Our philosophy

At mission english, we believe that a successful course is the result of organisation, quality teaching and active participation on the part of students. In turn, these pillars are reinforced by online support through our e-learning platform, missionenglish.net.

Organisation

Good organisation starts before the first day of a course with clear, attainable objectives that reflect students’ needs. For this reason, our specialist language courses begin with a detailed needs analysis – to determine what students need to do in the language – followed by a test to determine their current capabilities. During a course, good organisation means that students know what they will be doing and what they have to do if they miss a lesson. For this reason, course participants have a Training Plan with the objectives and content for every class. Good organisation also means that everyone involved in the course has timely information on how the course is progressing. To this end, all students and training managers have access to an online system where they can check to see how they are progressing.

Quality teaching

Good teaching also starts before the teacher even enters the classroom – planning lessons that are stimulating and meet students needs. In class, quality teaching means explaining things clearly, giving students lots of opportunity to practice, and then correcting any problems and sorting out any difficulties. However, good teaching isn’t just about technique – it’s also about personality and personal qualities like the ability to inspire and create the best possible environment for learning. For this reason, our Director of Studies personally interviews all candidates and supervises the assignment of teachers to courses.

Active participation

More than anything, success in language learning is the result of active participation in class. After all, we learn to speak by speaking. Participation also means work outside of class – reviewing notes or completing exercises that are better done outside of class time. In large part, these things – actively participating in class and doing tasks outside class – are the student’s responsibility. However, teachers also work hard to get all students participating and to assign ‘homework’ tasks that are stimulating and useful.

Online support

Blended learning, or “B-Learning” is the combination of multiple approaches to learning. For many of our courses, mission english uses a blended approach that combines traditional face-to-face classes with online support. Blended learning means students spend the maximum time participating actively in class – a fundamental premise of our teaching philosophy – and complete progress tests, evaluations and other routing activities outside of class time. However, missionenglish.net is more than just a bank of exercises, missionenglish.net is a virtual community that replicates and compliments classroom activities.

In missionenglish.net, students registered on blended courses can …

■ consult the study plan for their course.
■ get help with grammar and vocabulary.
■ hand-in homework.
■ check their progress.
■ chat with teachers and students in Skype.
■ participate in forums with others students following the same course.