What a Language School Website Needs

What the site is actually for

A student choosing a language school in Canada usually does it from home, months ahead, comparing several schools in several cities on a laptop or a phone.

Nobody can drop in to see the classrooms or meet a teacher. The website is the visit, and often the only one before the student lands.

The questions are practical: which program, which start date, how much in total, where to live, what paperwork is needed. Behind them sits trust, since a family is sending savings, and sometimes a teenager, to people it has never met.

A site that answers those questions plainly, at any hour, is ahead before a single email is sent.

Who is reading

• Adult students choosing a city, a school and a program.
• Parents of younger students, judging whether it is safe.
• Education agents abroad who recommend schools to their clients.
• Students already in the city looking to switch or extend.
• Families wondering what hosting a student involves.

The second group often holds the money for younger students, and their questions are about supervision, homestay and safety as much as about classes.

Programs, levels and start dates

List every program on its own page: general English, exam preparation, business English, short summer programs. Give the hours per week, the class size limit and the length in weeks.

Explain levels in plain terms, from beginner to advanced, and how a student is placed: a test before arrival or on the first morning.

Start dates decide many choices. If general English starts any Monday, say so; if exam courses start on fixed dates, list them for the whole year, so a student can plan around a school term at home.

The total cost, worked out

Students compare totals, not weekly rates. Tuition per week is only the start: there is usually a registration fee, books, a homestay placement fee, the homestay itself, airport pickup and medical insurance.

Show each fee, then give worked totals for common choices, such as twelve weeks of general English with homestay and airport pickup. All in Canadian dollars, with the date the prices took effect.

Say how and when fees are paid, and what the refund policy is, including what happens to fees if the student cannot come.

Homestay and accommodation

Homestay is the part parents worry about most. Explain how host families are chosen and visited, what a student's room includes, which meals are provided, and how long the trip to school usually takes.

Set out the house rules students can expect, and what happens if a placement does not work out. Knowing that a student can move to another family is reassuring in itself.

If there are other options, such as a residence or shared apartments, describe them with prices. Photographs of a typical homestay room help, taken with the family's permission.

Study permits in general terms

Whether students need study permits depends on how long their studies last.

Say so in one line on the program pages, and link to the Government of Canada's official pages for the rules rather than explaining them yourself.

A worked example

A language school with eight classrooms above shops downtown teaches English to adults from abroad. Most stay between four weeks and six months, and many live with host families.

Its site listed programs and weekly tuition. The registration fee, the homestay placement fee, the homestay itself and airport pickup were in a PDF linked from the bottom of the prices page.

Enquiries arrived overnight, and each first reply was a long email working out a total by hand. Agents abroad were still quoting a price list two years old.

The rebuild put worked totals on every program page, in Canadian dollars, with the date the prices started. Start dates for the year appear as a list, and the enquiry form asks for country, language and start date.

A page for agents carries the current price list with its date. The homestay page explains how families are visited and what happens if a student needs to move.

Questions across time zones

Enquiries arrive overnight from Asia, Latin America and Europe. A form that asks for the student's country, preferred language and intended start date gives the reply somewhere to begin.

Promise a reply time you can meet, such as one business day, and meet it. A student comparing four schools notices which one answered first.

Say which languages staff speak and when calls are possible. A page of frequently asked questions answers the rest while the office is closed.

Trust before anyone visits

Show the real school: classrooms, the common room, teachers and students, photographed with their permission. Stock photographs persuade nobody who is comparing schools closely.

Name the teachers' qualifications, any accreditation the school holds, and how long it has operated. Put the school on a map, with the nearest transit and what is within walking distance.

Student comments help when they are genuine and attributed by first name and country. Under the Competition Act endorsements have to be real, so never write them yourself.

The counter-case

A school teaching mainly local adults in evening classes needs far less of this. Programs, dates, fees and a way to register cover most of what its students ask.

A new school does not need pages in six languages on day one. Translating the program and price pages into the two languages its students most often speak, reviewed by a native speaker, is a sensible start.

But a school recruiting students from other countries needs the full picture online: programs, totals, homestay, a line on permits and a fast answer, because the website is all they see before they commit.

What to build first

1. List every program with hours and start dates.
2. Publish total costs with worked examples.
3. Explain homestay and how families are chosen.
4. Add one permit line linking the official pages.
5. Add an enquiry form with a stated reply time.
6. Show real classrooms, teachers and students.
7. Translate key pages for your main markets.

Step two is the one students compare first. A school that shows the full total, fees and homestay included, saves every family the arithmetic and the email it would take to ask.

Another site whose visitors decide from a distance, and need current facts in a minute, is covered in what a small ski hill website needs.

Frequently asked questions

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.