5 Surprising Benefits of Taking your Company Language Training Online

There are some obvious benefits to going digital with your company English language training programme.

These include no wasted time travelling to bricks and mortar language schools, no expensive accommodation costs, and no fixed schedules that in-house training often demands.

With online language training, you can now improve your business English skills from your workplace, as well as from the comfort of your home office or even while on business trips.

This flexibility in terms of time and space is greatly celebrated when it comes to online language training, and with good reason. However, the benefits of taking your business English course online do not stop there. Here are 5 additional ways your company benefits from online language training.

1.    Teambuilding through group training

One of the added advantages of any type of company training is that it can bring groups of staff together in a way that normal work activities do not. These are internal networking events that are invaluable to your employees and, therefore, to the company itself.

Online training allows you to take this a step further. For example, if you have a staff member in Düsseldorf, they can regularly join colleagues in Vienna or Lyon in web-based group training sessions. These shared experiences create greater rapport between teams and smoother internal collaboration.

2.    More cost-effective and varied

Although it is the format that most people associate with online business English courses, one-to-one training is just one of the online training options available.

When you have multiple employees who all have the same training needs, these can be addressed in online group sessions, in webinar training, or with video courses. If you can effectively train multiple employees together, then you will get much more for your training budget.

3.    Online training can lead to greater online competence

Digital language learning can train two competencies at the same time. In completing the training digitally, accessing a number of various channels such as webinars and interactive games, as well as relating to the trainer through an online communication platform such as Skype or Zoom, the employee gains experience in another skillset that may have so far eluded them.

4.    Content is up-to-date

The very nature of digital platforms and processes ensures that digital materials rarely become obsolete. That is not the case in more traditional class-based learning, where printed materials and coursebooks can very quickly become outdated.

Digital learning is inherently dynamic and evolves at a speed that other learning interventions cannot.

5.    Blended learning gives back valuable time

With online training, interactive online activities can be easily incorporated to offer additional practice for various aspects of language use e.g. grammar and spelling. Many of these activities give instant results and feedback, meaning a trainer does not have to be present while trainees complete them.

This allows the trainees to do the activities and exercises outside of the contact hours with a trainer in a blended learning format. Now you have more time in the training sessions for activities that can only be done with a trainer present e.g. using the new vocabulary learned, practising speaking skills and gaining confidence using the language for real-life business situations.

So, these are our top 5 additional benefits of online English training that are sometimes overlooked. We personally think the additional opportunity for teambuilding across international teams is particularly beneficial. Which one do you find most interesting for your company?

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