Frequently asked questions

For Individuals
Will the course help me understand and speak English easily?

Yes certainly, the courses on offer are based on the Certificate in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (CELTA). This means that because Indians are not native speakers of English, you will find that the course will help you grasp the fundamentals of the English language. The training will be tailored for your needs - training in specific grammar, punctuation, day to day vocabulary and neutral accent as these apply to you in your life as a student, employee, hobby linguist or a career aspirant seeking opportunities overseas. CELTA is a practical qualification and trainers have been assessed by Cambridge Assessment English, part of the University of Cambridge.

You will find a range of courses to suit your specific needs. For example, if you are a student who wants to improve writing skills for essays, you should look at the creative writing/communication course.

In addition to English language skills (both spoken and written), with training in soft skills/professional etiquette, you would know how to conduct yourself professionally, behave appropriately with colleagues, communicate in a respectful manner and be aware of cultural and regional differences.

Yes, you need to have basic understanding of the English language including grammar, punctuation and vocabulary. An initial assessment of your English proficiency will be done.

Your knowledge of grammar, punctuation and vocabulary will be assessed before the start of the course.

Setting aside 6 to 8 hours a week for the course work is advised.

The fee will depend on what type of course you are opting for as there are a number of packages available.

The fees will be collected upfront before the course commences. You can sign up online and make the payment.

Once you sign up on the website, you will be provided online access to resources including video tutorials.

There will be ongoing assessments by the trainers and at the end of the course a brief formal assessment will identify areas of proficiency and areas where you would need to improve.

There will be ongoing assessments by the trainers and at the end of the course a brief formal assessment will identify areas of proficiency and areas where you would need to improve.

You would have to complete all assignments to the required level.

For Corporates
What are the qualifications of your English language trainers?

All our English language trainers have an internationally recognised teaching certificate. This is either a CELTA, TEFL or TESOL certificate. In addition, we only recruit trainers who have at least a few years corporate training experience and have a number of years working in a business environment.

We try our best to place trainers into courses where they may have had some experience working in that particular industry.

Furthermore, we like to recruit trainers who have a familiarity with the Indian corporate context.

The trainer is observed at least once by the Programme Manager and a detailed observation form is completed. After about 5 days, a meeting is organised between the Programme Manager and the trainer to discuss the trainer’s performance. If the score is below average, then a further observation may be conducted during the same course.

We also encourage our trainers to go and observe each other and give feedback.

Training programmes are charged on an individual corporate basis (as each programme is customised to the client's needs) and not per participant. We offer discounts to clients who purchase long-term training programmes, or those with whom we have built long-term business relationships.

Payments can be made through cheque or online through PayPal, which accepts all major credit cards and debit cards. Your purchase will be safe and secure.

Once a course is confirmed, the average period is three to four weeks before the first session as we conduct a needs assessment, although for one-off workshops and more standardised programmes, the lead time may be shorter.

There is no specific duration, as it would all depend on your objectives for running the course, the skills to be covered (writing, speaking etc.) and therefore, the specific content. Some programmes with a defined focus may be in the form of a one-day workshop while other programmes that cover more objectives and skills will take longer – 1 week to 10 days.

Small groups/classes allow for more interaction with and feedback from the trainer. However, usually due to the cost per head issue, average class sizes are about 15/20 staff.

As a rule, for oral skills courses, you should look at 12-15 staff. For writing skills courses, a maximum of 20 staff. Workshops, about 10-12.

Yes, our programmes are conducted in-house; we could arrange training facilities in case corporate houses are unable to provide/arrange for space.

Training can take place any time of the day, but it is common to organise training classes after office hours, or partly in and partly after office hours, so sessions do not finish too late.

Yes we do, as it is an effective way to conduct the training programme and ensure that your staff are able to benefit from the session. We provide different means to conduct pre-testing of participants - these include generic assessments conducted through simple oral or written exercises or tailored assessments focusing on a specific language/behavioural/collegial interaction element related to the target participants' work.

After the initial assessment/pre-testing, we provide you with our feedback regarding your staff’s language levels, which level they should be placed into as well any other useful information we have uncovered. This may include changes to the outline to reflect the staff’s objectives for attending the course. If you are only arranging one course, we will advise you about which staff may struggle or which staff may be too strong compared with the average level of proficiency.

However, we will only advise or make suggestions, and the final decision on enrolling staff into any course is your decision.

As we specialise in providing skills-based language programmes, the hands-on training would enable your staff to put the language and soft skills into immediate practice.

Through research, pre-course discussions, pre-course assessments and collection of samples (written and spoken), we will redraft the outline until you are satisfied with it. Then our team will design the programme. We design as we go, working one week in advance. This allows us to be flexible and adapt the course to reflect the needs of the participants as well as incorporate specific issues that arise and include further examples such as real-life role-plays, case-studies or writing analysis.

Each week, the materials can be sent to you for your records, so that you know you are getting what you want.

A tailored pre-assessment is designed and administered and this is then compared with a similar post-assessment.

For speaking skills, results can be recorded on MP3 and, with writing skills, hard copies can be scanned. These can then be given to you in order to check and analyse your staff’s performance for yourself.

As described earlier, tailored pre- and post-assessments work well as these can be reviewed and tell an accurate story of staff performance. We also provide end-of-course reports based on analysis of course evaluation forms and communication with supervisors/line managers.

We recognise that course evaluation forms are not always the best practice, since you may not get a true reflection of the participants' feedback if they complete the forms in the final session and return it to the trainer or the coordinator. Some companies prefer to have an evaluation system built into their intranet system that correlates all the results and allows staff more time to think about the questions before completing the form.

Probably the best option to evaluate the effectiveness of the course would be to liaise with the staff’s supervisors to see what improvements their staff have made before and after the programme. We can help with this side of the evaluation process as well.

Contact us

Let our expertise and experience work for you. We are located at Hyderabad, Mumbai and London.

Email us at query@thelondonbridgecentre.com

Hyderabad - +91 9004079431 / +91 9884022890

Mumbai - +91 9987215342 / +91 22 40214325

London - +44 7833751814 / +44 20 35606590

Official licensee:
Melarcode Training Services Pvt. Ltd.

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