Imagine an English class where your students could select the theme, and select learning objectives based upon their level of urgency – for THEM. What if a language consulting firm was able to listen that closely to its clients – not only in developing lesson themes around topics that matter, but also in working with the client so they can influence the actual learning objectives within a course based upon what is most important for them at the moment.

How it’s usually done: normally, ESL schools help clients organize their employees according to their English level – beginners, intermediates, and advanced. Books appropriate to each level are selected by the school or company – usually because those books have been used by the school for the last year or so. But it’s mostly been all about the school to this point: their content, and their method. The only “client listening” that has been done so far, is in organizing the groups according to level.

Many ESL companies sell “personalized” learning. But in my experience over the last 9 years, “personalization” simply means that your class size will be no greater than 6 students so that your teacher has greater face time with each student.

This definition of “personal” is important for sure – you need to be able to give quality time to each student to help them grow. But could there be a deeper alignment to personalized classes?

Obstacles to Personal – There are obvious obstacles to deploying personalized learning solutions where the client has greater control over content and learning objectives. Namely: how do you deal with multiple people in a group? Each person will have their own interests and levels of skill development urgency. (What’s important for one person, will not be so for another.)

Obstacle two: Personal is not Efficient in the short term. It’s so much easier to follow the pack and issue course books on a broad level based system. Basic users will all have the same material for example. That’s easy to deploy from an organizational standpoint – and just plain efficient for everyone – administrator, teacher, and student. It’s more efficient for everyone, but I wonder if it’s the best and most effective possibility?

Self-service: Viable Alternative?

“Value creation, as described in my book, Relationship Economics (Wiley 2008), is derived from value chain disruption. Only by continuously and consistently evaluating your personal and professional value creation efforts compared to the changing needs and demands of your market (both external or internal) can you continue to adapt and innovate. More and more of our clients are adapting self-service functionality into their corporate environments.(David Nour Combat Economic Sluggishness with Adaptive Innovation.”)

Self-service. Wouldn’t that be an exciting innovation to create in the ESL market? Imagine having a class where students could login to a special section of your website and select content themes like “Leadership Development” or “Coaching” or “VOIP Communication Strategies for Distance Training” – all based upon their needs at work. And what if they could rank, in order of importance or urgency, the skills to be worked on over the next week or month? What if those choices and preferences were then pushed down to the teacher? – and he or she would then adapt their lesson plans accordingly. What would happen? What would that look like? Would this lead to a more engaged and effective classroom?

But most importantly, would offering this level of “self-service” to clients – something that doesn’t seem to exist in the local market, make a difference? Would this level of service strengthen your relationship with your clients, and most importantly – increase the value of the service you offer?