The Challenge

A university client operating in a non-English speaking country needed to improve English language levels across all faculties of the University. This needed to be done in a time efficient and cost-effective way, with clear alignment with national curricula, transparency of learner engagement and measurable outcomes. Traditional methods they had employed in the past were expensive and did not achieve the desired outcomes for the learners or the university.

They approached us to design a solution that could meet these criteria.

We engaged in a consultative process for several weeks. We needed to understand their needs, and they needed to understand what it was that we could do for them.

As part of this consultative process we ran several pilot courses with staff and students to build the internal knowledge of the users’ learning experience on the platform. This helped build confidence among key stakeholders that our claims about the learning content were well founded, and that one of the most important elements of the project, the learning experience, was well structured and engaging for learners. They also became familiar with the administration system and understood the reporting and monitoring capabilities would be a key element to their deployment.

Following this process, we were able to recommend and deploy a customised learning solution.

Implementation:

After the consultation, it was clear that the University needed a high engagement solution whereby most learners would complete and achieve their learning goals every semester.

As much of the work would be done in a self-study environment, we agreed to set up a multi-levelled series of 8-week, sequenced modules containing 24 lessons each. A module would cover half a semester, and when the first 8-week period elapsed learners would be enrolled in the second 8-week module and so on. Therefore, over the academic year to successfully complete their English course the learners needed to complete 4 modules or 96 lessons.

The reason for providing smaller chunks of information was to help the learners manage their study. If we had given them a lot of lessons over a longer period, they may find it difficult to manage their study time and consequently their motivation and engagement levels would drop. By shortening the study time and providing multiple milestones we were able to design a solution that gave learners the best chance to manage their time, stay motivated and ultimately be successful.

In tandem with the program design, we also deployed a reporting system that enabled teachers to see immediately what their learners were doing, and based on this they were able take action to encourage learners to do more or praise them for doing a great job.

Evaluation was continuous, each lesson presenting a test and a learner could not complete a lesson until they achieved a test score of 70%. Therefore, each learner had to pass every lesson they took which adds up to 48 passed lessons over the semester, each lesson taking between 45 minutes and 1 hour to complete.

Results:

The program was delivered to almost 1600 learners at a fraction of the cost of the previous solution.

Student engagement and performance results were extremely high:

In the first semester beginning September 2023 over 90% of learners successfully passed both modules, a total of 1,457 learners.

Client feedback:

“The program provides a very well-designed system of administration, which allows teachers an easy way of monitoring each student at any time. Each lesson presents a test with a student’s score by its completion, so the teacher can see immediately how successful the student is in every lesson. This gives the teacher an opportunity to give praise and encouragement to the students.

In cases where students are lagging, the teacher can remind the student of the time left and of chances to improve. Besides, each student is informed of the score straight upon completion of all required lessons for the given period. This period is usually 8 weeks, because one course is divided into 2 parts and 4 modules with 24 lessons each, which doesn’t overload students and fits the university’s electronic system of monitoring student evaluation during the semesters perfectly.

During the whole course study period, teachers and students work in constant collaboration. At the end of each module / study period, teachers collect and issue the report of students' academic performance.

Prior to joining the Reallyenglish platform and getting access to the lessons, the students are given some instructions to avoid problems with their registration. At the same time, teachers can track and help students to join the program quickly and efficiently. The students and teachers have also have very strong technical support from Reallyenglish, which helps to solve any unclear technical issues without fuss.”

Sholpan Torgayeva

Dean of EdTech School,

Eurasian Technological University,

Almaty, Kazakhstan

Student Feedback

“This new system of studying the language is easier as we do not have to waste time and effort doing different activities in classrooms. It is very clear what we have to do: 24 lessons for each of the 4 modules to finish 2 semesters and get 4 scores by the end of the year. Moreover, we arrange the time and space of completing the lessons ourselves, which is the best advantage.

The teacher gives the result individually to each of us and we are informed immediately of the result. This means everything depends on how serious and responsible our approach and attitude to the work is.

The only disadvantage is the score cannot be changed but this is also an advantage because it teaches us to be more focused and responsible for our studies.

Overall, we have more freedom to manage the style of studying and learn how to use our time more effectively than if we would studying offline.”

Student

Eurasian Technological University,

Almaty, Kazakhstan