ÃÛÌÒapp

With an ever-growing range of learning tools and applications being launched, choosing the right solution can feel overwhelming. However, the Digital Language Tutor for Mondly by ÃÛÌÒapp distinguishes itself as an innovative solution aimed at helping corporate clients enhance their listening and speaking abilities in relevant business contexts.

The Digital Language Tutor is targeted at professionals who speak at least a B1 level of English (43-50 on the Global Scale of English). It employs AI-powered Conversation Partners to simulate corporate scenarios, providing users with an immersive and interactive learning experience.

In this post we outline the strategic design process behind these Conversation Partners, highlighting the importance of diverse representation, compelling and authentic personality trait development, and integrating level-appropriate language skills alongside essential corporate soft skills to create a comprehensive language learning solution.

Balancing mindfulness and planning ahead

Here we find ourselves already in a new year. I wonder if, like me, many of you might be wondering how that has happened. January is a time of year traditionally associated with analyzing the past and making resolutions for the future.

In the classroom this might also involve looking forward to assessments and exams at the end of the school year. Maybe you’ve made New Year’s resolutions that have already fallen by the wayside.Ìý

The focus of this blog is learning how to stay in the present moment. So let's take a practical look at how to manage this time of year with your students and with ourselves as teachers (and humans), while also effectively planning ahead for the future.

Sue Kay has been an ELT materials writer for over 25 years. She is the co-author of ÃÛÌÒapp's Focus Second Edition and is one of the co-founders of . In this article, Sue takes us through her experience of using video in the classroom and shows us how to motivate and engage students with authentic video.

Videos are no longer a novelty

When I started teaching in the early 80s, video was a novelty in the classroom. We only had one video player for the whole school and had to book it a week in advance. There was very little published material available, but thanks to the rarity factor, the students lapped it up.Ìý

There was no problem with getting them motivated, even if the lessons accompanying the videos were not particularly exciting and consisted mainly of comprehension questions. Lucky for me, our school had a very dynamic Director of Studies who gave great teacher training sessions and I was very taken with a presentation he did on active viewing tasks.Ìý

I was, and still am, a big fan of the Communicative Approach and I embraced the more interactive video tasks enthusiastically: freeze frame and predict, watch with the sound down and guess what people are saying, listen with the screen hidden to guess the action, etc.Ìý

When I’m preparing a video lesson, I still try to include at least one of these activities because the information gap provides an ideal motivation for students to watch the video and check their ideas.Ìý