How tech firms are using China’s social media addiction to teach English
Phone apps that encourage students to practise language skills by sharing their progress on social media are proving a hit as companies seek a slice of the US$32 billion e-learning market
On a recent winter day in Beijing, Ren Li crawls into bed at 3am, worn out after a long day of taking care of her three-month-old daughter. Despite her exhaustion, she is up promptly at 7 in the morning. But the first thing the doctor, 38, reaches for isn’t a cup of coffee – instead, she grabs her phone and opens an app she can’t stop using.
As soon as Ren logs in, she quickly scrolls down vocabulary lists, reads a chapter of the British detective novel Sherlock Holmes, and then answers questions based on the reading. Without a stop, Ren reaches a highlight of her day: a checkpoint that features the number of words she has read that day as well as her accumulative record.
More importantly for Ren, the checkpoint also offers her a chance to show her achievements to her 200 real and virtual friends when it posts her progress on her social media page.
“For me, reaching that checkpoint is a must,” she says. “I wanted to show my friends how persistent I am and how hard I’ve been studying. Whenever my friends gave me a thumbs-up, that would make my day.”
E-sports: How China’s video gamers went from couch to classroom to career
Mint Reading, an English-learning app developed by Chengdu Chaoyouai Education Technology, is looking at different ways to motivate students at a time when many people seek validation through “likes” and “shares”. This social aspect is also seen in the company’s Baicizhan app, which enables its 50 million users to challenge each other to vocabulary tests.