Skype is a cool way for connecting people instantly and a unique method for learning a foreign language. Thanks to its colorful speech, learning Italian with Skype lessons can be very enjoyable and attractive.
How to use Skype to learn a new language
Your first challenge is finding a good Skype teacher. Clearly, talking to native speakers is the best way to improve your skills. When you first meet your tutor, try to be clear about your goals and preferences. Students ask for Italian lessons on Skype for lots of reasons, so be precise and unambiguous. This will help your tutor ensure that the lessons meet your expectations. Remember that it’s common to be tense when speaking a different language, so don’t give up! Making mistakes while studying helps you learn better.
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Studying Italian via Skype or Zoom is easy with us
Benefits of learning Italian with Skype
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Skype lessons have become an easy option for people who want to learn Italian with a native speaker conveniently and affordably. Learning with native teachers is always the best option and, to do that, Skype Italian Lessons give us a great alternative to studying abroad. Now anyone can learn with native speakers from any part of the world, even when you’re on vacation or in a leave of absence at work. Here below you will find some of the main benefits for choosing this different way of learning Italian.
No distances
Skype simply frees us from the oppression of location and cost. Both teachers and students can be literally anywhere. There’s nothing worse than having to walk to a tutor’s house to do some ‘learning’. Using Skype is so much quicker and easier. Think about sitting on your bed or couch, with a laptop on your knees, talking with someone on the other side of the world. It sounds good, isn’t it?
Utmost attention
Thanks to Skype, both the teacher and the learner can focus more easily on learning the language. You may be wondering what all this is due to. Difficult to explain, but certainly part of the reasons are linked to the novelty of the medium: perhaps you have never used Skype, or used it in the past to communicate with friends or work colleagues; it’s probably the first time that you are using Skype to learn and this certainly helps you focus on the lesson. And then with Skype, you’re in front of the teacher, it’s a one-to-one lesson, with less chance of distraction than a classroom lesson with other students. So, Skype can help you focus more and learn Italian deeper and faster.
True dialogue
The fact that a teacher is not sitting next to you, waiting physically for you answers, gives you time to think, reflect and respond in your own time. An Italian lesson on Skype is more measured, with properly paced dialogue, as the tutor is less likely to talk over the students and more likely to wait until they give a thoughtful answer.
Sometimes teachers tend to ask questions then jump in too early when the student fails to answer. Instead, when you’re online, both sides take greater care to participate in a much more structured and constructive dialogue. Of course, you can be even more structured texting a message, which forces you to wait until the other person has answered with a written reply.
But not only. Online lessons bring a form of positive psychological distance, which helps put people on the same or a similar level. It is a distance that breaks down barriers: the barrier between teacher and learner, between young and old, between people of different cultures who try, although with some difficulty, to speak the same language.
Creativity
For many people, the best way to learn is to allow them to be creative. In the study of a language, this means for example adapting the learning of Italian to one’s life and professional needs, achieving a specific result, or developing a project. Learning via Skype allows maximum flexibility, the lessons can be adapted to the specific needs of those who learn and also gives some more possibilities for those who want to learn Italian. Learning a language via Skype, especially Italian, with its particular use of hands and expressions, allows you to interact as if you were right in Italy with Italian people. It can stimulate all your senses capturing also the famous Italian art known as “spaghetti solution” which simply means “ try to do your best”!
Learn Italian with Skype
Studying Italian via Skype or Zoom is easy with us
Extra
Last but not least, remember that you can also record your Skype sessions for free, integrate with email, create alerts, use whiteboards, tutoring tools (just click on ‘Conversation’ then ‘Extras’). There are literally dozens of tools that allow doing anything from customizing to the sharing of files and resources. Some of these benefits are simple and clear. Other advantages are more psychological. But it’s clear that Skype’s a vastly used tool and seems to be born for learning Italian and other languages.
History of Skype and videoconferencing
Maybe, you don’t know that the first video conference technology dates back to the audio wires of the 1870s when the concept of transmitting an image alongside audio over the wire was born.
In 1927, Bell Labs (Nokia Group, at the moment) connect with Washington and N.Y., via audio and video connection for the first time. In 1935, the word “video” was coined. We are in 1956 when AT&T creates the Picture-Phone prototype and makes the first video call, and, from 1964, AT&T’s commercial Picturephone service begins with public “videophone booths”. Callers could connect in N.Y, Washing and Chicago. Reservation had to be required ahead of time and A three-minute call from NYC to Chicago cost $27 ( about $255 in 2020 dollars). But it was in 1967 the first known use of “video conferencing”. In 1970 AT&T introduces the Picturephone for homes and offices even if they still were very expensive: $160/month equivalent to more or less $1000/month in today’s money. The first webcam is invented by Cambridge university students, in 1991.
It was August 2003 when Skype introduced its video call service with free download. Skype was founded by Estonian developers Zahti Heinla, Priit Kasesalu, and Jaan Tallinn, Danish developer Janus Friis and Sweden’s Niklas Zennstrom. Its name stands for “Sky Peer to Peer.” In 2011 Skype was acquired by Microsoft for $8.5 billion, announcing that it would become the main Microsoft messaging service. This launched a new start in Skype usage. A long way has been done…but the rest is contemporary history!
How to use Skype to learn Italian
Skype is a convenient, easy-to-use program that lets you connect with an Italian teacher using the camera on your computer, tablet or smartphone. Don’t you know how to use Skype? Here’s a step-y-step guide on how to download, use and navigate the application:
Step 1: Download the software – Depending on which device you plan to use, you’ll download a specific version of Skype. If you plan on using Skype on your smartphone or tablet, you got to download the app required.
Step 2: Create your username – Use a username and password you can easily remember. The Skype name (basically the account name or user ID) is recommended to be different from the “name displayed in Skype” which is the one practically used in searches or linked contacts.
Step 3: Set up your contact list – click the Contacts tab on the left-hand side, then the “Add Contact” button in the top right-hand corner.
Step 4: Select your call type: you can easily choose between the button for video calls and the button for phone calls, that allows you to talk without using the webcam.
Step 5: Talk and learn Italian for as long as you want! – Skype has no time limit.
Learning through Skype : The Easy Italian Language & Art method
How do the Italian lessons on Skype work at the Easy Italian Language & Art school?
Skype’s format combines standard text chatting with video conferencing. That means you can easily take notes while your tutor is explaining and your tutor can write down new vocabulary words so you learn how to pronounce and spell them simultaneously. Most Skype lessons are structured as one-on-one sessions between a student and a tutor.
During our Skype lessons, students will not have to worry about corrections. So, for example, we let them speak in Italian, according to their times and in the meantime, we send them corrections via chat. Thus, while we are in real-time via Skype (video call), students can continue to talk, with their times, without being interrupted. At the end, the students will be able to look at the corrections in the text chat and talk about it with the teacher. The text corrections also remain in the chat and can become an infinite book of notes that can be studied even after the end of the lesson.
So, what are you waiting for? It will be amazing!
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