Imagine 6 young girls from a small village near Panipat, sitting every evening, switching on a mobile phone on speaker mode, and learning spoken English skills on the terrace of their friend’s house. The entire course costs the group a total of Rs.20 per month as subscription charges and 60 paisa per minute of call charges. In all, the expected total spending of the 6 girls on a Spoken English program has been around Rs.60 per month, i.e. Rs.10 per user per month. Compare this to the low quality English learning courses available in smaller towns at Rs.500-1000 per month and one can realize the potential of Mobile Learning in a country like India.

IL&FS Education’s English Seekho program, launched in association with Tata Indicom, has now provided to access to world class learning programs, at a fraction of the cost, to rural youth across remotest corners of the country.

English Seekho is a phone based tutor that allows one to pick up basic spoken English skills through quick and effective 5 minute lessons. This mobile course integrates the instructional technologies offered by a mobile phone into a learning experience for a user. Through ‘English Seekho, one can learn English concepts through audio based lessons, recorded in an easy-to-listen radio style. The user is allowed to practice what is heard using interactive multiple choice questions on the IVR. In addition, the user can also speak sentences in English that are analyzed an advanced speech recognition engine for pronunciation mistakes. And finally, an SMS is sent to the user’s phone containing a summary of each lesson. The entire course thus provides an audio, visual & practice confirmations to the user. In addition, a website has been launched www.englishseekho.in, where users can go and download free practice tests.

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