Independent Language Learning.

宠物 chǒng wù

?

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the pet

Key phrase

我喜欢宠物。 wǒ xǐ huān chǒng wù 。 I like pets.

The 21 st century offers so many opportunities to choose from to study a foreign language. Knowledge has become accessible for everyone despite the financial status.
I have been  studying Spanish online :"duolingo" website. It's a great language teaching website where one learns without feeling the pressure of memorizing things. I am learning without thinking about it, I am immersed in the language itself. Most importantly whatever I learnt I do not forget, it stays in my active vocabulary for a long time. Same I can tell about Busuu, I signed up for long time ago. Busuu compared with Duolingo has the same principle ofteaching. Both immerse the learner in the process , both have lots of visuals and motivating points that are given after each level is accomplished successfully.  Difference is that Duolingo once you choose your level it doesn't allow you to chooses anything else until you pass the minimum requirements of knowledge, in Busuu one can just switch to another level easily. In terms of teaching style I prefer Duolingo because it also improves the writing particularly spelling through dictation, but I prefer Busuu because it has a lot more language variety.  These websites are great alternative ways of learning a language if you want to save money without hiring tutors.
But what's the role of tutors in this case? Who needs them with so many options around us?
The role of tutor perhaps won't mean anything to a person who is dedicated and persistent about the goal he set, who spends an hour or more daily to achieve a certain level, who is consistent and passionate about learning. Tutor's role means a lot to people who have a different learning style, more controlled learners.
Advocates of collaborative learning methods strongly criticize learners' autonomy in distant education, however  Cynthia J White (2004), argues that independent learning in distant education is about developing ability to engage and interact with and participate in particular learning environments which is not always teacher meditated.
One example from my own learning experience which resulted in much better grades than I would have expected. I was studying Math in the U.S. Math has always been the hardest subject for me.
I successfully passed the first two courses then took Math 101 Algebra course and failed. I felt horrible and frustrated before that point I never failed any class. In addition to its complexity the content of it was very intensive. Within short period of time I had to cover huge material. So I decided to drop the class and go on self paste style of learning, where I was on my own, no teacher was involved, I had just videos to listen to and practice. The only benefit I got from that was the exams were not timed which was a big plus. But in any case the point is that I did better on my own then with the teacher. Many factors can be involved to explain why some people do better and have better results when they study independently, but one thing is clear: learning styles are different, and this means that both teacher meditated and distant education has equal value.
Tutors however should be well prepared to teach an online course.