Rosetta Stone Live Tutoring Review: What It’s Really Like to Learn With a Live Coach

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What’s it like to learn in a virtual classroom? As part of a self-experiment, I sat in a digital classroom and can report that it was a very intensive experience. An experience I would prefer over any traditional language course in a language school. However, a bit of luck is also involved.

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How can I start using the language as early as possible? This is a question every language learner should ask themselves repeatedly. Learning with an app and reading books is nice. But to truly internalize a language, you have to speak it. Is a virtual classroom the right solution for this?

What Did I Test?

I currently use Rosetta Stone for learning Spanish. The online course includes not only the comprehensive language course but also lessons in a virtual classroom. Four sessions per month are included in the price.*

If you want more, you have to pay extra, and we’ve broken down the Rosetta Stone costs for you in detail here. Rosetta Stone generally refers to online sessions with live tutors. A “lesson unit” lasts 25 minutes, and up to four “students” can be in the digital classroom.

How Do I Sign Up for Lessons?

Before you can start, you naturally have to sign up for the lessons first. Fortunately, registration, like the entire handling, is incredibly simple. Choose the lesson for which you want to book a session, select the desired time, and reserve your spot. That’s it!

Actual use is just as easy. From the start screen, you can begin the lesson with a click, and you’re already in a virtual classroom with a teacher and other language learners.

How Do the Lessons Proceed?

Within the lesson, the topics of the corresponding lesson are revisited and explored in depth through a question-and-answer game. The coach shows various images, which you already know from the different exercises, and asks each participant questions, which they answer. Sometimes you are also asked to pose questions yourself to practice this as well.

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talkREAL Tip! Work through at least all the main lessons of the respective chapter so that you have at least heard all the vocabulary. This makes many things easier!

Pros and Cons – Language Lessons in the Virtual Classroom

The actual lesson is very similar to that of a language school. However, you have significantly fewer participants “around you.” Nevertheless, this still means you have to listen to the sometimes incorrect pronunciation of others. A disadvantage that classroom-format language instruction inherently brings.

Admittedly, I also haven’t had the best experiences with traditional language instruction in language schools. The teachers there are usually free to design the lessons, and since they also change frequently, consistent learning is not always a given. This is much better in a virtual classroom linked to an online language course. You always have a connection to what was previously learned. It also doesn’t matter if the tutor changes frequently.

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I also noticed very positively the frequency with which one actively speaks. You are constantly prompted to do so, and the small group size contributes to this. And in true Rosetta Stone style, they don’t dwell long on grammatical explanations or similar things; rather, active speaking is the focus.

This is where the luck mentioned in the introduction comes into play. In a previous test in English, there were always three other fellow students on their digital chairs, so we were always a larger group. However, during my last test in Spanish, I was completely alone in the virtual classroom. No classmates, just the tutor!

That’s why this was a very intensive experience for me. Speaking Spanish non-stop for 25 minutes was a real challenge, and my head was buzzing by the end. The learning effect was immense, and I was thrilled at how valuable this learning unit was. At the same time, I also noticed that it’s a different thing to find the right answer in an exercise in the language course versus formulating a correct sentence yourself. Interim conclusion: Those who are alone in the virtual classroom gain significant added value!

And of course, you can also achieve this added value purposefully by, for example, booking your own language teacher via italki or Preply.

Practical Tip for Successful Learning in the Virtual Classroom

The virtual classroom at Rosetta Stone is set up so that you can see the tutor. However, they cannot see you in return. This is important to keep in mind. A simple shrug of the shoulders when you don’t know an answer doesn’t help much.

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Learning effect: It is useful to prepare some questions and sentences in advance for upcoming lessons in the virtual classroom.

These small aids (in Spanish, of course, or the language you are currently learning) are certainly useful when you’re stuck or have a clarifying question. And this is often the case when, like me, you are still at the very beginning. If you are interested in more of these small helper phrases, we recommend our EmergencyHACK. This is part of our (paid) language learning tips, which you can find here.

Conclusion – Virtual Classroom

My Spanish lessons in the virtual classroom were a very good experience. The smaller the group size, the more intensive the learning experience. Especially since four lessons are included in the price at Rosetta Stone, I can only recommend everyone to use it.

It’s a great opportunity to actively use the language yourself at an early stage of learning and to consolidate initial words and phrases. Especially since Rosetta Stone always maintains a connection to the lessons of the online course.

Have you ever sat in a virtual classroom yourself? What are your experiences? If you want to test the whole thing with Rosetta Stone, you can do so by clicking the button below. (Rosetta Stone offers a 30-day money-back guarantee, so you can try it out without any risk.)

*The number of free lessons may vary depending on the purchased offer.