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Yesterday I was interviewed by Rachel Paling on her monthly podcast for my views on language coaching and what it truly means.

Rachel runs training programmes on language coaching and neurolinguistics all over the world so it was a great privilege to be asked to take part in her podcast.

We talked for a while and my main point was that language coaching is about communicating in a way that creates results for your students.

It isn’t just about passing your knowledge on. Language coaches are there to effectively guide, inspire and empower their students to realise and develop their own language learning potential.

It is about focusing on the language programme rather than each lesson, it is about asking questions rather than tell the students what to do.

In essence, and I have heard this expression before:

“As a language coach, we have to be the guide on the side, rather than the sage on the stage”.

I love this. It isn’t about us and our knowledge as linguists. It is about finding proven learning strategies that work for our students.

That is, for me, what language coaching is about as opposed to language tutoring; too often based on the tutor’s knowledge and expertise only and focusing on single lessons rather than a structured programme and overall objectives of the learners.

The reason why I am explaining all this is because VICI was never set up to be a language tutoring centre. Learning a foreign language is a journey rather than a destination and we want our students to be rewarded along the way, believe in their abilities and be inspired by our team.

As any good business, we have spent some time thinking about our Mission and Vision.

Our vision: is a world in which everyone has the confidence and ability to enjoy authentic cultural experiences through a foreign language.

Our mission: is to use highly skilled coaches and innovative learning approaches to deliver a lifelong love of languages.

And for this, each year, and in addition to our coaching sessions, we organise a series of language workshops and seminars for children and adults.

Theory, skills, techniques, culture, social… All our events are there to enhance our students’ learning and make them experience foreign languages in any way, shape or form! It is also about making the Academy much more than just a learning centre but a great community of linguists and like-minded people!

We have no less than 17 dates set up for 2019… And perhaps a couple more to come: one for adults involving alcohol (!) and one for children involving pottery, which we will confirm at a later date; but for now, please GET ON THE GUEST LISTS!

Many of these events are open to non-members too so please, share them with us!

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