THE TEAM
Tim and I are good friends who moved to Spain together to teach English
MY ROLE
UX Design
Graphic Design
Video editing
DATE
October 2017 – March 2018
Teachers struggle to engage their students. So why not use what the pop-culture the students are consuming to your advantage?
Tim and I were teaching English in Spain. Faced with the challenge of captivating classrooms of students with varying levels of motivation we sought ways to spice up our lessons.
Going off-piste from the textbook, we created activities based on tv shows and music that the students knew.
Students loved it, and Lexi was born.
How might we use pop culture to develop an English learning product that students love to use?
Our obstacles
The ESL (English as a second language) space is over-saturated.
How would our product cut through?
There are thousands of free resources for ESL teachers and students.
How would we convince them to pay for our service?
We’re just two people with limited resources.
Could we make this happen?
The classroom as our research lab
As both teachers and language students ourselves (we speak Spanish, French, Swedish and German between us), we were able to gain a first-hand insight into how people learn language.
Students
- Bore of textbooks quickly
- Hate repetition and respond to variety
- Use many different sources to learn: YouTube, films, podcasts, apps
- Love learning everyday English they feel will use
- Motivated by gamification
Teachers
- Use many different sources to teach: YouTube, games, apps
- Love products that relate to the grammar points and topics in their textbooks
- Have minimal time to prepare lessons
- Seek activities that speak to the interests of their students (think Fortnite for younger students or Game of Thrones for older adults)
Students and Teachers don’t use just one solution
They tailor their learning and teaching by using multiple products and platforms.
As touched on previously, variety is essential and different solutions excel at targeting different parts of learning (listening, reading, grammar) and learning styles (visual, audio, kinesthetic).
Existing ESL products
Pros
- Gamified
- Uses music lyrics to teach English
- All-digital solution (no pen or paper needed)
- Free
Cons
- Doesn’t teach grammar
- Doesn’t explain meaning of vocabulary
- Students can guess words
Pros
- Gamified
- Teaches vocabulary and some grammar through clever repetition
- Free (with premium model)
Cons
- Doesn’t teach in-depth grammar
- Ads
- Won’t substitute a full course with a teacher
Pros
- Huge collection of worksheets, Powerpoints and video classes
- Great search functionality
- Teacher/community generated
- Free
Cons
- The quality of resources varies
- Lots of trawling to find correct resource
- No full lesson plans
Finding Lexi’s Niche
Lexi was designed as a supplement to an English learning program, reinforcing common grammar difficulties, and expanding students’ vocabulary for intermediate to advanced level students.
Leveraging Pop-Culture
Attract and engage students with the content they love
Everyday English
Focusing on language that feels relevant to the student
YouTube Channel
Short video lessons exploring English in popular TV shows and music
Worksheets & Games
To reinforce the grammar and vocabulary taught in the YouTube videos
Science-Based
Follows the three ‘P’s of language learning:
- Presentation: the new language is introduced through the YouTube lesson
- Practice: the student practices the new language concept in the worksheets
- Production: the student is encouraged to use the new language in their everyday life and within the classroom environment
The Youtube channel
- 1 video released per week
- Grammer-focussed videos
- Videos examining English in music lyrics,
TV shows and movies
Worksheets
After watching the video students would be encouraged to download a worksheet to reinforce the English learned in the video.
- Vocabulary exercises
- Snap games
- Word mazes
- Flashcards
Website
A place for our videos and worksheets to live together.
- Search bar front and centre
- Categorised by grammar point & level
- Option to organise private lessons
“The videos are really engaging and interesting, and the students really got into it.”
“The channel’s purpose is original. I have never seen a similar idea. So, I wish all the best for you guys and I hope to learn a lot from you.”
Seeing what sticks with our students
Tim and I tested our videos and worksheets with our students.
From this we learned:
- The grammar lessons were the most useful for the teachers
- We needed material for beginner students
- Videos using streaming services were problematic: teachers and students need subscriptions and hard to watch entire lessons within a class
A difficult decision
Despite the great reception, Tim and I struggled to find an audience for Lexi and to create content around our regular teaching.
After 3 months of producing videos and seeing small numbers of views, we decided to pause working on Lexi.
“It’s a shame you guys gave up 🙁
I love your videos”
Sad YouTube fan
Learnings
- Our biggest mistake: we didn’t prioritise marketing
- We made too much content which left us with no time to market or test and improve it
- We should’ve piloted with less content and focussed on getting it working and in front of students and teachers
- Unrealistic to think we could do everything ourselves – we needed help!
What we would’ve done next
If Tim and I decide to continue Lexi in the future, we’ll learn from the mistakes we made in the pilot.
Improve Lexi based on the user-testing
Student improvements:
- Stop using content from paid subscriptions
- Service all levels
Teacher improvements:
- Provide full lesson plans including warm-up activities and production (speaking) activities
- Create a teacher section of the website
Create less content and get it in front of people
- Reduce content production and funnel the saved time into marketing
- Create a proper marketing plan/strategy and execute it
- Trial user-generated content or content collaborators as a way to free up capacity for marketing
“Keep watching, keep binging, keep streaming and keep listening to everything and get out there and practice your English.”
Tim’s sign-off to his videos