Mission Statement
Our mission at Language Speedway is to develop cutting-edge online language courses. More specifically, we have four primary objectives for our courses - each course should be:
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As relevant as possible. The course should cover the material and skills that are most relevant to the majority of students who will use it.
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As efficient as possible. The course should be organised in a way that makes the best possible use of the student’s time. It should allow the student to learn at the maximum rate that his or her natural ability permits.
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As easy as possible. The course should be accessible to everyone, regardless of their natural language-learning ability. Students should never feel stressed or overwhelmed by the complexity or quantity of material they are learning.
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Completely self-contained. Students without any prior knowledge of the target language should be able to complete the course without referring to any external material.
Italian Course
Our first (prototype) course is Italian and it is available for use right now on this website (information about accessing it is further down the page).
We believe that our Italian course already does a fairly good job of fulfilling all of the objectives listed in our mission statement.
| Objective | Achieved | Comments |
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| 1. Relevant |  | Our course covers a very useful core section of the Italian language. |
| 2. Efficient | | We believe our course works at least as quickly as any other Italian course currently available. |
| 3. Easy | | We believe our course is at least as easy to complete as any other Italian course currently available. |
| 4. Self-contained | | The course requires no prior knowledge of Italian and it can be completed without referring to any external material. |
Guiding Principles
In order to achieve our primary objectives our course design is guided by some basic principles, outlined below.
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Listening and speaking skills are key. Most people who study a language are primarily interested in being able to converse in that language. The primary focus of the course should therefore be on the relevant skills of listening and speaking, rather than reading and writing. Our courses make extensive use of audio recordings of the target language in order to develop listening and speaking skills right from the start.
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People learn by doing, not by reading. Or in other words, practice is more important than theory. This is true in most fields of study, but particularly in the field of human languages. Students should spend as much time as possible using the target language and as little time as possible reading and studying formal grammatical rules.
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Context is crucial. Something that all human languages have in common is that words are very often imprecise and ambiguous; they have multiple meanings that can change dramatically in different contexts. What this means for the language learner is that generally words should be learnt in context (in whole phrases and sentences) as much as possible. Words should only be learnt out of context if their meaning is precise and unambiguous.
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Small steps. Even the most complex idea can be broken down into simple components. We should always aim to break everything down into the simplest possible concepts and then organise the material so that the student can focus on learning just one new concept at a time.
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Repetition and Revision. Although it may not always be fun, an unavoidable fact of life when learning any complex skill is that you need to practise it regularly over an extended period of time (weeks, months and even years) in order to master it. Our courses incorporate a system that encourages students to repeat and revise everything they have learnt over an extended period of time. Since most of the student’s time is in fact spent doing this regular practice, we have put a great deal of effort into making this system as efficient as possible (in the sense that it makes the most effective possible use of the student’s time).
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Different people learn at different speeds. The course should be flexible enough to cater for the wide range of students who will use it. Our courses keep track of each student’s progress and automatically proceed at a pace that is tailored to that individual student.
Exercise System
At the heart of Language Speedway is an exercise system that embodies several of the above principles, in particular principles 5 and 6. That is, it encourages students to repeat and revise everything they’ve learnt over extended periods of time and it keeps track of the progress of each individual student so that they can proceed at a rate that is ideal for them.
This exercise system is used extensively throughout the Italian course. For a quick demonstration of how it works, click on the following link.
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Accessing the Italian Course
The full text of the Italian course and all the audio recordings are currently available completely free of charge for personal use. You may view the material using a web browser, but please note that we do NOT grant you permission to distribute the material to anyone else under any circumstances.
Full access to the exercises requires a subscription, but the first few lessons are available free of charge for you to try. Also, if you buy a subscription we have a 30-day money-back guarantee. If you’re not happy for any reason within the first 30 days we will happily refund the full price of your subscription.
You can access the Italian course from the main menu at the left, or via the following link:
More information on the money-back guarantee is available here:
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Subscriptions
Subscription information is available on the Products page. You’ll need a subscription to access most of the exercises.
Feedback
We’re constantly working to improve and extend the course, and we want to include our students in that process. If you have any feedback at all about your experience with the course, we’d love to hear from you. We’re particularly interested in any suggestions you might have for improving the course. The best way to provide feedback is through our forum (you’ll need to register before you can post messages). If you’d prefer to contact us privately then you’ll find an email address on the About Us page.
