Language Matters has seen an exciting start to 2023: January 1st marked the official launch of our long-awaited, innovative English course designed for Hispanics. After five years in business, our team has created a program that meets the practical, everyday needs of Spanish-speakers living in the United States.
The program is our response to years of research through interactions with real students who have participated in a variety of Language Matters programs. The goal of this project is to give more access to students who are unable to attend live classes, and extend the quality instruction and practice opportunities we offer that help Spanish-speakers gain confidence speaking and understanding English.
Through our experiences offering English classes in different settings, we have determined that 3 of the most prominent factors that keep Hispanics from developing language skills long-term include: inconvenient class times or locations; programs that focus heavily on the academic aspect of the language; and low content retention.
Based on these and other language-learning challenges we witnessed, our team set out to develop an efficient program that could be completed 100% online, but that also would meet the needs for practicality and relevancy to daily life for Spanish-speakers living in the U.S..
"Community members who want to grow in their ability to speak English have families and jobs. They don't have time to learn English that isn't practical and directly relevant to them. It's essential to standardize a process that will allow more Hispanics to develop language skills that are relevant to their context here in the United States. We strongly believe that this program is an important step in the development of that process." - Lucas Fonseca
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