Q&A: Yes, there will be Certificates -- Rachel's Online School

Hey, everybody.

Rachel's English going live here on Facebook to answer some of your questions.

I will be posting this to YouTube.

So, hello if you're watching this video on YouTube.

So, yesterday I went live and I think almost 400 comments came in.

So, I have read all of those comments,

and I'm going to be answering some questions that came through here now.

So, the Q&A is about an Academy.

It's an online school that I'm opening in just under two weeks,

October 25 is the first day that the school will be open.

So, I'll be answering questions about the Academy.

So, some of the questions that came in.

A couple people asked about certificates.

There will be certificates of completion

and you have to have a LinkedIn profile in order to get these

because the system will automatically post them

to your LinkedIn profile if you want that.

So, that will be a way for you to let employers know, schools know,

friends and family know that you did complete courses within the Academy.

To start, there are about six to eight courses.

So, each year I'll be adding even more.

If you stay with the Academy for a long time, you’ll be able

to add probably dozens of these completion courses to your LinkedIn profile.

So, yes.

You will get something for your work and your time.

Okay, another question.

Someone asked, am I going to be working with partners?

Or is it going to be just me making the content?

The answer is, for now, it's just me.

If you're a fan of Rachel’s English,

you might know I've been doing this for about eight years.

So, I love what I'm doing and with your help, with your feedback,

I've gotten pretty good at a few things.

So, we're going to start with that.

We're going to start with Rachel’s English does best.

I do have ideas to get a little bit bigger in the future.

For example, maybe bringing in a teacher who’s really expert at writing skills

and having that teacher develop some courses for that, but for now,

it's just me, and of course I do have a lot of real life English in there

with my friends and family, but the lessons are just Rachel’s English,

Rachel’s English style, Rachel’s English expertise,

and that is conversational English,

both listening comprehension and pronunciation, accent, fluency.

Other questions.

Okay, a couple people have said, how do I join?

Well, in the description to this like video, there's a bit.ly link.

You can click on that and that will take you

to a web page where you can put in your email.

When you do that, you’ll be entered into a VIP list.

It's free to get on that list, and that's just showing me

that you're interested in the Academy so you’ll get some emails about it

when it's time to sign, when you can get the best deal,

when you can get some extra free bonuses.

So, follow the link and put in your email

and I will be in touch with you about how to get into the Academy.

One person says, what if there's no money to pay for the Academy?

Well, I understand.

Even $10 can be a lot for some people, especially depending on your currency.

So, I will continue to make the free videos.

There will be one free lesson every week.

The Academy is not going to affect the Rachel’s English that you already know.

So, no need to worry about that.

Someone asked, will be DVD of the lessons? There will not be.

I have created one DVD.

It's on Amazon.

You've probably never heard of it.

It's hard to find.

I found the DVD sort of hard to make.

The functionality, I didn't think was great.

The video quality of the DVD wasn’t great.

So, I'm not going to be messing with DVDs.

It's just going to be streamable, online video.

Someone else asked, do you need a credit card?

You don’t, but you need a PayPal account if you don’t have a credit card.

So, with PayPal, you can link a bank account

and just pay directly with your bank or you can use a credit card.

I'm thinking about integrating WeChat.

I need to learn that a little bit more,

but I would love to ask you if there's a payment method that you use a lot,

that you would like to see me use,

please put it in the comments and I'll look into it.

Someone else asked, will be there live classes? Yes.

Once a month at least, and I'm working on that right now,

the technical side of it, but there will be live classes.

That's going to be an important part of the Academy.

Someone else said, what are the topics? Okay so, to begin, it's a subscription.

So, there's going to be new lessons added every month, but for now, to begin,

the topics are, we have a course on the International Phonetic Alphabet.

If you're a beginner, it's just to help you get used to the symbols,

and if you're more advanced, then there's some fun tests in there

where you will be able to practice reading an IPA.

Number two, there's a basics course.

Now, you might think I've been doing Rachel’s English

for a long time or I'm pretty advanced.

I don’t need the basics course.

That's actually not true.

The basics course, the things that you’ll learn there

are for a lot of advanced learners,

going to be the final step in really sounding American.

It's all about the character, and I want everyone to start with the character

so that everything else they learn in the Academy

can be related to that, that important foundation.

There's a course on vowels and diphthongs.

There is a ton of audio in that course.

A lot of people have a hard time hearing the difference between some sounds,

so there's a lot of audio in there to get your ear in shape to hear the difference.

Speaking of hearing, can you hear my baby shrieking in the background? Just curious.

I can hear him and it's a little distracting,

but I'm not sure if the mic is picking that up.

Okay, there's lots of conversation.

There's a conversation course that has both scripted conversation.

That's going to be more for beginners,

because it's a little slower, a little clearer.

There's no background music.

People aren't talking at the same time.

Then, there's some real life English conversation there, too.

That's harder because it's a real conversation.

People are talking at the same time, maybe there's background music,

maybe someone’s further away from the microphone.

So that might be better for the advanced learners.

Then, there's also a Hollywood course, where I'm taking some clips from TV

and film and some little scenes and we're doing an analysis of that conversation.

So, your listening comprehension should be improving for TV, film,

real conversation, all of the stuff that you need it for.

When you follow the bit.ly link and it takes you to the VIP sign up link,

there's a video there too that kind of goes over

some of the courses that will be in the Academy.

Okay, so those are all of the questions

that I wrote down from the last live video.

I'm going to take a second here just to look through the comments here

and see if there are any other questions that I can answer.

Yeah, I just wanted to let you guys know that I'm really excited about it,

and there has been a good response and that feels great.

It has taken a lot of time to make the extra lessons for this Academy,

and they've been very fun.

My husband David’s in some videos and friends.

I'm out to dinner with friends in some videos,

and it takes what I've been doing for eight years

and it puts it into a system for you.

In addition to the video, there's text to bring it all together.

There are quizzes so it's a little bit more interactive.

There's listening comprehension exercises.

So, it's a lot of fun, and I feel really good about it.

I think you guys are going to love it,

and the best part about it is, it's a subscription.

So, each month I can add more stuff, which means I can respond to your needs.

If you guys are saying, hey, we want more of this kind of a lesson,

then I can make that, and that's what I really like about the ongoing nature

of this is, you guys, the students, I'm expecting to learn a ton from you

about what works for you, what you want more of, what’s not very effective.

So, I can tailor the Academy to your responses, your needs,

your tastes, throughout the months.

Okay.

There are not private lessons right now.

That is a possibility for the future, but at the moment,

there are not private lessons.

It's going to be online videos and audios that you work through,

but then there's also going to be a Facebook group where you can communicate

with other people and then I'll also be in there commenting.

So, you're not going to be alone doing this, but it is up to you to work

through the content at your own pace except for the live classes.

That will be more interactive.

Is there going to be a trial period? There's not,

but there is a 30-day money back guarantee.

So, you can get access to the Academy, you can spend the whole month in there,

and if at the end of the 30 days you decide,

you know, this is not really what I thought it would be,

this is not really what I need it to be, then you can just email me

within those 30 days, and I'm happy to refund you and cancel your subscription.

Oh, gosh.

The comments are coming in so fast now.

I'm having a hard time reading them before they go away.

How long will students be in the Academy to take the course?

So, that's really up to you.

The Academy is never going to end.

Okay, that's probably not true.

It might at some point, but I have no plans to end it.

Each month I'm going to be adding more content.

So, as a student, when you feel like you've progressed to the point

where you're really happy and you actually don’t feel like you

want to keep checking in with your accent, then that would be when you stop.

Now, there are going to be courses that come to completion within the Academy,

but there will always be new courses that are being pushed out.

So, it's really up to you, up to how much time you have.

You may find that you go through a phase in life where all of the sudden

you don’t really have time to practice your English anymore.

At that point, you might drop out.

Or you may find that even as you've gotten really comfortable with your English,

you like the exercises in the Academy to just keep it going

and you may find that you stay in the Academy for years because you love English,

it's a passion, it's a hobby, and you appreciate the conversation skills

that you're gaining in the Academy.

Okay, sorry about that.

Phone notification.

I think I'm going to wrap this up for now.

Thank you guys so much for all of your comments and for watching.

I'm reading your comments, and even though I couldn't read every single comment live,

I will read them all once the live ends.

So, your voice will be heard.

So, if you're saying, what's my next step?

The next step is, get on the VIP list, follow the bit.ly link in the description

to this video, and that's all you need to do for now.

Once you join that list, then I will be coming to you with more information.

You don’t need to seek it out anymore.

So, that's it, guys.