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EnglishCentral Launches ChatGPT to English Learners at Scale

EnglishCentral Launches ChatGPT to English Learners at Scale

ChatGPT now enables true conversation practice for over 20,000 interactive video lessons on EnglishCentral

Boston, April 2, 2023. EnglishCentral today announced the launch of the first English language learning application using ChatGPT to enable AI-powered conversational English practice on thousands of topics. Millions of EnglishCentral users can now converse with a new AI-powered Chatbot, named MiMi, that engages learners in a manner similar to a human tutor. This release of MiMi incorporates the latest ChatGPT models from Open AI, combines them with EnglishCentral’s IntelliSpeechSM speech recognition engine, and marks a huge leap in learner engagement over previous versions of conversational chatbots.

The core of EnglishCentral’s platform is over 20,000 interactive video lessons, covering a wide-range of topics and levels for English language learners to practice conversational English. Using ChatGPT at its core, MiMi is now capable of engaging in authentic, conversations with learners on topics such as:

Boston, April 2, 2023. EnglishCentral today announced the launch of the first English language learning application using ChatGPT to enable AI-powered conversational English practice on thousands of topics. Millions of EnglishCentral users can now converse with a new AI-powered Chatbot, named MiMi, that engages learners in a manner similar to a human tutor. This release of MiMi incorporates the latest ChatGPT models from Open AI, combines them with EnglishCentral’s IntelliSpeechSM speech recognition engine, and marks a huge leap in learner engagement over previous versions of conversational chatbots.

The core of EnglishCentral’s platform is over 20,000 interactive video lessons, covering a wide-range of topics and levels for English language learners to practice conversational English. Using ChatGPT at its core, MiMi is now capable of engaging in authentic, conversations with learners on topics such as:

Elon Musk Buys Twitter

Brad Pitt at the Oscars

Karlie Kloss: Coding is a Superpower

To check out more examples of MiMi chatting about over 20,000 videos on EnglishCentral, Register for FREE here.

“We are at a real turning point in the use of AI in English language learning with the release of the latest chat models” commented Alan Schwartz, CEO & Founder of EnglishCentral. “We have been working on chatbots for several years at EnglishCentral, and this release represents a huge leap in capabilities with clear benefits for learners — we see already a 50% increase in engagement of our users when interacting with our ChatBot MiMi using the ChatGPT models.”

The benefits to learners of a chatbot powered by large language models come from their ability to be much more engaging thereby enabling many more turns of a conversation, in terms of context and relevance. The work EnglishCentral has done to build on the ChatGPT base models, includes both the prompt engineering in how to instruct the models, as well as the fine tuning of the generic model to make them specifically suited for speech-enabled language learning, both in terms of engagement and feedback.

To learn more about the R&D behind the MiMi ChatBot go here:

The Teacher-Machine Learning Loop

Steve Chambers, a pioneer in the natural language processing industry for over 20 years for companies like Nuance Communications and an ed-tech entrepreneur, commented: “EnglishCentral pioneered conversational language learning with both human and AI feedback. With ChatGPT, EnglishCentral introduces Conversational Depth, giving students human-like conversational dialog around the pop-culture and educational content proven to engage language learners the most.”

About EnglishCentral: EnglishCentral is one of the most widely adopted AI-powered English language conversation platform in the world, changing the way students and professionals across the globe learn to speak English. Adopted by over 1000 universities, schools and corporations in over 100 countries, the company delivers interactive, video-based language learning experiences for both self-study and one-on-one tutoring, providing one of the most widely adopted and complete platforms for practicing and mastering English conversation online. Its extensive library of video lessons, proprietary IntelliSpeech℠ speech assessment technology, and pre-built course modules guarantee results for English as a Second Language (ESL) learners.

Press Contact:
Shunsuke Furuyama, Marketing Director, press@englishcentral.com, Phone: +815038023236

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EnglishCentral Adopted by Brazilian State of Parana to Train English Teachers for K-12 Public Schools

EnglishCentral Adopted by Brazilian State of Parana to Train English Teachers for K-12 Public Schools

Over 4,000 English teachers will use EnglishCentral’s AI-powered video learning platform as well as Live! Online lessons

Parana, Brazil. March 21, 2023. EnglishCentral, a leading provider of AI-powered language learning solutions, has announced its partnership with the Brazilian state of Parana to train English teachers for the public school sector. The state of Parana has adopted EnglishCentral’s video learning platform and Live! Online lessons to help over 4,000 English teachers improve their language skills and teaching abilities.

The partnership aims to strengthen the quality of English language teaching in public schools and ensure that students have access to high-quality English education. The program will offer a comprehensive solution to support teacher development, including personalized language practice, feedback, and live online lessons with EnglishCentral’s expert teachers.

“We are thrilled to partner with the state of Parana to improve English language teaching in public schools,” said Maurico Loth, General Manager of EnglishCentral Brazil. “Our platform and live online lessons will provide English teachers with the tools they need to enhance their language skills and offer high-quality instruction to their students.”

The state of Parana is committed to improving the quality of English language teaching in public schools and is investing in professional development for teachers. This partnership with EnglishCentral is part of the state’s efforts to ensure that teachers have access to innovative tools and resources to enhance their teaching abilities.

EnglishCentral’s AI-powered video learning platform offers a unique and effective way for teachers to practice and improve their language skills. The platform uses authentic, engaging videos to provide learners with real-world language practice and feedback. The Live! Online lessons with EnglishCentral’s expert teachers offer personalized instruction and feedback to help teachers improve their teaching abilities.

EnglishCentral has been recognized as a leader in the language learning industry, offering innovative solutions to support language learners worldwide. The partnership with the state of Parana demonstrates EnglishCentral’s commitment to providing high-quality language learning solutions to teachers and students worldwide.

“We are excited to work with EnglishCentral to improve English language teaching in public schools in Brazil,” said Alan Schwartz, Founder & CEO of EnglishCentral. “This partnership allows us to provide teacher training using both live instruction and the latest in AI-powered e-learning to improve the English communication skills of teachers in Parana.”

EnglishCentral’s partnership with the state of Parana is a significant step in improving English language teaching in Brazil and ensuring that students have access to high-quality education. The partnership is expected to have a significant impact on the quality of English language instruction in public schools in the state of Parana.

Press Contact: Mauricio Loth, General Manager, press@englishcentral.com, Phone: +55 51 98177-8056

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EnglishCentral in Thailand

AI-powered English Conversational Platform Now Available in Thailand

EnglishCentral will be at the Thai TESOL 2023. Learn about EnglishCentral’s new AI-powered English Conversation Platform, now with local support in the Thai language.

EnglishCentral is an AI-powered English learning platform specifically designed to help improve conversational English, using the latest in speech recognition and natural language processing. It combines interactive videos, best in-class curriculum development, and the highest quality live teachers. The premise behind EnglishCentral’s “Youtube for Language Learning Approach” is to provide learners with engaging videos on topics they find interesting at their English level, and then have them engage in conversations about such topics.

In December 2022, EnglishCentral launched a Thai version of the product, with a fully localized Thai user interface as well as a Thai in-context learning dictionary. The Workshop will demonstrate how to select and set up classes, choose online courses, create weekly goals for watching (listening), speaking and vocabulary study, setting up weekly assessment tests, and tracking student progress, and generating grade reports. The Workshop will also share best practices from the over 1,000 schools that have deployed EnglishCentral, including use of game dynamics and scoreboards to motivate students and use of CEFR-based assessment tools to demonstrate student outcomes at the end of a semester of study.

Alan Schwartz has over two decades of experience in the EdTech industry. He began his career as head of Nuance’s Mobile & Consumer division where he worked with a team at Sony to develop one of the first mobile language translation games using speech technology called Talkman. In 2009, backed by Google Ventures, he founded EnglishCentral, now one of the world’s leading AI-powered platforms for learning conversational English, with over 10 million registered users, and 200,000 paying customers. Alan has a B.A. from Princeton University and a J.D. from Harvard University.

You can request for a customized online demo session with us and we’ll get back to you if in any case you are not going to be able to make it to the workshop.

Request a Teacher Demo

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EnglishCentral Teaches Global English

Over 24 Accents are Available in the EnglishCentral Video Library

English is the world’s most widely spoken language with approximately 1.5 billion speakers globally. However, there is a wide range of different accents and dialects represented in that figure — over 160 distinct accents and dialects by our estimates.

Not surprisingly, North American English is the most common accent at 340 million people, including Standard American, Canadian English and other distinctive accents such as the Southern accent, African-American accents, etc.

A bit more surprising is that there are an estimated 178 million Nigerians, 128 million Indians, 108 million Pakistani, and 63 million Filipinos who speak conversationally fluent but accented English. That is well ahead of the estimated 62 million that speak traditional British English, even including the 1.5 million Scots and 870 thousand Welsh, or the 22 million Australians and 4 million New Zealanders.

The global prevalence of accented “Global” English — different from accents one might think of as standard (Britain, North America or Australia) — is even more staggering when you consider that the number of conversational Chinese speakers globally is over 300 million, including Hong Kong, Taiwan and the Chinese diaspora.

Our team at EnglishCentral has pulled together data showing the most common accents grouped by what we consider to be phonologically similar from the learner’s perspective. We constructed these Accent Groups from the perspective of intelligibility to a listener of that particular accent of English. This isn’t a cultural or even geographic categorization; rather, it is a way to represent the different types of English accents you might hear if you picked a random English speaker out of the 1.5 billion English speakers on the planet.

English Speakers by Major Accent Groups

Accent GroupCountriesEstimated English Speakers
North AmericanUSA, Canada347 million [1 2]
ChineseChina, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macau300 million [1]
AfricanNigeria, Uganda, Ghana, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Liberia, Zambia277 million [1 2 3 4 5 6]
South AsianBangladesh, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka270 million [1 2 3 4]
Southeast AsianCambodia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand103 million [1 2 3 4 5 6]
GermanicGermany, Austria, Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Norway88 million [1 2 3 4 5 6 7]
BritishEngland, Scotland, Wales62 million [1]
ArabicEgypt, Iraq, Israel, Morocco, Jordan, Algeria, Yemen, Lebanon59 million [1]
SlavicRussia, Poland, Ukraine, Czechia,42 million [1 2 3 4]
SpanishMexico, Spain, Argentina, Colombia, Puerto Rico, Chile34 million [1 2 3 4 5 6]
OceaniaAustralia, New Zealand26 million [1]
FrenchFrance, Rwanda, Cameroon, Madagascar, Seychelles25 million [1 2 3 4 5]
KoreanSouth Korea25 million [1]
BalkanRomania, Greece, Croatia, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Slovenia19 million [1 2 3 4]
ItalianItaly17 million [1]
PortugueseBrazil, Portugal13 million [1 2]
TurkicTurkey, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan14 million [1 2 3]
JapaneseJapan7 million [1]
IrishIreland4 million [1]
CreoleJamaica, Trinidad and Tobago4 million [1]
BalticLithuania, Latvia2 million [1]

As our goal at EnglishCentral is to teach English as it actually is spoken around the world, we have assembled video lessons that cover 24 accents on the platform. With over 23,000 videos, the large majority, over 60%, are with North American accents. But we also have over 1000 videos with British English, over 600 with Japanese English, and over 500 with Irish, Scottish, Australian, varieties.

Here’s one of our favorites: two Scottish men in an elevator.

Try out some of these other favorites as well: Australian (Office Small Talk), British (Me Before You), Japanese (Exhausted But Happy), Chinese (What Jack Ma Regrets), Indian (Inspiring Girls to Believe), Nigerian (Staying in Rhythm), Pakistani (He Named Me Malala), and Polish (Grandpa Learns English).

Or, you can search through our entire database by accent by using our search feature, which we launched in September 2022.

Happy Learning!

EnglishCentral Team

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EnglishCentral Launches New Comprehensive Vocabulary Learning System

EnglishCentral Launches New Comprehensive Vocabulary Learning System

Includes tools to learn high-frequency vocabulary effectively

Nagoya, Japan – November 5, 2019. EnglishCentral, the leading provider of online English conversations solutions, announced a new suite of vocabulary learning tools at this year’s Japanese Association of Language Teachers annual conference (JALT) held in Nagoya, Japan.
The new suite of vocabulary tools were built on data collected from over 500 million learn events collected from over 1 million learners at over 5,000 learning institutions around the world using EnglishCentral.

Unique in context Learning with videos

The core of EnglishCentral’s vocabulary learning system is a library of over 14,000 authentic English learning videos, each word of which has been semantically tagged with its in-content meaning sense and which also supports multi-words and collocations.

Wordlists ensure coverage of high-frequency words

The system includes dozens of research-supported high-frequency wordlists, including a Core Vocab* list of 2800 words, which covers 92% of words students are likely to ever meet in an average newspaper, book, magazine, TV show, movie or daily speech.

Based on the New General Service List and other lists provided by Browne, C., Culligan, B. & Phillips, J. (2013).

Optimized for individual learners

Unlike many vocab learning tools that demotivate students by forcing them to learn repeatedly words they already know, the EnglishCentral tools automatically mark words as known based on a diagnostic mode used when first introducing words to students to study.

Speak Mode

Includes a state-of-the-art “speaking recall” mode, powered by EnglishCentral’s IntelliSpeech SystemSM, which tests students’ ability to recall words correctly by speaking them in context. The system also supports multiple other modes of increasing retrieval difficulty, including dictation, multiple-choice and typing, in each case with and without hints.

Multilingual Support

Supports eight different L1 languages: Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Arabic, Turkish, Spanish and Portuguese.

In Class Vocabulary Progress Tests

Weekly in-class vocabulary progress tests seamlessly tie outside of class study with in-class progress tests. The tests also ensure students review past words for each week’s test, as each test is based 50% on new words and 50% on review words, covering the full range of all past weeks. Research shows* that tying vocabulary study to weekly in-class tests can boost student engagement by over 100%.
Based on study by Prof. Stuart McLean at Osaka Jogakuin (2019)

Vocab Assessment Tests

Third-party assessment tests (from VocabLevelTest.Org) are used to both onboard students at the correct level at the beginning of the semester and assess students’ progress at the end of the semester.

Teacher Tools

A full suite of teacher tools allows teachers to set weekly goals for students, track the number of words students study each week, view results of weekly progress tests and quickly identify students who are falling behind on their vocabulary study.

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EnglishCentral now available on Moodle

EnglishCentral now available on Moodle


EnglishCentral’s library of 10,000 interactive videos lessons for English learning is now available on Moodle.  Moodle is an open source, learning platform with over 68 million users and 55,000 sites deployed worldwide.

With our new Moodle module, teachers can now give students access to EnglishCentral’s unique video library, vocabulary learning and speaking technology, without giving up the security and convenience of Moodle’s LMS for storing student information and student progress.

Adding EnglishCentral Videos

The entire database of EnglishCentral videos can be accessed from within Moodle through a Search Feature. Teachers can search for and select videos based on topic, learning objective, video length, or level.  There are 7 levels of videos on EnglishCentral, ranging from CEFR A1 to C2.

EnglishCentral Features

Each EnglishCentral video lesson includes:

  • WATCH.  Students watch videos with transcripts and a bilingual dictionary, clicking on any word in the video they don’t know or would like to study.
  • LEARN.  Based on words selected by students, the player build a close activity for students to learn the words from the videos, and
  • SPEAK.   Then, using EnglishCentral’s IntelliSpeech assessment technology,  students speak the words in the context of sentence, getting instant feedback on their pronunciation and fluency.

Goal Setting

Teachers can set goals for watching videos, learning words, and speaking lines all from within the Moodle Settings Page:

Students View

Students can track the number of videos watches, vocabulary learned, and line spoken for each activity.    Their progress is updated in real-time.

studentsviewmoodle

Gradebook & Reports

Teacher can track Student progress against the set goals via the Moodle Gradebook Students overall completion % for each Moodle activity is shown in the Moodle Gradebook.

gradebook2

Mobile Support

The EnglishCentral Module is using responsive designs and therefore can be used on supported mobile devices, which include Android 5.0 and later, and IOS 11 and later.

References

This EnglishCentral Module for Moodle was developed with Prof. Gordon Bateson from Kochi University of Technology in Japan.  Gordon is currently using this with his students in a Presentation Course and has also created a demo course for  Science English, each deployed using the new EnglishCentral Module for Moodle.

Demos of these courses are available upon request. Please fill out the form below to schedule a demo.

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    How to Integrate EnglishCentral in Moodle

    How to Integrate EnglishCentral in Moodle

    The EnglishCentral Moodle module you can add video lessons from EnglishCentral directly into Moodle. To learn more about the the EnglishCentral Moodle Module, please visit our blog post here.   To try out EnglishCentral on Moodle, you can go to the test site.

    This post details how your school’s IT staff can integrate the module into your Moodle site.   Once you are ready to install the EnglishCentral module in your Moodle site, please follow the steps below.

    Installing the EnglishCentral Module
    1. Download the module zipfile from here.
    2. Unzip the file to your local computer.
    3. Rename the folder that was created to “englishcentral”.
    4. Upload the “englishcentral” folder to your [moodle site]/mod folder using FTP or CPanel.
      or
      Zip the folder up, visit your Moodle site’s “site administration -> plugins -> install plugins” page. Drag the zip file into the ZIP Package area. If the “mod” folder does not have the correct permissions you will see a warning message and will need to change the permissions, or use the FTP/CPanel method.
    5. Visit your Admin/Notifications page so that the module gets installed.

    *For both methods, at the end of the installation process, the configuration settings will be displayed.

    Configuring the EnglishCentral Module

    To configure the EnglishCentral Module, you must:

    1. Get a PartnerID, Consumer Key, Consumer Secret and Encrypted Secret from EnglishCentral, by filling out the form at the end of this post.
    2. You should receive an email reply back from EnglishCentral with the information necessary to add in the Activity Modules setting as follows:

    Creating an EnglishCentral Activity
    1. Once you have created a course in Moodle, now add activities that contain EnglishCentral videos:
      screenshot_73.png
    2. Choose EnglishCentral activity and click on Add.
      Screenshot_74
    3. Define Activity Name, Description, Timing, Goals, etc.  Click on “Save Display”.
      screenshot_72.png
    Adding Videos to the Activity
    1. Use the video search bar to search for topics, keywords or key vocabulary.  Navigate and search for videos you want to use in the activity.
      Screenshot_70
    2. You’ll be given a list of videos. Click on the plus icon to add the video to the activity.
      screenshot_71.png
    3. The video will be added to that activity and will be shown above the search bar.
      Screenshot_75
    4. To delete the video from the activity, just drag the video to the trash bin. Click on ok when prompted to confirm if you want to delete the video from the activity.
      Screenshot_69
    Getting Started

    To get started, fill out this request form:

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      New Search Feature Now Available

      New Search Feature Now Available

      We are pleased to announce an improved version of our search feature.

      Here are some of the benefits:

      1. Increased performance and speed. Our new search is powered by Amazon’s ElasticSearch and is 5 times faster than its previous version.

      2. More accurate search results. Our new search yields more accurate search results. For example, inflections of search terms are now included in the video search results (ex: bikes and biking for the word bike.) Word search results also show the closest match plus all inflected forms of the word.

      3. Favoriting words from search results. You can now add new words to My Words directly from word search results by favoriting them.

      image1

      4. Add videos and courses directly from search results. Teachers can now build their class curriculum directly from the search results page by “adding to class” with one click. Before, teachers could only add videos and courses to class pages by clicking the “add to class” button on Browse, video detail page, or course detail page.

      image3

      Search Roadmap

      Here is our roadmap for further enhancements to our search feature.

      1. Teacher Tools

      The new search feature will be added to the Curriculum tab so teachers can add videos and courses directly from that page.

      2. iOS and Android apps

      We are also going to add search to our IOS and Android apps. Our plan is to provide the same enhanced features described above for the Web, implemented natively in both apps.

      3. Others?

      Please add your own suggestions and comments below, or contact us regarding how to improve Search functionality on EnglishCentral.

      Happy Learning,
      The EnglishCentral Team

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      What’s new on EnglishCentral for 2018

      What’s new on EnglishCentral for 2018

      ec2018
      EnglishCentral is showcasing 3 new products and services for the 2018 School Year:

      • Custom Course Creation.  We have worked with a number of universities to build custom web and mobile courses to map to their school’s existing curriculum.  This means schools can adopt EnglishCentral for their current classes, without changing their textbook or other materials.  Contact us for a Case Study by Prof. Michael Holsworth on how Kyoto Sangyo University implemented an EnglishCentral custom course with over 6,000 students in its general English program. 
      • Special Purpose Content.   Many schools have asked us for career- specific,  or English for Special Purposes (ESP),  curriculum for their schools.   In response, EnglishCentral has partnered with a number of leading publishers to bring the best ESP content to the EnglishCentral platform,  including:
        • Courses for Aviation, Hospitality, Medical English, from Cambridge University, here;
        • A practical Business Communication Course, from Compass Media, here;
        • 40 courses based on the industry leading Career Path Series from Express Publishing, here.
      • New Vocabulary Courses.   EnglishCentral has completed a major upgrade of its vocabulary learning platform, with new lists developed by Dr. Charles Browne, of Meiji Gakuin University.  These new lists are based on a 2-billion-word corpus from Cambridge University and include lists developed specifically for core vocabulary, Academic Vocabulary, TOEIC Vocabulary and Spoken English Vocabulary.   Learn More here.

      The EnglishCentral Team

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      New Courses for K-12 Market on EnglishCentral

      New Courses for K-12 Market on EnglishCentral

      SLEC

      EnglishCentral has partnered with Seed Learning, an industry leader in language learning products and services, to develop a new suite of products for the Young Learner (K-12) Market. These courses were developed specifically to cater the needs of those who are just starting to learn the language and include variations in topics such as phonics, reading and comprehension, world history, presentation skills and a lot more. They cover CEFR Levels A1 to B2.

      Test drive these new courses here:

      Top Kids

      Top Kids is a six-level course for young English language learners. This engaging and instructive course incorporates a systematic double-strand approach to introduce vocabulary and grammar within thematic units graded over six levels. The double-strand approach in building vocabulary and grammar skills of learners is key to the course. English language learners need to acquire vocabulary in order to comprehend English and participate in classroom discussions, and as well, it is key to reading comprehension. In addition, grammar is central to the teaching and learning of languages as it is the foundation of a language.

      Top Kids prepares young learners to be able to understand and communicate well in English on a variety of subjects.

      Top Kids 1Top Kids 2
      Top Kids 3Top Kids 4
      Top Kids 5Top Kids 6
      Top Phonics

      Top Phonics is an easy-to-use five-level phonics series developed for young learners of English. Starting in Top Phonics 1, students will learn to recognize and say the letters of the English alphabet. By the end of Top Phonics 5, students will be able to read and write common English words and phrases. The five levels of Top Phonics provide a guided, step-by-step presentation of single-letter sounds and vowel and consonant combinations. Top Phonics allows learners to develop their English skills in an engaging, systematic, and effective manner.

      Top Phonics 1Top Phonics 2
      Top Phonics 3Top Phonics 4
      Top Phonics 5
      Easy Fun Facts

      Easy Fun Facts is a three-level series designed for elementary students of English who are being taught comprehension skills in the reading-to-learn stage. Easy Fun Facts exclusively focuses on nonfiction texts to equip students for future study of academic material in English. The series also utilizes a four-strand approach that sets a foundation for students to practice receptive and productive skills alongside focused language study and fluency practice.

      Easy Fun Facts 1Easy Fun Facts 2
      Easy Fun Facts 3
      Fun Facts

      Fun Facts is a three-level series designed for elementary students of English who are seeking to develop their comprehension skills in the reading-to-learn stage. Fun Facts exclusively focuses on nonfiction texts to prepare students for future study of academic material in English. The series also utilizes a four-strand approach that sets a foundation for students to practice receptive and productive skills alongside focused language study and fluency practice.

      Fun Facts 1Fun Facts 2
      Fun Facts 3
      Easy Fun Reading

      Easy Fun Reading is a three-level series designed for emergent students of English who are beginning to move from the learning-to-read stage into the reading-to-learn stage. Easy Fun Reading is designed to set a foundation in reading in order to prepare students for future study of academic material in English. The series also utilizes a four-strand approach that provides the framework for students to practice receptive and productive skills alongside focused language study and fluency practice.

      Easy Fun Reading 1Easy Fun Reading 2
      Easy Fun Reading 3
      Fun Reading

      Fun Reading is a three-level series designed for elementary students of English who are moving from the learning-to-read stage into the reading-to-learn stage. Fun Reading incorporates short and simple fiction and non-fiction texts to support students in developing fundamental readings skills required for future study of academic material in English. Strict vocabulary control of all passages and activities allows students to gradually accumulate new vocabulary while practicing learned items from previous units.

      Fun Reading 1Fun Reading 2
      Fun Reading 3
      Speaking for Speeches

      Speaking for Speeches: Skills for Presentations is an interactive, accessible three-level series specifically designed to develop the public speaking skills of English language learners at the high-beginning to intermediate level. Students will build the essential confidence they need as a speaker through creating their own interesting and fun presentations. This series will prepare students for any kind of speaking from casual descriptions of personal experiences to more formal, research-based presentations. Central to each lesson is an original presentation organized, written, and delivered by a student presenter. With its modern approach, the series helps students acquire practical speech communication skills in a positive, structured environment that they can use throughout their lives.

      Speaking for Speeches 1Speaking for Speeches 2
      Speaking for Speeches 3

      The courses are available and localized into Japanese, Turkish, Korean, Spanish and Portuguese and include the following features:

      • Videos with Interactive Captioning. Over 320 interactive video lessons, with bilingual transcripts and in-context definitions;
      • Vocabulary Training.  Vocabulary learning based on a set of topic and course specific words and phrases, including quizzes;
      • Speaking Practice.  Interactive speaking practice allowing for productive use of such vocabulary in context.
      • GoLive! An option for live 1:1 tutoring, each with a lesson plan (see sample)

      For a full view of the Seed Learning Materials, see this catalog.