Growing up in a vulnerable community, I understood from an early age how socioeconomic inequality affects millions of children in Colombia and afield. Therefore, when I developed a keen interest in learning the English language, I came to know that only those who attend upscale schools can master the language because they are taught in a better fashion. The way English was taught at my school was very ineffective. During English classes, students were asked to fill out textbooks with grammar exercises even though most students did not understand the rules. Thus, they relied on memorizing lists of words for tests and listening to recordings that even the teacher couldn’t understand
Even after learning English for 12 years, I – like many other Colombian students – was unable to construct a complete sentence in the language. Soon thereafter, I realized that something needs to be done about it, as this inability to learn the international language will create hurdles for me in future.
One thing that I realised was that in order to master the language, I had to start teaching simultaneously in order to learn it faster.
Hence, I struggled towards it and luckily got selected for the Erasmus Mundus programme GLITEMA (German Literature in the European Middle Ages). During the programme, I learned six languages, and then decided to level up. This is how Lingglo was born. It is an international academic Information Communication Technologies (ICT) project that aims to enable financially-disadvantaged students in Colombia to have language and cultural exchange through online courses with other students abroad as a part of their academic school programmes. With Lingglo, you will always have another person who will be teaching you the language in an active and practical way with the method of total immersion and continuous monitoring. The mission of Lingglo is to give the opportunity to people from all over the world to be fluent in a foreign language, it is designed especially for people with limited resources.