ESL curriculum: Why you should switch to Let's Talk! English

Changing your ESL curriculum takes a lot of time. But before you can start that process, you often need to justify such change and convince colleagues, mentors, or superiors.

Changing the ESL curriculum that you have been using for many years, with which you are familiar, is no small task. It is a process that has to be well planned, but above all, it is usually necessary to justify it with the principal, colleagues, and sometimes even the parents of your students.

Many of our SmartClass clients have done this before you. Here are some of the reasons that led them to make this decision. We will distinguish between dissatisfaction with the curriculum they were using before and what led them to choose SmartClass Let's Talk! English. Do you have something to add? Please write to us! teacher@robotel.com 

Some of the issues reported with the traditional ESL curriculum they've been using before SmartClass Let's Talk! English:

1. The textbooks offer great content. However, they (the publisher) do not have an educational technology background. Therefore, the platform that we have right now is not designed as a digital platform.
2. Students can do any activity they want with the platform that comes with our current textbook. We, teachers, do not have control over what students are working on or what we want to assign them.
3. The focus of all activities lies in reading and writing. There are hardly any listening activities and no speaking activities at all in the online component.
4. The use of the website is complicated for teachers, and we have no control over the content.
5. It seems the platform is for self-learning, which does not support our interactive teaching model, and students can move between modules and units without control.
6. There is no pronunciation help or practice.
7. It’s difficult to use for the students.
8. The platform is not designed for distance learning or assigning homework to students.
9. We find it difficult to manage teams of students and individuals.
10. It was hard and almost impossible to reach tech support when problems occurred.
11. Only teachers can use the Smartboard of the platform.

Being dissatisfied with a Curriculum isn't often convincing enough to make a drastic change. It would be best if you found virtue in your new solution, so you will invest time in learning it. Here are some statements gathered from our current customers:

"When looking at other solutions and English curricula, we came across SmartClass and their “Let’s Talk! English” curriculum. The SmartClass platform is a true digital language-teaching platform with an integrated ESL curriculum, specifically designed for this platform."

Why we love SmartClass Let's Talk! English:

1. It follows a simple, THREE-Step philosophy. 1. The teacher assigns the activities, 2. The student does the work, 3. The teacher/system provides the feedback/grades the activities.
2. The content is as good as our old ESL curriculum. Based on the CEFR for language teaching, it includes levels from A1 (beginner) to B2 (upper-intermediate).
3. Reading, writing, and grammar-based activities are included, AND Let’s Talk! English also has many interactive and engaging listening and speaking activities.
4. The authentic listening/speaking scenarios equip students with the necessary skills to be 21st-century citizens in a global society and prepare students for real-life conversations and interactions in the target language.
5. The SmartClass software uses AI-assisted pronunciation (Artificial Intelligent) to improve students' speaking skills and confidence.
6. SmartClass is easy to integrate into a blended learning approach: we can use a video conferencing platform to interact live with students, and at the same time, use SmartClass to assign activities to students.
7. Teachers are in complete control over the curriculum: We can assign the preloaded activities, modify them, and create new activities.
8. SmartClass comes with a comprehensive support service for their language lab, including project consultation, installation, training, technical support, and continuous improvement of the platform.
9. The technology framework engages and motivates students.
10. The English content has a structured lesson library: ready for immediate use, it reduces teacher workload, and optimizes lesson plans for both pedagogy and platform capabilities.
11. The ESL curriculum is developed by teachers for teachers and uses 20 different activity types within the platform.
12. All files/activities are housed in one place instead of using multiple platforms.
13. About 50% of the activities are auto-graded. That gives teachers time to review student recordings and to give students immediate feedback on their work.
14. We can adapt and improve the curriculum if needed: we can modify existing content or create authentic material from one of the 20 activity templates. 

"We truly think that migrating towards this new optimized platform will let us achieve much better results not only in the writing and reading skills portion of the program but also in the listening and speaking area."