why is self-study more effective than language schools? Why can you learn a language faster by spending 20 minutes a day instead of spending 2 hours for a lesson in a language school? Let’s figure it out.

I learned all languages by myself and did it faster than people around me who attended language schools and spent less time learning.  The English language was the first foreign language for me, as it is for most of us who are not native speakers. I bought textbooks and read self-teachers online, and I watched self-study courses online.

In this post, I want to share my opinion on why I think that self-learning is more effective than language schools, and my method of fast language mastery. I am a big fan of controlling my time by myself and I am convinced that time is the most valuable resource that we have.

Here are my 10 thoughts on why self-study language is more effective than language schools

1. You will discuss topics that you have zero interest in. Let’s suppose you want to read or listen to or watch something about travel photography, but you are forced to read or listen to a text about trending series in which you have zero interest. And you are looking forward to the moment when the class gets finished and you go home. “College is when everyone read one book”.
2. Everyone has a different mindset. Everyone is different. Everyone requires a different approach. When you learn by yourself – you optimize your learning curve for your ability of learning. You can take online courses or learn with a teacher in Italki. That’s why everyone has a different speed of learning, someone adapts to listening faster, someone can speak quickly but doesn’t understand what others say. That’s it. And all these people are in one class, they have one teacher, they read the same book, and they have the same curriculum.
3. You choose what to learn today, what to learn tomorrow and after tomorrow, and how to do it, and you find the most appropriate sources for yourself. You can chat with people online, by text or voice, and you can choose who you talk to. Also, you can take face-to-face online lessons with teachers on Italki.com and Verbling.com. Don’t mess private classes with a language school. It is private lessons with a curriculum adapted for you, not a standard curriculum for a group.
4. And you don’t need to leave your home for language classes. Moreover, 15 minutes of self-learning can be more effective than one hour of a language class. Just imagine, you are tired and want to go home but you have a class scheduled for 8 pm, and maybe you will get stuck in traffic on the way.
5. Every language school has a formal atmosphere, and certain ethics and rules. But when you learn by yourself, you don’t think about those formal rules. You can drink beer with your mate talking on skype (by the way, it makes learning faster), use obscene language, different slang, laugh out loud, and so on, and nobody would say to you what you must do and what must not.
6. Education level, certificates, and years of experience of a teacher basically don’t really mean that the teacher is good. I know good teachers with certificates and without them. It is the question of the approach to teaching that every teacher does differently.
7. Finally, you don’t need to spend hundreds of dollars on group classes. Really, you can spend just a couple of dollars on books, watch free videos and talk to people for free. And you will learn a language way faster.
8. Self-study of anything, whether it is languages or not is one of the most important skills in life. If you can learn something on your own, you can achieve great goals.
9. There are multiple online courses that you can take for learning a language on your own. And it is a very beneficial deal. The Rocket Languages courses cost from 59$ to 269$ one time, while language schools cost 100$+ monthly.
10. Many language schools have inconsistent curriculums with academic explanations. All grammar will be explained in the most difficult way, while there are “non-academic” simple explanations. And it will not be consistent, it is highly possible that you will learn how to use present tense, and then suddenly switch to future perfect progressive tense in the next class, instead of learning present, past, and future simple tenses at once in one class, all progressive tenses in the next one, and so on. Again, it depends on a certain school, but it happens.

What are the advantages of language schools?

Definitely, there are advantages of language schools too, but in my opinion, the advantages of self-study override them. However, as was mentioned before, everyone needs a different approach, and I cannot state that my opinion is the only true.

If you found a great language school with excellent teachers and awesome groupmates – it is definitely worth the investment.

Try different methods of language learning, don’t stick to only one. And you will find what’s best for you. And if you are a newbie in the language learning community, I have a completely free ebook for you – How to learn Any Language as Fast as Possible and get fluent in 60 days!