Vista Higher LearningReviews 105

It is a bad software/company which did not keep the student dashboard available either for two more days in order to see completed assignments or grades. Why to delete all as soon the course ended? We students sometimes has problems with missing grades or missing assignments and when a professor ask for proof we do not have how to proof that our assignments were completed due to the fact that VHL CENTRAL did not keep a copy or did not send a copy to the students! NOW I have to pay again and retake the same course in my college to write off the F grade I had.

Learning a foreign language may be challenging, but in the end, it's all worth it. However, you're not going to be having any fun at ALL using VHL Central. The biggest problem is that it basically thinks that you already know Spanish or whatever language you're taking, even though it's a completely new thing for you! When you get something wrong, they'll what you did wrong, but they don't help you, which is ESSENTIAL for learning a language. If you want to learn a language, PLEASE don't use VHL Central, as it doesn't help, and is a complete waste of your time.

I am taking french and this program makes me want to bang my head against a wall every single day. The exercises are so stupid, repetitive, and useless. The grammar is not very well explained and you have to be super specific when answering long form questions or you will get it wrong and every single day I feel like I'm wasting my time and not learning anything. I genuinely used to love learning french but this has made me hate learning it. The listening exercises are so difficult to understand because they talk so fast. This course is so frustrating and dumb, and you get points off for grammar that has NOTHING TO DO WITH THE GRAMMAR YOU ARE LEARNING. If you are a student signing up for an online language class, RUN FAR AWAY IF THE PROGRAM IS VHL. I wish I could give zero stars because thats how much i hate it.

This program requires you to be able to read Spanish or you spend a lot of time trying to figure out what the instructions are trying to get you to do. There are so many activities, you won't have time to go to a helpful site and actually learn the language you're trying to learn. I am forced to use this for Spanish and my 4.0 is threatened because I don't learn this way. You have to use google translate to figure out some of the instructions. Every lesson eats away at the learner's confidence. What a joke.

Because of the pandemic, I have had to take all this semester online, unluckily for me, I decided I was going to knock out the first of the two language credits I am required to have thought that I could just swing by since the two my school offers do not interest me at all. This is not the case with this 'program'.
Because my teacher requires I have the physical book, which is totally optional I had to pay upwards of $300 for this on top o the tuition AND online class fees, so I paid $900 to use this ultimately useless system.

Now that the rant is over, let me explain WHY this course is a waste of time and money. 1st off I have never had a program designed to teach me a language prattle off words this fast, I get it that this is how they speak in the country where the language comes from BUT when you are learning a new language slow and enunciated words help you do this, they seem to think the opposite, and on top of that use the 'slang' version of words in the Roman videos which makes the faster pace even more incomprehensible as what they are saying isn't even how the examples sound. The questions themselves are incredibly subjective and expect you to have the context you don't, it will mark you down for using an informal phrase when it expects formal when all you're saying is 'What time is it', sure if I knew I was talking to a receptionist before an interview I'd speak formally but I don't have the knowledge to make the call when I'm told 'Turn this statement into a question' and the statement is 'The time is BLAH'. Overall the program is completely laughable and like other reviews, I recommend finding out of your school uses it and AVOID IT LIKE THE PLAGUE. This company does NOT deserve your money.

First I have been using Spanish imperfectly for 10 years, I am intimately familiar with the language its sounds, vocabulary, etc. I started taking classes because my grammer was very poor because I learned Spanish in the street and on the fly and most people never corrected my mistakes.

That being said, this book is an atrocity. I feel so bad for kids where theybare trying to learn Spanish and use this absolute garbage. This book has absolutely no explanations in it what so ever, it doesnt explain anything. To compound the problem is the book itself is erratic, there are things and boxes and colors and pictures EVERYWHWRE making very hard to follow any sort of linear model of up down left to right.

Professors who use this book should be shot.

I was attempting to buy an access code ($175) online and would not take my card no matter what I did. I went to VHL's troubleshooting page and followed each step as explained. Nothing worked. I finally decided to call a few days later and they told me the exact same thing as was on the website. I asked if I could pay over the phone but the operator said they couldn't do that and that I had to create a PayPal as a last resort. The operator seemed not to want to help further or really cared that I could not PAY for their services. I was forced to make a PayPal, something I wanted to avoid doing because of security issues. In my opinion, this company is not here to serve customers, they are here to take corner students and take advantage of them. If you are an instructor at an institution, please ask your bookstore or provider to find an alternative company to partner with. This company does not have your student's best interests at heart and will not help them. If you are a student, I am sorry if you have to deal with this company. Contact your bookstore or book provider and talk with them about trying to switch their service provider for these courses. I will be reaching out to mine.

Not only was I forced to pay an nonrefundable $175usd to rent an online access code(so that I can't even sell the book back to recoup some of the price), but this program is actively killing my desire to learn a foreign language. The textbook is topical at best and doesn't scale well since its just a pdf, and the questions are subjective and have a very thin margin of error. Not to mention that the system for synchronous group projects is *literally* broken. Find out if your university uses this program beforehand, and AVOID IT ALL COSTS.

This company is a rip off. They gave me 14 day of free access to complete any assignments. However, once the 14 day access has expired my professor could not see my grades. Therefore I was forced to purchase the access code to receive credit. I just purchased the online materials need to access the book and still can't access it so I'm not sure if my professor can see my grades. I am very pissed because I do not have any money to waste. I hate I had to go through this program, so glad I don't have to take anymore Spanish classes.

Most distance learning programs have issues here and there, and can be better... That being said, VHL Central has no redeeming qualities in any fathomable reality what so ever. It is poorly designed, also the assignments and instructions are very murky at best, at worst you have no way of figuring out what you are supposed to do. After seeing all the horrible reviews that stretch back a few years I am completely puzzled how any educational institution is using this...

Some of the assignments have been so confusing the entire class has failed them. In some they don't specify things like gender/number of people, all important things. Even fluent speakers have had trouble with this damn site. Not to mention it doesn't tell you what you did wrong. The videos are also painful to watch, and that's without the buffering. And the textbook. Hell. Be prepared to spend a lot of time googling because their grammar explanations aren't nearly detailed enough. This waste of money doesn't even let you go back to retry last semesters lessons, so after this semester I will have spent 200 for a book an access code that doesn't do $#*!. This company is enough to make me stop learning a language. It actually did for a few years, until I transferred schools to one that doesn't use this complete and utter crap. It makes me want to pull my hair out.