This is a final class project of Stanford Venture Lab DNLE Online Course. Created by Eugene Chen, Masahiro Yoshida, JH Navratil, Łucja Wojtasik and David James Germain.

1. Venture Lab – Design a New Learning Environment
Creation of a Brand-New
Language Learning Experience
Creative Language Learning
2012.12.16
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2. Outline
• Introduction
• Goals of this project
• New Approaches
• Our business model
• An example
• Conclusion
• Appendix
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3. Introduction
• Language learning has always been a challenging
subject for online learning for the following reasons:
 Language learning requires long-term commitment, so keeping
students motivated in continuous learning is one of our top
challenges.
 Face-to-face lesson is often needed to get real-time feedback
and correction. A well-designed on-line learning system must
provide an effective way for teachers and students to achieve
the same result as face-to-face learning experience.
 A realistic foreign-language environment is essential for students
to practice their language skill. How to create an environment
which is fun and challenging to students is a unique challenge
for on-line language learning.
• In this project, we are trying to tackle these challenges
with new pedagogical ideas and the latest technologies
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4. Goals of this Project
• In this project, we identified specific goals which we would like to
achieve with the new learning environment. We decided to
emphasize on student’s motivation of learning. Three
characteristics are identified to achieve this goal:
 Gaming elements are added to our program so it will improve
the motivation and experience of learning. Students will be
willing to come back to learn more because of it’s a fun and
rewarding experience.
 Personalized lesson plans and learning paths can be created
so students can pick a particular subject of their interest. For
example, movies, TV shows, magazines, or architectures, etc.
can be special learning subjects picked by students so that
students will have more fun in learning.
 Social and community function is added to the learning
environment. Students can make friends with other students to
practice the new language. They can do joint-projects together,
or simply share their common interests in the forum.
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5. New Approaches
(1) Gamified Learning
• Gamified elements are added to our learning
environment in two different ways:
A. Game-based learning: for beginner level, students can perform
self-study learning of a new language by playing in a series of
games. Students can play the games on the Web (on PC or
Mac), and on mobile-device app (smart-phone and tablet, iOS,
Android or Windows Mobile, etc.)
B. Gamified learning: for intermediate and advance levels, the
learning environments are designed with adult audience. A
traditional style learning environment with game elements (i.e.
points, badges) available for tracking the learning progress.
Leader-board option can be enabled on a selectable basis for
the students who like competition to stimulate their learning
interest.
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6. New Approaches
(2) Personalized Program
• Each student’s lesson plan can be
personalized in two ways:
A. Self-study path: good for self-motivated students.
Content/Topics are driven by the learner. The platform offers
individualized browsing of content based on learner’s interest
as well as his/her active vocabulary.
A. Guided-learning path: better for students who are
less-experienced or not sure about their learning
goals.
Syllabus and content are created by instructor. However, content can
be categorized by five major language skills: reading, writing,
listening, speaking and grammar. Learner can still choose one of
special emphasis to enhance his/her weak point, or simply follow
his/her personal interest.
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7. New Approaches
(3) Social Community enabled
• Our system combines social networking
functions which connects students and
teachers into on-line groups and share their
opinions and exchange resources and
experiences.
• Both students and teachers participate in
online communities, then creating a friendly
social environment is necessary to break the
ice.
• Online socializing functions include: setting up a
personal profile, uploading member’s photo, emailing
colleagues with additional information; bulletin board
of the top five most-popular discussed topics, etc.
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8. Our Business Model
• We believe we can achieve our goal without re-inventing
what’s already available in the market by following the
below business model (from Business Model Generation Canvas)
Key Partners Key Activities Value Proposition Customer Relationship Customers
other language learning maintain the on-line We provide three features (1) for students: offer self-study and (1)adult students who want
platform providers (e.g. community platform and designed for higher student teacher-assisted on-line courses, a to learn foreign language,
Duolingo), publishers who provide guidance to students, retaining rate and student gamified learning environment, and (2)language teachers, and
community for language practice and
want to sell their textbooks, and resource and support to engagement: (3)training service for
support;
and those who provide paid teachers (1) game-based / gamified teachers.
(2) for teachers: as a teaching
online language learning learning environment; platform - content resources,
service (2) personalized learning teacher assistant services, training to
program; teachers, etc.
Key Resource (3) community-based Channel
(social network) study
participants who make groups; reaching students/teachers via
forums to grow in number on-line community, social
and quality in providing new network, email, YouTube videos,
ideas for language learning. SEO, etc.
Cost Structure Revenue Stream
(1) Creating and maintaining an on-line learning community platform. (1)advertisement
(2) cost of advertising (for acquiring students). (2) selling digital textbooks or multimedia content
(3) paid online service : commission-based (between student's tuition and
teacher's income)
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9. Example
Online Course (1/4)
• Before starting a course, each student will be given a
questionnaire to check their past experience in language
learning and preferences in the way of studying a new
language.
• Based on the result of questionnaire, instructor can prepare
class materials according to student’s language skill
strength/weakness (listening, writing, reading, speaking,
grammar), and his/her personal preference.
• If the student prefers to focus on listening and speaking, then
the course will be designed to emphasis these two skills and
the final goal of the course will be that student can submit a
mini podcast to the teacher.
• Student’s progress will be tracked by earning points and
badges at each time student reaches a check point. This
gamified design allows student to see his/her current status
and improve his/her skill to meet the expected target.
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10. Example
Online Course (2/4)
TITLE: Spanish class: Me gustas tú- How to express personal preferences
LESSON SUMMARY: This is an introduction to talk about things we like in
general. Lesson’s aim is to enhance speaking, listening and practicing
Spanish pronunciation.
CLASS / LEVEL / AGE: Level A1/A2 , target learners : adults
LANGUAGE OUTCOMES: Being able to use correctly the verb Gustar (to like)
TECHNOLOGY / ICT OUTCOMES: Smartphones, Pc/Mac App: Audioboo for
voice recording as a final task
MATERIALS: (incl. websites, technology…) www.edmodo.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BomWbLQAMc ( song by Manu Chao
without lyrics)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2oIqlEkX5s ( with lyrics)
Google hangouts
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11. Example
Online Course (3/4)
PROCEDURE:
1. Flipped lesson, Offline: Student will listen and watch a video without lyrics on
www.edmodo.com and as a pre-task will write down as many words as they are able
to.( for example 8). ( student will obtain a reward , teacher adds comments)
2. Online : using Google hangouts in real time+ sharing document during the lesson.
•Step 1. Student will write down the words from pre-task on one side and later more
words will be added during the lesson . If a student write: Me gusta it will be then moved
on another side.
•Step2. Once again the song will be listened to and after short breaks student will repeat
what have heard previously ( for practicing pronunciation ) and more words will be
adding.
•Step3. Sharing pictures to express preferences( by teacher), for example Spanish
speaking Countries, famous people, places) by using: Me gusta… A mí me gusta...Te
gusta...A ti te gusta...
•Using and adding words to the list, lots of input and drills.
•Step 4. The song will be heard once again but now with lyrics; student will underline all
words that appear with the verb: Gustar. Student will be able to see the difference and
deduce how this verb might be used.
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12. Example
Online Course (4/4)
Step 5. As a final task/homework student will record 5 things/people/places he/she likes
the most on Audiobobo with or without picture and send via email/sms .
Student will obtain a final score for this task.
•Extra task: upload 5 pictures with description on www.edmodo.com where other
students will make comments.
Note: Assuming student has accounts on Edmodo and Gmail, and also have internet-
enabled mobile devices like smart-phones or tablets.
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13. Conclusion
• Our team combines the talents of experienced language teachers around
the world (Poland, Hong Kong and Taiwan), as well as technology
specialists in New York and Silicon Valley.
• In a short 8-week period, we focused on the topic of online language
learning, and achieved an incredible result of identifying what’s the most
difficult challenges and had a conceptual design of online learning platform
to overcome these challenges.
• During hundreds of email messages and 2 Skype conference meetings, we
exchanged many useful resources, and brain-stormed many great ideas
which can be applied to the real-world learning environment.
• Even though we realize there are many new online learning language
learning platforms out there, we believe there is none which includes ALL
the features we included in this presentation.
• Because of the limited time and resource, we could not get a chance to
implement a working prototype of our new learning platform. But we know
what we have here is a very attractive platform that works. If it is
implemented correctly in the real-world, it is definitely a platform of high
market demand, and many people can benefit from it.
• In summary, we have a wonderful learning experience of working on this
project, and we are very grateful to Stanford Venture Lab for providing such
a learning opportunity for us. Thank you very much!
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14. Appendix A
Additional comments on student motivations
The following is a collection of tools which we believe can also be
effective to enhance student’s motivation of language learning:
• Progress bar and badges shows their achievement
• Learners get a badge when they complete stage to their goal
• Game elements as a motivator to increase participation
• Students don't feel isolated even though they are "alone"
• May make collaborative tasks smoother- not working with strangers
• Help students identify with other participants , building an online community
• Allows a trial run for upcoming more important graded tasks
• Eases students into the course
• Allows familiarity with VLE technology and task types
• Students can express their individuality
• Assessment: By using rubrics, quizzes ,badges, scores, comments ,test, online
discussions, recordings ,writings tasks, peers evaluation.
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15. Appendix B
How social networking function works
• Available features include: quizzes (useful for revision task or to test learning to date
or existing knowledge); Jigsaw tasks (used as a review tool, synchronous chat as a
whole group or in small groups guided and unguided).
• Reflective tasks: online journals; temperature check which as a mini
evaluation/reflection.
• Apps that can be used for the whole groups are: for speaking practice Voxopop , to
share ideas: Wallwisher.
• Working in small groups on specific tasks and creating Groups: categories/
subcategories, languages, knowledge (vocabulary, grammar, culture, etc.), skills
( reading, listening, writing, translation), interest (travel, food, literature, business,
science...)
• Example of groups: . For business writing , For travel conversation , For exam study,
etc.
• Members exchange ideas: to plan one' s learning, to set one's goal, to choose
learning activities, to use the service effective.
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16. Appendix C
Technologies Used
• Various technologies are deployed to maximize the
efficiency of the self-study as well as to provide useful
tools to the teacher for content creation
• Natural language technologies: topic identification,
machine translation, information retrieval, etc.
• Audio-Visual technologies: speech recognition, speech
synthesis, image recognition, artificial intelligence (e.g.
an iPhone/Siri app which has conversation capability to
help learner practice in a new language)
• Virtual world social-networking technologies: learner can
practice listening and speaking skills in a virtual world
environment (e.g. Second Life) which is completely
surrounded by the target foreign language, etc.
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