The teachers come from various backgrounds, so you can learn more about each individual on the "Meet Your Teachers" page. Speaking generally, each teacher has at least a bachelor's from a four-year program. Each teacher also has experience teaching, both in-person and online. The Mandarin teacher is a native speaker from Taiwan, Catalina is a native Spanish speaker from Ecuador, and the others all have extensive experience in immersive settings for their respective languages. Some of us have homeschooled or are homeschooling our students, and the founder is a homeschooling mom who understands the community's unique needs.
We can accommodate any start time you wish, so long as the teacher has the availability and we have a group big enough to meet your needs. If you need a big group in order to reduce your costs, you should keep in mind that August is the most popular start time for homeschooling families, and January is the second most popular. If you join us at another point in time, you may need to plan on private tutoring or a very small group.
We have found that offering different rates according to group size allows us to keep our prices competitive while also paying our teachers fairly. This helps us attract the best, most experienced and qualified teachers! This way, we are able to accommodate families who prefer private tutoring or small groups, as well as families who need less expensive options. The fees page explains how much a course costs for the various group sizes. The price applies to everyone in the class, so you may find that the price drops after you register. Once a price has been guaranteed, it does not increase even if students drop out of the course.
There are many! Look for coupons on IndyEd.com, or at fairs that we attend in the Atlanta area. Check our facebook page (Global Goose Languages | Facebook) for updates on price drops. Join the priority list for updates about price drops, and the occasional flash sale. Additionally, we always offer referral credits ($10 per referral) and sibling discounts (5%). Families who are eager to join us but are struggling with the costs of homeschooling are welcome to apply for a partial scholarship where available. Partial scholarships are essentially deep discounts, and a limited number of these are available in specific classes. In late July we publish a list of available seats. If you're joining at a different time of year, you can ask about scholarship seats to find out if there are any in the section you'd like to join.
For families who are sincerely considering our classes, we offer free evaluation meetings. These can be as short as ten minutes but may take longer if the student has extensive experience. As an alternative to the evaluation, many of our teachers have placement tests available. It is important to us that your student is placed into the correct level, so that they are set up for success, so please don't hesitate to ask for an evaluation!
I hate to tell you this, but there is no such thing as immersion classes. Immersion is a method of learning the language by being surrounded by it in your daily life, for at least three hours a day. In immersion, learners must use the target language to have their needs met (such as asking mom for a snack.)
If you want to know if the classes are conducted strictly in the target language, that depends on the course.
Many of our instructors, particularly the Spanish teachers, are skilled at using techniques using Comprehensible Input. They are able to speak a great deal of Spanish to the students, but deliver it at a speaking rate and complexity that makes it possible for the student to understand. Sometimes part of making it comprehensible is to provide a few translated words here and there. Our courses provide explicit grammar instruction as well, and at the lower levels those points are explained in English. Generally speaking, there is less and less English spoken as the course progresses.
I usually send an activity or two for the students to do between class meetings. However, these are completely optional at the elementary level. There is no book to purchase, but there will be some documents for you to print. For most classes those documents are covered by your tuition, however some of the advanced elementary classes may have a small additional materials fee for the materials that I create.
Please set your student up for success by helping them get organized at the start of the year. It is also highly recommended that you tell the student you will be checking their grades once per week. It is not the responsibility of the teachers to alert you or the student if they have missing work, as the grades are easily tracked in real time. Students who miss a week or two weeks of assignments quickly get overwhelmed and the result is often that the teacher has to help them get back on track. In other words, we understand that you are trying to foster independence in your student but please set up a system that will not result in creating more work for the teachers.
Naturally, our teachers are always eager to help struggling students, but we know many of these situations can be avoided by parents simply checking the gradebook on a regular basis.
Our teachers have experience working with students with ADHD, ASD, dyslexia, social anxieties, and more. We know that there is not a single approach that is appropriate for every child, even within the same disability. If your student has a learning difference, please reach out before registering so that we can discuss what would be appropriate for your child.
We should discuss this on an individual basis, but I will offer the following as a general rule. Motivation is a major factor in how well any student performs with a foreign language. If your child has great interest in learning French, then he should study French. We can talk about accommodations that can be made for your student. Please be sure to reach out to me individually before registering so we can determine what accommodations will best serve your child.
