Thursday, October 29, 2009

Start Up Ideas for Language Learning, part one

Here are some ideas about a few ways your church can get started learning a foreign language. Grammar and vocabulary are important. I love being able to say this. I hear this all of the time from my German teacher.

First up...

If you have an extra room in your church why not set up a computer lab or learning center? You can make use of such products as Rosetta Stone in the language of your choice. There are plenty of software packages around. I have enjoyed Rosetta Stone in Spanish and German.

Buy multiple copies of Rosetta Stone and make them available at your church for people to check out. Be sure to let people know about this option and but plenty of copies to go around. I would suggest putting a time limit for how long they can have the software checked out.

Do a google search and find a few online language learning tools that you can promote to the people trying to learn a language. Ask someone to be the resource person for your church in this endeavor.

Go online and find out if there are language learning schools in your city. One church found a site where they could learn Italian located in their own city.

If there is an University or Junior College in the city find out if you could hire a professor to teach a class for a semester at your church or better yet encourage your people to enroll in a class at the university or Junior College. Offer some scholarship funds for people completing the course work.

Find out if you have a few language experts in your church and see if they will become tutors for your students.

Encourage your college students to take classes in the desired language.

Promote the idea amongst your college students to go to a country and do a study abroad program for a semester or two. They will not only learn the language but they will also have ministry opportunities while there.

Same suggestion but for people who have retired and can take several months to study abroad.

What are some other ideas?

Next Up .. Putting your language learning to practice in your own community.


Erik Reed said...


Hey, it's Erik from the Journey Church in TN. As you know, Spain is going to be our country of focus as we endeavor our missional efforts beyond our "Jerusalem." We did our homework on learning the language and we are going with Rosetta Stone's church option of buying one license for the language that allows us to have unlimited users. Instead of paying $500 per copy, we are paying $1500 and hosting it on our own server. This allows people to log in from anywhere with a user name and password and learn the language. With this we can also have unlimited people able to learn it, with zero yearly fees or anything.

Thought you may be interested to know that.

J. et K. said...

For learning French or Spanish, also teashing ESL

I've never used Rosetta Stone, but I've heard it's not the best for groups because it's designed for one person in front of the screen. (Again - word of mouth here, so double check. Or, Erik's solution might work too.)