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SLA programs better in private business? | ||
Tags: Business | Language Program | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| Kugel Senior Member United States Joined 6566 days ago 497 posts - 555 votes  Speaks: English* | Message 1 of 7 22 August 2010 at 10:10pm | IP Logged | ||
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Not sure if this is the right forum, but I figured it would be interesting to see a breakdown of where SLA programs are in terms of how they are funded. The top 4 programs that are talked about on this forum, Pimsleur/Michel Thomas/Linguaphone, Assimil, are all funded by private businesses that are for profit. As a matter of fact, the vast majority of SLA programs are funded by privately owned businesses. While some of these private businesses are for non-profit purposes(Esperanto USA/Friends of Latin or some society), it seems that profit is the reason that these particular famous programs(Pimsleur and Assimil) exist. Are the budgets for these programs much larger than university language departments at the University? I wouldn't think so, but I certainly don't know anything about the language learning business.
The only well known foundation in language learning that I know of is the Annenberg Foundation, which funds the existence of French in Action. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6467 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 2 of 7 23 August 2010 at 12:11am | IP Logged | ||
Commercial courses tend to be backed by companies which spend a lot of time and money on distribution and marketing. That's a non-trivial confounding factor... The quality of a course and how well-known it is have fairly little to do with each other, sadly. I find far more people have heard of Rosetta Stone than Pimsleur or Assimil. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6039 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 3 of 7 23 August 2010 at 12:37pm | IP Logged | ||
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The only thing that commercial courses have in their favour pedagogically is that they are less prone to changes in teaching fashion -- when your brand is based on your teaching style (eg Pimsleur, Assimil, RS, Transparent Language) you don't rewrite the entire course every time current "best practice" changes. Courses that implement the latest fad sometimes seem thrown together against a checklist.
But the biggest difference between "brand" courses and courses made by universities or special interest groups is quite simple: Commercial courses gain visibility gain visibility by... being available in more than one language. If you're a single-language course, you can't generate the same brand awareness, so you're not most people's first choice, even if you are the best available. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| DrSarahEaton Diglot Newbie Canada eatonintl.com Joined 5235 days ago 2 posts - 3 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish | Message 4 of 7 23 August 2010 at 11:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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This is a fascinating discussion. I did my PhD in the marketing of revenue-generating language programs at Canadian public universities. I find the whole question of for-profit vs. non-profit fascinating. I would argue, based on my work in this field that the quality of a program should not be judged on whether it is for-profit or non-profit. There are very good for-profit programs out there, and there are lousy ones, too. There are also very good non-profit program out there, and others which are mediocre.
The questions to ask, in my humble opinion, are "What is the quality of this program?" and "How does this program define quality?" Membership in a professional language organization is a good place to start, but it is not the only indicator of quality. I shall continue to follow this very interesting and engaging debate. I'm interested in your perspectives and thoughts. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Kugel Senior Member United States Joined 6566 days ago 497 posts - 555 votes Speaks: English* | Message 5 of 7 26 August 2010 at 5:34pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think that what sticks out at the universities is that there are many different departments that are available to the developer of the language program, departments in psychology, linguistics, modern languages, philosophy, literature, drama/theater, computer science...etc. I doubt that even the huge publishers like Simon and Schustler have the same kind of access.
The most important, I think, is the access to voice actors/actresses and media specialists. The actual content from courses like Assimil and Pimsleur isn't mind blowing material; and despite what they say of needing months and months to write up only half the course content, the dialogues and short sentences could be imitated by a writer with no experience in developing language material. In fact, they(SLA program directors) could very well be imitating/plagiarizing each other, as one certainly couldn't tell the difference if they were or not. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6039 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 6 of 7 26 August 2010 at 11:06pm | IP Logged | ||
I think you're overestimating the amount of cooperation that goes on in any given university. Princeton teaches various languages, for example, but the Princeton Russian course is only available in Russian. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Spanky Senior Member Canada Joined 5984 days ago 1021 posts - 1714 votes Studies: French | Message 7 of 7 27 August 2010 at 12:31am | IP Logged | ||
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Don't forget the way-drier-than-dirt (and not the interesting sort of dirt, I mean really boring dirt) FSI courses. They are a bit anomalous as they are government-sourced courses, so it is hard to compare them to the usual not-for-profit venture.
A consequence of FSI (and I assume DLI) not being driven by profit considerations is that considerable effort could be expended on some of the more obscure languages which would not have much of a market. Edited by Spanky on 27 August 2010 at 12:32am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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