Speakingo’s online English course has a special offer for companies, where entrepreneurs can expect serious discounts and bonuses. See why you should opt for it and what it looks like in practice!
From this blog post you will learn:
- Why is English for business not only a great idea, but also a cost-effective one?
- What does it look like to study English remotely for companies on Speakingo’s online course?
1. English for companies
No one seems to need much convincing about the wisdom of teaching English in one’s company. English is the international language of communication. However, it is not only needed when dealing with foreign contractors, it is also needed for the proper development of the company in the domestic market. Most of the news, innovations and information can be found on the internet in English, and whoever is not developing is going backwards.
English for business also has many less obvious benefits. Forbes details such as:
- Broaden the company’s base of friends and business partners. If we speak a common language we are no longer so alien (read: distrustful) to each other. What’s more, when learning languages, we also learn about cultural differences, which if ignored can miss out on many lucrative opportunities and lead to unnecessary misunderstandings.
- It has been proven that multilingual people are able to make more accurate, rational decisions than those who do not speak any foreign language.
- Knowing English broadens not only horizons, but also the perceptual abilities of the brain. In this way, we are able to filter out important matters from unimportant ones more effectively, catching false information, which is particularly important during, for example, commercial negotiations.
- Learning languages has a positive effect on memory, and protects against dementia and Alzheimer’s as we age. This makes it easier to remember people’s names, prices of goods.
- We develop the ability to cope with doing several things at once (multitasking).
English for business is a way of enriching your employees with all these positive qualities, which in time will pay off with more efficient work and better financial results for the company.
There are so many advantages to learning English that you’d rather think about how to discourage it! 🙂
But are we really spending corporate money on English? Will such an investment pay off?
Does English language training pay off for the company?
It is a question of what is known as educational ROI (Return On Investment).
Although measuring the return on investment in English for companies is not straightforward, there are ways to carry out such an assessment. The English, for example, have calculated that their economy loses 3.5 per cent of GDP per year because Britons do not speak foreign languages. Undoubtedly, ignorance of English – which is a world language and the British do quite well with it! – costs a lot more!
In contrast, analysts at Watson Towers measured that companies that communicated brilliantly in English performed as much as 47% better than companies where communication was at a poor level. There is no doubt that the better they speak English, the better the financial performance of individuals, companies and the economies of entire countries.
Non-wage employee benefits are also a clever way to attract and retain the best employees in a company. For example, according to research by recruitment agency Grafton, up to 22 per cent of a percentage of employees would agree to a lower salary in exchange for more interesting non-wage benefits. For 86.6% of them, it is the possibility of development that is the most important issue when choosing a company (for example, the prestige of a company is key for only 22.9% of respondents).
English for companies seems to be the best solution here: as many as 92% of employees believe that learning English is important for their professional development. Furthermore, only 7 per cent believe that their level of English is satisfactory1.
But especially in companies working in international teams, the cost of time lost to misunderstandings and imprecise instructions far outweighs the cost of English language training.
Staff at one company where an English course was organised calculated that each trainee began to save as much as 25 minutes a day editing and writing emails, letters and documents in English.
Online English for companies
The question remains: which English language course for companies to choose?
In general, English language courses can be divided into two main categories: with a live person and on an online learning platform.
English for companies with language tutor
English for business with a live person will always be the more expensive option. Assuming you get a good teacher, such lessons can motivate you well to learn. If the work is in small groups (up to 6 people) there is also a chance that such a teacher will make the staff speak English. In addition, lessons with a native speaker will help you to get around with people from abroad (although learning with native speakers also has its drawbacks).
Lessons with a lecturer must take place at specific times – which can be both an advantage and a disadvantage….
English for companies on e-learning platforms
There are also many e-learning platforms where you can learn almost anything, especially English.
A big plus point of such a solution is that it is relatively inexpensive, especially for large companies wishing to teach English to many employees.
A definite advantage of learning English on online platforms is complete flexibility – you can study at any time of the day or night, and there is no problem with missed, cancelled lessons.
The disadvantage of learning English on online platforms, on the other hand, is that they usually only result in a passive knowledge of English. In theory, we may have learnt new vocabulary or grammatical structures, but when we practically have to say something, the words don’t want to get through our throat….
A glorious exception to this is the online English language learning platform Speakingo, which teaches by talking precisely!
2. Why Speakingo’s online business English course?
The problem for most English language learners is not grammar or vocabulary, but resistance, even fear of speaking. This is particularly troublesome in the service sector, where employees should be able to hold a casual conversation with a foreign customer – not pass a theoretical linguistics test!
However, this does not mean that all online platforms have to be crossed out in advance!
In Speakingo’s online English course, thanks to the use of modern speech recognition technology, the programme understands the student, praises or corrects.
The didactics, on the other hand, was not compiled by computer scientists, but by a doctor of English philology – it is based on the Direct Method (its well-known representative is, for example, the Callan method) and contains all the grammar we need, as well as the author’s list of 2,000 of the most popular English words, knowledge of which allows 90% of the conversation to be understood.
The course is available at all levels – from zero to hero!
What is it like to learn English on the Speakingo e-platform?
However, learning on Speakingo’s e-learning platform is simple and fun – like a child, we simply talk to the computer or phone, which praises us or corrects us if necessary, and the necessary structures and vocabulary “enter” our heads by themselves!
And most importantly – we develop the habit of thinking and speaking English freely from the very beginning!
The course covers levels from beginner A1 to advanced level C2. Each level corresponds to a year of language schooling and is divided into ten lessons.
An English lesson at Speakingo consists of four parts
1. Introduction of new material.
In the first part of the lesson, the student just listens to the voice of an Englishman who introduces the new material, i.e. about 40 questions and answers. At the same time, he follows the English text in the subtitles to familiarise himself with the spelling and learn the translation.
2. In the second part of the lesson, after hearing the question, the pupil has to answer aloud
The computer, in the voice of a native speaker, asks the student questions from previous lessons. If he answers correctly he will hear praise. If not really, a native speaker will give the correct answer for him.
3. Learning to ask questions.
In the third part, we learn to ask questions that the computer answers (if read correctly by the student).
In the second and third parts of the lesson, the intelligent module cleverly suggests only those questions that the student still needs to practise. If he hears the sentence correctly three times, it disappears from the repetition parts of the lesson.
4. Repetition of newly introduced material
In the fourth section we repeat the sentences first introduced at the beginning of this lesson. Essentially, it looks the same as the repetition in the second part of the lesson. However, as this is new material, this time the student still has subtitles to help, rather than giving answers from memory.
Learning English with Speakingo is effective because:
- We learn to speak using our throat, we break down the barrier to speaking rather than just passively staring at a screen!
- Whole phrases are learned, which is much more effective than memorising vocabulary and agonising over grammatical theory, which cannot be put into practice afterwards anyway!
- The intelligent module remembers which questions have been answered correctly three times, so it does not tire the pupils with material they have already mastered.
- The questions in the repetition sections are selected not so much at random, but precisely on the basis of the correctness of the answers heard to them.
- All grammar up Advanced level is included.
- The 2,000 most popular English words are also used, knowledge of which allows 90% of the conversation to be understood.
- You can practise your spelling and spelling at will on dictations.
- You can check your progress on tests.
- By using Speakingo’s Direct Method-based didactics, you save your valuable time and at the same time expand your knowledge in a hassle-free and enjoyable way!
HR panel for companies training employees on the Speakingo platform
The Speakingo learning platform is fun to use, not only for learners, but also for companies and HR who want to monitor the progress of their employees.
HR staff or the company’s management can view the progress of their employees via a special HR Panel.
What does this look like in practice?
Logging in to the HR Panel
The company employee responsible for training is given special rights by Speakingo to log into the portal’s administration panel.
It looks like this:
By clicking on the ‘View‘ button, the HR professional gains access to the individual statistics of each of his company’s employees, as well as the results of the entire group.
It contains information such as:
- Number of sentence pairs learnt (passed three times)
- Number of sentences that need polishing
- Number of all correct answers given
And the results from the dictation:
- Number of passed (3x) sentences in dictations
- Number of sentences in which there were spelling mistakes
- All correctly written sentences in the dictations
In the individual stats of each student you can also see:
- Speakingo test results.
[Polecam zachęcić pracowników do zrobienia sobie testu na początku nauki!]
This gives managers full control over their employees’ progress on Speakingo’s corporate English course!
Employee registration via a dedicated page
The HR officer will find the individual company link in the HR Panel , through which employees should register on Speakingo. The link will redirect them to a special dedicated page for business customers.
It looks similar to the course homepage, differing only in the photo. Apart from that, everything else, as well as all the learning, looks as transparent as it does for individual customers.
Speakingo also enables employees from abroad (e.g. Ukraine, Spain, etc.) to learn English in their native language (flag selection pictured below).
Once registered, employees can log in anywhere on the Speakingo portal, including via a phone app.
Employees also have a view of all their (but only their) statistics when they log into the service in the Student Panel (the page with the girls by the sea with the English flag).
All course participants will also receive the Speakingo Newsletter with blog news on average 3 times a week, which helps to keep the learning going!
Sample price offer for learning English for companies on the Speakingo e-learning platform
We prepare an individual offer for each company, depending on the number of employees, the length of tuition purchased and so on.
As a guide, however, we can look at the following calculation for a 60-person company that wants to train its employees in English for a year:
For classes with a lecturer, the cost to the company is as follows:
- 40 euro per class * 8 classes per month * 12 months * 10 groups = 38 400 euro per year
Speakingo’s online English course for individual learners costs €69 for a one-year payment.
In the case of a B2B contract, a company can expect a 50% discount on a large order.
Calculation of the cost of online English language training on the Speakingo platform
This means that for the same company it would be:
- 34.5 euro* 60 employees = 2 760 Euro per year.
This is 14 times cheaper!
Family offer and a month free!
- For larger, or longer orders, we offer a family package for employees – additional free access to the platform for wife, husband or partner.
- Also for orders of one year I offer one month free!
- Even one-person companies are invited to contact us, to whom we can offer a discount of 20% or more.
Quick and specific contact with the customer service office
If you would like to find out more, feel free to send an enquiry via the contact form and you will usually receive a factual and concrete answer the same day!
If, on the other hand, you would like to test “for yourself” what it is like to learn in this online English course, all you have to do is register below with two clicks to test this way of learning English online for free and without any obligations.
You can also offer such testing to your employees and company management!
Have I answered all possible questions about how Speakingo’s online English course is offered to companies? I also invite you to comment below the text!
Register for Speakingo’s online English course!
Do you want to understand the English? Start talking like them!
