Our unique approach

By Sarah Howarth

Established in 1991, Language Services Direct has a long and successful history of providing tailored language courses to the international business community. Our length and breadth of experience combined with our unique approach to designing and delivering courses assures our clients of an excellent return on their investment. This approach centres on the following key principles.

We take time and care to get to know our students and their learning needs

Each and every course is overseen by a dedicated Account Manager who will discuss the learner’s needs in detail and design a bespoke learning plan. With backgrounds in language teaching and learning, our Account Managers are uniquely qualified to support learners in identifying their training needs and content they need to cover, as well as being able to advise our teachers of the most effective and efficient ways of helping our learners to achieve their goals.  Learners also meet with one of our well-qualified and experienced trainers to assess their starting level in the language and areas for development.

We tailor each and every course to our learner’s requirements  

Drawing on all the information collected during needs analysis and assessment, the Account Manager designs a bespoke learning plan. This highly personalised plan identifies all the language skills and business functions that the learner needs to cover during their course. It also sets objectives for the course and describes how we will measure progress towards these.

We assign a well-qualified and experienced trainer, who can deliver relevant and engaging lessons.

We understand that central to the quality of each course is the trainer who delivers it. At Language Services Direct, we exclusively work with well-qualified and experienced teachers. Specifically, our teachers are experienced in working with business learners. Many of them also have a background in business and where possible, we match learners with trainers who have relevant experience in their sector. We have a rigorous recruitment process and take time to get to know our teachers and their unique talents so that we can match them with students appropriately.

We believe in face-to-face training combined with the best digital and self-study resources.

We specialise in tailored, face-to-face language teaching and firmly believe that instructor-led training is essential to developing and practising communicative skills. After all, language is all about communication! The support and guidance of an expert teacher is also undeniably key.

However, we also understand that digital learning solutions can be used to accelerate progress and maximise learning potential. Busy professionals who expect to be able to access learning on the go, on their own schedule – and to drive their own learning – often particularly appreciate these resources. We curate the vast array of digital learning resources on the market and signpost our learners to the very best solutions to blend with their face-to-face lessons.

 

Lessons are based on the Communicative Approach combined with other suitable methodologies.

Our trainers adopt a communicative, task-based approach to language training, focusing on the language and business-communication tasks our students need to complete at work. The communicative approach is dynamic and learner-centred. An observer of a communicative classroom would see the student and teacher interacting in the target language in a variety of business-communication tasks. The lesson would seem lively and fun with the student practising and using the target language a great deal.

Of course, we appreciate that students have different learning preferences and styles. Our teachers are versatile and flexible so can adapt their approach to meet students’ needs, using different methodologies as required.

 

We offer a range of course formats to suit our learners’ needs.

The majority of our training is delivered face to face in one-to-one or small group settings. Most students prefer to take one or two lessons per week to fit their studies around their work and home commitments, but more intensive schedules are available too. We also offer a broad range of alternative formats including online, e-learning and telephone options – all of which can be combined and blended to meet our learners’ needs.

We know language and culture are inextricably linked and weave cultural content into every lesson.

Communicative competence is not solely based on developing language skills. Students also need to build their understanding of the cultural beliefs, expectations and customs of native speakers. They need insight into the business cultures of their contacts so that they can communicate in sensitive and appropriate ways. Therefore, we ensure that cultural content is included in all lessons and courses. In collaboration with our preferred partner, Culturewise, we are able to offer clients cultural briefings and training resources to blend into our language programmes.

We encourage students to drive their own learning and progress!

We guide and signpost students towards the most effective resources and methods for continuing their learning opportunities outside the classroom. We curate the vast array of multi-media resources that can be used to support language learning so that our students can learn autonomously using the best resources on the market. We set relevant self-study assignments that allow students to practise the language from lessons outside the classroom. We also provide practical advice on how to implement learning at work.

Finally, we measure progress and return on investment in clear and robust ways.

We understand that our learners and the Learning and Development professionals who support them are very busy people. They need a provider who proactively promotes return on investment in training and measures and reports on the outcomes of their training. This might be through detailed progress reports and in-class assessments as well as more formal milestone tests at target levels or through external exams for third-party verification of level and progress.