Resources

When looking for a hosting service to use for your language learning website, you need to keep several things in mind. It would be safest to use companies that have good customer service, enable you to add new domains, the ability to back up your data, maintenance services, and reliability.

Teachers also need to make sure the company is affordable and that it lets you create websites without adding to the initial fee. Come find out what are the best web hosting services with all these features and more.

SiteGround

One of the big advantages of this company is that it offers free use for your students as long as the course lasts. The student packages are affordable at less than £2 a month and it gives them a free email along with a domain, and 24/7 customer support. For teachers and other individuals, the fees are still affordable at less than $4 a month.

Bluehost

This hosting company has plenty of experience with WordPress users and their affordable plans come with all the necessary features for both teachers and students. Bluehost also offers 24/7 customer support, staging environments for free, it comes with WordPress already installed, and all at a monthly fee of less than £3.

CampusPress

Another WordPress-friendly hosting service that they have specifically customized to be used for educational purposes. They perform backups automatically, provide customer support 24/7, allow the creation of online learning hubs and class blogs. Their fees adjust to the size of the customer’s project.

Internet Vikings

This company offers you SEO hosting, which is unique and will help you bring more people to your website. Internet Vikings also offer you the choice between a dedicated server and a cloud-based one, both with excellent customer support.

They have automated backup features and are constantly updating and maintaining their servers to make sure everything runs smoothly. If you want to know more about Internet Vikings’ hosting services, go to https://internetvikings.org/ where they explain what they offer in detail. Keep in mind that choosing the right hosting services for your language learning site means the difference between smooth and troubleless and a problematic failure. All of these companies are trustworthy, and I highly recommend them.

Babbel and FluentU are two of the most popular platforms for learning a language nowadays. However, you might be torn between which one to use and make the most out of during lockdown. Let’s go over some of the features, advantages, and disadvantages that each one has.

FluentU

Available for iOS and Android for a monthly fee of £20 and works with videos in English such as TV Shows, cartoons, and music videos, among others. You can set your own pace and learning goals.

It has a feature to show you the many uses a word can have with easy, understandable examples. It allows progress saving to help you be aware of your improvements.

Despite all these good features, it has the big drawback that a vast portion of its content is aimed at people that already understand the language a bit. Thus, beginners won’t be able to learn on this platform. Additionally, FluentU also lacks help to practice your written English.

Babbel

Also available on iOS and Android, but at an affordable £8 a month, Babble is great for practising vocabulary, learning entire sentences, and basic dialogues. It also has features to help you practice your writing and pronunciation lessons that everybody can understand. 

If you are unsure where to start, the platform has a quiz you can take to determine at what level you are.

Although it is a well-rounded language learning platform, the feature that corrects your pronunciation doesn’t work that well with whole sentences. This will keep you from progressing faster, but you can get around the issue by simply turning off your mic and focusing on everything but the pronunciation. In conclusion, perhaps if you want a more formal and well-structured experience and have no problem taking a bit longer to learn, you should use Babbel. For those of you wanting a more organic experience through pop culture and mass media videos, FluentU is a perfect choice.