Daniel Harris

Almost never is the sentence about English. A six to ten year old who announces at the dinner table that she does not like English is naming the only thing in the situation she has a word for. What she actually dislikes is usually one specific twenty five minute experience, one activity inside it, one […]

You are sitting next to your child during the first trial lesson. The screen is on, the teacher is speaking quickly, and your child nods sometimes and goes quiet other times. Twenty five minutes later it is over, and you are left with a question you have no reliable way to answer: was that teacher

The year started well. Three lessons a week, a fixed slot after dinner, a child who sat down without arguing. Then came exam week and two lessons were cancelled. Then a family trip. Then a cold. Then one week where everyone simply forgot. Now you open the app, see a stack of unused lessons, hear

Your child is sitting in front of the screen. The teacher smiles and asks something simple. Your child presses their lips together, turns away, or reaches for the close button. You lean in from behind and whisper, “Say hello, habibi, just say hello,” and the silence gets heavier. Five minutes later you are the one

Usually nobody is wrong. The report measures one thing, you observe another, and both are honest within their own range. The report says your child completed the units, participated in lessons, and answered the review exercises correctly. You say your child has not produced one voluntary English sentence at home in three months. Both statements

Four months into online classes, most parents open the dashboard and find the same picture: attendance high, unit scores fine, the level bar up a notch. Then a relative asks whether the child is actually getting better, and no honest answer exists. The dashboard is not lying. It answers a different question. It measures what

No, an A2 level does not mean your child can hold a real conversation. It means your child can manage short, predictable exchanges: introducing themselves, answering questions about family and school, ordering something simple, describing yesterday in a few sentences. It does not mean your child could sit with a British ten year old and

You pay for the lessons. Your daughter sits in front of the screen three times a week. You hear a stream of sounds and catch maybe four words. Then the question arrives, the one many parents in Saudi Arabia and across the Gulf carry quietly: is any of this actually working? Here is the direct

Your child opens the app every day. The streak counter says one hundred and twenty days. The dashboard says advanced level. Then a visitor asks a simple question in English and your child goes silent. That scene plays out in homes across Riyadh, Jeddah, Dammam, Kuwait City and Doha, and it does not mean the

The direct answer is no. An app will not ruin your child’s pronunciation. That is not entirely good news, though, because the same reason it cannot damage pronunciation is the reason it cannot repair it either: in most cases the app never engages with the sound your child actually produces. The worry is common in