Lingoda Review: Few Languages But Impressive Class Quality

Lingoda has three main lesson types: Group, Individual, and Marathon. They also offer two accelerated programs: Sprint and Super Sprint.

Marathon

Marathon plans allow you to purchase classes in advance for 3, 6, or 12 months at three classes per week. They also give you the chance to win back a portion of your class fees.

Accelerated Classes

With the Sprint program, you take a class every other day for three months. If you attend 100% of your classes, you can earn back 50% of your fees. If you sign up for Super Sprint, you get to take a class every day for three months and will earn back 100% of your fees if you attend every class. The cost for these programs varies by language and they have waiting lists to get in.

Lingoda Languages

Lingoda offers lessons in 4 languages:

Initial Thoughts

My initial thought upon visiting Lingoda’s website is that they have a very professional platform. The layout is clean and well designed although I did find it a bit too gimmicky. The homepage focuses more on accolades than program details which is off-putting for me.

Once I dove a little deeper into the website I did find more of the details I was looking for, but I had a hard time finding a definitive price list. This isn’t a huge deal, but I like to know what I’m getting into before I sign up so I found it annoying.

The website does include a small peek into the workings of the program including a one-minute long video of a mock class. This won’t give you a proper idea of how the whole program works, but it’s better than nothing.

The page also includes a helpful FAQ section if you’re like me and want to know a bit more about the program before you fully sign up.

Signing Up For Lingoda

Once you choose which free trial you would like to sign for, you get to create your account. You can use an existing online account such as Google, Facebook, or Apple or you can create an account unique to Lingoda. I chose to use an existing account for expediency.

At this point, you have to re-enter your desired target language and then you can set up your payment information. They accept all the payment forms you would expect including major credit cards and PayPal. You will not be charged until the end of your 7-day trial and you can cancel at any time before that to avoid being charged if you do not like the program.

Getting Started With Lingoda

As soon as the check-in process is complete, you can start learning. You’ll immediately have access to the lesson calendar which allows you to see all the classes that are available at any given time.

If you have a general idea of your CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages) fluency level, you could sign up for a class right away. If you’re like most people and don’t know your fluency level, there are a few things you should do first.

Firstly, you should familiarize yourself with the platform. When you first open your account, there is a quick tutorial that will show you around the site and introduce you to all of the tools available to you. The main page is well laid out and easy to navigate, so you should have no trouble finding your way around.

You can also do a quick system check to make sure that your computer and internet speeds are sufficient. The classes are held through Zoom, so if you’re not familiar with that program, you may want to check that out in advance as well.

Lastly, you should take Lingoda’s quick fluency quiz. Lingoda bases their courses on CEFR levels, which you may or may not be familiar with. The levels go from A1 (beginner) to C2 (master). The courses are split into units based on these levels, so the fluency test will just help you figure out which course to start with.

Course Levels

These courses are one of the features that set Lingoda apart from other online tutoring services. The courses allow you to follow a specific learning plan as opposed to the random conversational lessons that you get from other similar services.

Each unit has 50 to 75 lessons focused on different language learning skills. About 40% of the lesson plan focuses on speaking skills, but they also include segments to improve your reading, writing, grammar, and listening skills.

The lessons are divided by subject, making it easy for you to find specific topics to brush up on. You can bounce around between lessons as much as you want, but the course plan is well-structured, so you may be better off completing them in order.

This structured learning pathway is helpful for multiple reasons. It not only helps you keep on track with your learning goals, but it also helps the tutors to better assist you.

Like most online tutoring programs, Lingoda has a wide variety of tutors to choose from. If you take your lessons at different times or on different days, chances are you’ll have a lot of different tutors. The lesson plan can help to prevent you from having to go over the same subjects over and over every time you get a new tutor.

Another benefit of this lesson plan is that Lingoda tracks your progress and provides certificates of completion for each CEFR level. After you complete a full unit, you can take an online quiz to prove proficiency. You can then add your certificates to professional online platforms such as LinkedIn and Indeed.

Classes

Once you know what level you should be studying, you can schedule your first lesson. Although this program does offer lessons 24/7, there is no guarantee that the lesson you want to take will be available at the time you want to take it. This is one of the few drawbacks to following a lesson plan.

That being said, there are a lot of classes available at any given time so even if the specific class that you wanted isn’t available, you can probably find a similar one. Just be sure to choose classes within your level.

You can sign up for any of the classes, no matter where you are in the lesson plan, so there is the risk of accidentally signing up for a class that is above your fluency level. Although the teachers are very helpful and would still be able to teach you something, you may not get much out of the class.

The group classes are surprisingly fun when everyone is at about the same fluency level. Each class can have up to five students, so even with a full class, every student gets a fair chance to practice speaking. Having the classes divided by fluency level helps each student get the most out of every tutoring session.

Immersion Learning

The actual classes are what you would expect from a professional tutoring program. The teachers are clearly teaching pros who enjoy what they do. All the tutors that I spoke to were very helpful and encouraging.

All of these tutors are licensed professionals who teach for a living. If you take enough lessons you are sure to find some teachers who you like better than others, but you would be hard-pressed to find a bad tutor on this program. Knowing that you are basically guaranteed to have a quality learning experience every time you take a lesson is very motivating.

One of the things I noticed right away was that every teacher spoke the target language almost exclusively throughout each lesson. They would stop and explain things in English if we were clearly struggling to understand, but on a whole, they taught in their native languages.

This type of immersion learning is by far the best way to master a new language. Not only do you get to listen to a native speaker, but you can get immediate feedback from them. They can help you perfect your pronunciation and correct grammar mistakes before they become a habit.

Another good thing about this program is that they have teachers from all over the world, so you will have the chance to hear your target language spoken in a variety of accents. This is especially helpful with Spanish since Spanish differs so much from country to country.

Group Classes Versus Individual Classes

As I mentioned earlier, I recommend trying the group lessons first. Not only will you get three lessons for your free trial period (as opposed to a single individual lesson), but you will also get to experience the most interactive element of this program.

The group lessons gave me a chance to interact with other language learners which was both fun and informative. They asked some good questions that I hadn’t thought of and vise versa. Although there were a few challenges with varying internet speeds and less fluent classmates, the good far outweighed the bad.

I did not try an individual program through this platform, but I can easily see how they would be good. These classes are more expensive, but they would probably be a great option for those who are at a higher fluency level and those who are trying to accelerate their learning.

Individual lessons would give you the chance to focus solely on what you need to learn instead of sharing class time with others.

Class Materials

Each class follows a lesson plan that is laid out in the course materials. You can find all the course materials under your lesson profile.

These materials are mainly PDFs that you can either read online or print out to use during class. The documents themselves are not particularly helpful outside of the context of a class. You may want to read over them before class starts, just so you know what to expect, but they won’t help you without a teacher to expand on the limited materials.

Some of the teachers will refer to these materials a lot, even suggesting notes that you should add to certain sections. For this reason, I found it a lot easier to print them and have them on hand for class time. If you don’t have a printer or simply don’t want the extra paper around, you may want to download a PDF editing program so you can add your notes digitally.

Some teachers will also use slideshows and other documents as teaching aids. Most of these are also available for download if you want to keep them to review later on.

In the limited lessons that I tried, the teacher was able to stay fairly close to the lesson materials. This gave the entire experience a more structured feel than other tutoring programs that I have tried.

Drawbacks To Lingoda

Overall, this is a high-quality program but like every language learning platform, Lingoda does have a few drawbacks.

Lack Of Reading And Writing Practice

The biggest drawback is the lack of reading and writing practice. They do have lessons that provide some reading and writing practice, but you will definitely have to do some supplemental learning if you want to have a well-rounded knowledge of your chosen language.

Lesson Availability

Although one of their biggest selling points is that they offer lessons 24/7, the lessons you want are not always available. It’s understandable to some extent. They have teachers and students from all over the world, so some time slots are bound to be busier than others. That being said, there were a few times when I wanted to take a lesson, but there were not any available for my learning level.

Lack Of Independent Learning Materials

The learning materials they provide are useful for class, but not for independent study. Although some students may just want to attend live lessons, many language learners enjoy independent study. Unfortunately, this program does not offer adequate materials and you would need to supplement your learning with other outside materials.

Cost

Like many language learning platforms, this is a subscription-based program. This is nice for some students, but the hefty monthly payments may be a bit steep for others. If you purchase the biggest group lesson package (40 lessons for $380), the cost per lesson is only $9.50. That is a great price for live tutoring, but you have to commit to taking all 40 lessons, otherwise, you’re just wasting your money.

If you are eager to learn at an accelerated rate, you could try the Sprint program and earn your fees back, but lessons every day simply isn’t feasible for most of us.

This is a quality program and, in my opinion, the lessons are worth the cost, just be prepared to pay a bit extra for higher quality.

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