Handheld English Learning

Michael CarrierBritish Council

M4ed4dev conference

© Euromonitor International

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Salary Gap

•The average salary gap of someone who can speak English vs. someone who does not is approximately 20%

Annual Gross Income per Capita

•72% of all companies interviewed stated that employees with English language skills advance quicker within companies

•67% of these companies also said that English is beneficial for company growth

Adequately Educated Workforce

•Over 50% of companies interviewed said that their workforce was required to speak English

•30% of students in higher education aim to continue their studies abroad, especially in English-speaking countries, such as the UK, US and Australia

(salaried professional)

English & the Individual

Our mobile programme goals

• Provide wider access to high quality English learning opportunities• Provide authentic English language input

• Build 21st century skills• Extend the walls of the classroom

• Provide English support for teachers as well as learners• Provide teacher training

• Provide universal access to English learning

English by SMS• Mohamed Ali Amin, a health-care official

based in Darfur, has been subscribing to the Advanced Level service for about a year. He originally subscribed to improve his vocabulary. He likes the fact he gets snippets of English four times a week and feels it has helped improve his grammar and vocabulary. This is important for him as he uses English in his job, but due to a lack of time and his location, finds it difficult to study on a more formal basis.

Eman Mohammed, a Customer Services Manager from Omdurman, has subscribed for 2 months to the elementary level. She subscribed to revise and improve her English knowledge. She likes the fact that you learn on the move and in snippets – it’s not like attending a lesson or sitting down with a grammar book for an hour. She also likes the fact it is limited to four short messages a week as this is enough to make it interesting without being overwhelming. Other similar services bombard you with messages or send very long ones.

Idioms using Colours

1 - To be in the ______• red• green• blue

Meaning: To have a negative bank balance; to be overdrawn; to be in debt.

Example: I got a letter from the bank saying that I’m in the ______. I think I might have to get a second job to pay off my debt.

2 - Out of the ______• pink• blue• purple

Meaning: When something happens unexpectedly.

Example: I got a phone call out of the ______ from an old school friend last night. I didn’t even know he had my number.

English Everyday

Brief Description: SMS based English to expand vocabulary and motivate learners with one useful expression a day pushed to their mobile.

At 3 language levels – easy, medium, hard

Set 1:16 topics for each level, though this can be expanded. Each topic to last one week, with 6 expressions and one quiz. The format is Expression + meaning + example in contextIn total, one year’s worth of content.

Set 2: 200 IELTS tips for test takers preparing for the exam.

Which mobiles is it for? It works on all phone models, but is aimed at low feature handsets

Distribution: in partnership with a content distributor such as a Mobile Network Operator. e.g: Vodafone or Zain

1:1 learning - English & Classmates

“The students were clearly interested, motivated and engaged by the computer based materials, far more so than is likely to be the case for traditional approaches to teaching.

In the classroom video they seemed to be actively exploring the materials whenever they had a chance, and they could be seen giving the materials concentrated attention when asked to perform tasks on the computer.”

English Apps - Content neutral

Scope & impactSMS project locations:

•Current: Kazakhstan, Indonesia, China, Malawi, Sudan, Columbia, Thailand

•Planned: Cyprus, Turkey, Sub-Saharan Africa, SE Asia

•Scale: 1.5 million subscribers in 2010-2011

2nd generation (Java) phone projects:

•Planned: all of Sub-Saharan Africa, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, China

•Scale: estimated 10m learners

Smartphone projects:

•Current: global access via IOS, Android, Bada

•Planned: global availability

•Scale: estimated 5 million learners

Content development:

•Sequenced courses (curriculum-mapped) – pilot in Latin America

•Self-access language practice

•Video & audio authentic input (smartphones)

Mobile solar learning