We are revolutionizing language learning. How?
With learning methods that your brain will enjoy and with people who make you feel good.
SMALL BUT POWERFUL
Who we are and what is important to us
The New Language Academy, NELA for short, was founded in 2016 and has since attracted a growing number of customers in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. We are a small team of around 25 teachers and back-office staff from over eight nations and work in Cologne, Liverpool, Barcelona and other parts of the world.
We want to make language learning even more personal and effective. Technology is important. We know that. But people are even more important. That’s why we value our teachers so much. Yes, they’re all certified and bring a lot of experience to the table, but what sets them apart above all is their commitment to each student’s progress. Together with our teachers, we work on guidelines that determine the timing, variety, and content of the lessons and the 25-minute live sessions. This way the learning chat and live lessons are coordinated perfectly. And the brain can learn in an easy and enjoyable way!
Technology is important. We know that. But people are even more important.
It’s important to us that our students have familiar, daily contact with their teachers and can easily contact Zelinda from customer service at any time. That’s why we programmed our own messenger app. Because we know from our own experience: familiar contact contributes to great results. We experience this in the NELA team every day. We may be scattered all over the world, but we work closely together, give each other feedback, and come up with solutions as a team which one person wouldn’t have thought of on their own.
THE NELA TEAM
Our heroes in the background
Janina Lawrenson
Course Material Developer
Janina supports us from England with practical lessons for English. She’s not only a writer, but often a voice actor as well. Janina is the most structured creative mind we know. That’s why we appreciate her very much.
Ashey Phillips
Course Material Developer and Tester
Ashley not only teaches English, together with Janina she also designs new learning material and thoroughly tests every lesson and live session. She currently lives in Portugal with her husband.
Tony Tonchev
Programmer
The NELA dashboard is Anton’s baby. He knows every line of code and always has a solution when bugs make our lives difficult. Together with his team in Bulgaria and England, he works tirelessly to make the NELA software even more exciting.
Judith Frigols
Strategic Course Development
Judith loves languages. Her own experience in language learning helps her give the right incentives to course development. She shares ideas with each team and makes sure that lessons learned are passed on to everyone.
Juan Frigols
CEO & Corporate Development
Juan is where all the threads come together. The vision of NELA is in his mind: great teachers with good teaching material should be supported by smart technology. He drives the programming and always has new ideas for more successful learning.
Jerôme Neumans
App Programmer
Jerome is actually from Luxembourg, but he has been living in Ecuador for three years. He programs the NELA app for us and calmly overcomes every hurdle that pops up in the App or Play Store.
Zelinda Neumann
Customer Service & Teacher Support
Zeli handles all the concerns our customers and teachers bring to her. Change of billing address, login not working, teacher sick – Zeli is always there, always ready to help.
OUR APP
Good technology with even better people
OUR APP
Good technology with even better people
It was clear to us from the beginning that the key to success lies in the daily, uncomplicated use of the language. That’s how you build confidence and learn to speak the new language naturally. Again, we couldn’t do that with any app we knew, although many are very well-made from a technical point of view. So we needed our own app – one that focuses on people, not technology. WhatsApp was our inspiration. But our app needed to do more: It needed a library function for teaching material and, of course, a calendar function for live lessons. With this vision, our small team of programmers got started. And we’re incredibly proud of what they’ve accomplished! We have endless ideas on how we want to develop this app even further. But one thing will always remain the focus: the people – the contact with our amazing teachers, whether in the learning chat or in live lessons.
SOCIAL COMMITMENT
We offer young people a chance
There are plenty of people out there with the potential to be great teachers. However, some of them never get a chance. That bothers us. That’s why we get involved specifically with people in countries where unemployment is very high and offer them free training to become language teachers. Currently, 17 Namibians are going through our six-month teacher training course, where they are learning how to understand and explain English grammar and how to teach English well using different brain-friendly methods.
OUR STORY
How it all began
Juan grew up in Spain. Even as a young boy, he wanted to explore the world. But his family of seven couldn’t afford it. As soon as he earned his own money, he went to England and took a language course. Even today he can still remember that he had somehow imagined language learning to be easier and more interesting. But giving up before reaching his goal? That doesn’t go with Juan.
So he traveled to South America, Canada and across Europe to find learning methods that really “work.” And he found what he was looking for. He put together a good mix of the best methods – first and foremost those of Harry Cotton and Vera Birkenbihl. This resulted in the method he would have liked to have used to learn English and German back then. Now others could also benefit from it.
After graduating, Juan went on to teach languages at universities and eventually even founded his own language school in Cologne. In Cologne? Yes, in Cologne, because in the meantime he married Judith, who’s from Cologne and loves languages as much as he does.
Their mutual techie friends then convinced Juan to offer his concept online to help even more people deal with the challenges of language learning. So, after many hurdles, Juan Frigols became the founder of NEL.Academy. That continues to be his motivation. Juan and his team are not so much about sales and growth, but about the people who want to expand their own world by learning a new language.
2008
Juan teaches language and regional studies at university
2010
Language school "Spanischhoch2" founded in Cologne. Language: Spanish
2016
Online language school "LanguagePocket" launched. Language: Spanish
2018
App for learning chat introduced
2020
Renamed to "NELA." New language: English
2021
New languages: German and Business English