Myth 1. Most successful online learners are teenagers.
In fact, according to EnglishLab.Net internal statistics,
the majority of the best internally motivated students are aged 30 to 60 and thus are mature working adults. When it comes to external motivation, age does not really matter. If online tasks are made compulsory by your teacher, you will have to do them if you want to pass the course whether you like being online or not, so it is not about studying online but about your course requirements and your course tutor’s teaching style or philosophy.
Myth 2. Online learning is all about being online all the time.
Actually, it does not mean that. E-learning implies that your course materials are available online, and you “meet” your tutor on a shared discussion board (=forum) asynchronously or in a text or voice chat room synchronously either on an ad hoc basis or when specified in your contract. The amount of time spent online will largely depend on the nature of your courseware (=course materials). For example, audio recordings can usually be downloaded and listened to in a traditional way, and any text can be printed off. Likewise, you are free to use whatever “offline” vocabulary techniques that work for you while you are doing an e-course in a foreign language.
Myth 3. E-learning is easier than traditional ways of studying.
E-learning is neither easier nor more difficult than traditional classroom studies. It is different. It is often possible to sit back and do nothing while your groupmates are answering in an offline lesson, whereas when you enrol on an online course, you either take it or leave it – you are one-to-one with the courseware, and once enrolled you either study or not. In that sense e-learning requires good time management and self-organization skills.
