Below some useful recommendations to consider if you decided to learn Hebrew online and want to avoid bad experiences.
Look for a personalized, one-on-one approach
Invest on a one-on-one online course customized to your own learning goals.
Conventional, generic, or self-administered online courses can help to a certain degree, but tailored programs can focus on the specific areas that you need to learn and practice the most. In addition, you can learn much faster and get confidence in the Hebrew language earlier, which is key to continue learning efficiently and keep being motivated. This is particularly important for distance learning.
Go for an institution, not private lessons by individuals
I recommend this because having an organization to rely on has various benefits. Language schools can benefit from a wider experience on designing courses to a variety of students, ages, learning goals, and so on. Furthermore, they have more chances to own a method that they have tried and enhanced by different experts and perform supervision to their teachers and lessons given.
Get to know the educational organization better
Schedule a call to understand better how the institution teaches Hebrew, how they plan and design the personalized courses according to your requests, goals, and technical possibilities and what can you accomplish after a certain number of lessons.
So here you have some questions that you can ask, apart from the cost:
Who will design my course? How is the process?
Are the lessons self administered or I will interact with a tutor?
Which are the materials and how do I get them? Are they included in the cost?
Are there activities planned to be done after the class, like homework or other practice tasks?
How flexible is the course? What happens if I am ill and can’t attend a certain class?
Which is the minimum number of lessons I can take?
In which hours of the day can I take the classes?
What is the platform to learn? Skype, Zoom, any other specific platform?
Which is the language I can talk with the teacher? English or any other?
Request one free lesson or evaluation to try
This is important to make sure you feel comfortable with the teacher and the method. Most serious private Ulpans or organizations offer this because the student-teacher relationship is not trivial and it is a key component on the success of the course.
Compare and decide
There are no mysteries, you just need to compare and trust your intuition and go for the educational institution that best resonates with you and is the most professional one in your eyes, after you tried their first lesson.
Good Hebrew learning!