Vista Higher LearningReviews 105

VHL Central is the worst. The most unproductive "teaching" software. It tries traps to you into failing. (Didn't work on me, though.) I've found multiple times where it tests you on concepts that it DOES NOT instruct you upon later, but expects a BEGINNER to somehow follow along or just get so frustrated that you give up. It's cheaply made. It relies heavily on a massive amount of unclear pictures to teach vocab, no English translation to the Spanish examples a lot of times with its "teaching lessons," so a student is confused and lost. It needlessly spends so much time on these stupid Fotonovelas that teach you nothing. If I want to hear Spanish in an everyday setting, or be able to watch how they speak, I'll watch YouTube or listen to Spanish radio or sthing. Its stories in the video format are at least 5 minutes long at a fast pace, with complex structures and tons of vocab. IN a BEGINNER Spanish class! You can rewind them, but there's no option to slow down the speaking! The only help they give you for these awful videos is a transcript of the complex words that you have to use a translator or a dictionary just to get a sense of what they're talking about. In the latter lessons, the English directions for the quizzes on the videos will be taken away and be replaced with full Spanish ones. But most importantly instead of using the opportunity to reinforce the vocab and grammar concepts you're suppose to learning that's FOR THAT LESSON and prepare you for latter lessons, they throw these stupid, often partially irrelevant, unnecessary, forgettable storylines that in reality do not matter. Despite all these odds and all this BS, I got still As in my Spanish classes, and it had everything to do with ITS BETTER COMPETITORS, my hard work and resourcefulness to make sense out of the nonsense that is VHL. I give VHL no credit. I recommend to anyone considering to take a language class for credit to investigate into the books/programs that the school uses, and if it's VHL, steer clear. If you have use to VHL, use it minimally and rely on other FREE, good sources to teach you the concepts and practice. Skip over the Fotonovelas if you can or skim just to get a gist, and when they quiz you, look for the key words in the questions that are also in the Fotonovela clip's transcripts. This is one way of the ways I minimized the distraction, remained productive and effective in my coursework, and didn't allow it to waste my time.