Teaching Methods

International House uses the 'Communicative Method' in its teaching. This involves using the students' opinions, feelings and experiences as a resource in the classroom to personalise the language being introduced or practised. We encourage pair and group work to help the students to get more practice and the teacher can spend more time listening to the students giving personal attention. As a school we feel that the traditional teacher centred approach to language learning has often failed students in the past and International House has been pioneering this communicative method with undeniable success for over 40 years.

All this does not mean that we ignore the structures and the grammar of the language, and each lesson students will learn and practise new structures as well as extending their skills abilities and increasing and activating their vocabulary. So what is the difference? At International House - Riga we make learning fun! Using a wide variety of simulations, role-plays, discussions and language games we keep our students motivated by keeping them stimulated, and making sure that they practise real skills in preparation for real life.

The organisation is now the world market leader in teaching English as a foreign language and our standards are as high as any international teaching organisation in the world. In fact, if you have studied English, you were probably using a course-book written by an International House author (our teachers write more TEFL course-books than any other organisation in the world).