What are the benefits of 15-minute lessons?

Lots of people are surprised when they reach out to me. Why? Because I don’t offer longer lessons (45/60 or 90-minute lessons).

Why?

Because they are a huge waste of money for most of the students… At the early stages of learning a language it’s really beneficial when you have a daily contact with the language (when you are made to speak). Both your mouth and your brain get used to producing these weird sounds that you don’t have in your mother tongue. All these strange structures that don’t make much sense at the beginning become more familiar later on.

If you’re only exposing yourself to Czech for an hour a week, by the time your next session comes around, your brain will have forgotten most of what you learned the previous week.

It’s like planting seeds in a garden but watering them only once a week—most of them will wither before they have a chance to grow.

Learning a language is all about building new neural pathways in your brain. These pathways are fragile at first and need frequent reinforcement to become permanent.

How to achieve that?

Frequency is crucial. Having 15-minute lessons from Monday to Friday is much more effective than one 90-minute lesson a week.

Why are 15-minute lessons so popular among my students?

• no wasting time on fluff
• students don’t lose focus

(they pay attention the whole time)

• frequent repetition (brain remembers faster and more)
• speaking in Czech isn’t a nightmare anymore since it’s an everyday habit
• even the busiest manager can find 15 minutes every day
• students are motivated because they achieve daily mini goals
• I use my own materials (no textbooks) – I show my students both Standard Czech and Czech that we use in everyday life with our friends, family and in informal situations
• it’s fun – because it’s short

My students can see real progress. And when they do the extra activities (quizzes, games, tips etc.) that I share with them in their virtual classroom, their progress is even faster.

It is much harder to prepare an effective 15-minute lesson every day. It won’t forgive any fluff, meaningless activities or chit chat in English etc. – because you have 15 MINUTES ONLY…

And what is the feedback from my students?

Whitney: „Myslím mnohem víc v češtině.“ (= I think much more in Czech)

David: „Včera se mi zdál sen v češtině.“ (= I had a dream in Czech last night)

Diana: „Nebojím se mluvit česky.“ (= I am not afraid to talk in Czech)