7 Free Online Courses in December

What I really like about December is that you can actually stay in and enjoy it – with all those candles, cookies, winter songs… You can watch the dark world through the window and fully appreciate warm wool blankets, soft cats and hot tea (or mulled wine, as ‘tis the season, after all).

This year is different. It’s not like we’ve chosen to stay in and enjoy it, it’s more like we’re staying in to protects ourselves and people around us. Still, let’s do our best and try to enjoy the moment – and if you crave some social contact (who doesn’t?), online courses may be a great idea to consider, as there are many vivid discussions for you to participate, meet other teachers and make new friends. And what’s the easier way to make friends than meeting them on a language course? That’s right, I think this December we should start learning a new language – it will make us understand our students better, make new friends and perhaps add something new to our New Year resolutions?

To make this easier for you, I’ve picked a traditional set of seven free online courses:

Spanish for Beginners by the Universidad a Distancia de Madrid

Start: self-paced
Duration: 6 weeks
Recommended for: people who want to start speaking Spanish
You will learn:

• basic but fluent communicative competence
• how to solve, in a practical way, different actual situations of everyday life
• how to give personal information, to ask for directions, to greet others, to describe, etc.

Norwegian for Beginners 1 by the Norwegian University of Science and Technology

Start: self-paced
Duration: 4 weeks
Recommended for: people who want to understand what black metal vocalists sing about
You will learn:

• very basic communication skills in Norwegian
• how to apply very basic knowledge about grammatical rules of inflection and word order in Norwegian
• basic vocabulary of Norwegian everyday language

Introduction to Korean by the Hanyang University

Start: self-paced
Duration: 6 weeks
Recommended for: BTS Army and people who want BTS sing about
You will learn:

• basic Korean: Phrases, Vocabulary, Spelling, Grammar
• about natural approaches to Korean language and culture
• Korean phrases, greetings, vocabulary, numbers, spelling and grammar

Tsinghua Chinese: Start Talking with 1.3 Billion People by the Tsinghua University

Start: self-paced
Duration: 6 weeks
Recommended for: people who want to learn Chinese
You will learn:

• colloquial Mandarin vocabulary used in daily life
• listening skills for communicating with Chinese native speakers
• some basic and frequently used Chinese characters

Introduction to Dutch by the University of Groningen

Start: available now
Duration: 3 weeks
Recommended for: people who want to start learning Dutch
You will learn:

• About the Dutch culture
• dialogues about work, study, hobbies, eating, drinking, living, weather and the time
• about the grammar around the conjugation of verbs, word order,personal pronouns, adjectives, modal verbs and making questions

Introduction to Italian by Università per Stranieri di Siena

Start: available now
Duration: 6 weeks
Recommended for: people who want to start learning Italian

You will learn:

• basic Italian for interacting in common communicative situations
• skills to understand and use everyday expressions in Italian
• how to engage in simple communication in Italian

Language Revival: Securing the Future of Endangered Languages by the University of Adelaide

Start: self-paced
Duration: 5 weeks
Recommended for: people who want to learn why and how languages should be revived
You will learn:

• how to explore connections between language and identity
• about the impact of language loss on people around the world
• what is being done to revive languages today

As you can see, there’s plenty to choose from! Which language are you tempted to try? I think I’ll stick to my Spanish, so see you on that course!

Stay safe and stay healthy!