Take a look at the language trainer in Action in a school in Eastern Europe as part of project "common language":

What is En101

En101 is a virtual tutor available over the internet in 29 different languages (representing over 50% of the population of the world) that teaches the student up to 9 different languages. It is accessible over the internet from anywhere in the world with internet access. Your entire family can use En101 with ONE license: the only restriction is that only one person can be logged on at once.

En101 is a new generaton of language trainer unlike anything that came before.

En101 can teach Russian to Spaniards, Spanish to Koreans, Korean to Americans, English to the French, French to Germans, and so on and so forth.

To get an idea for the philosophy behind En101, listen to clip from En101's program director Mary Mandelt.

Here is a quick video tour of EN101:

Here is a quick overview of the key features for those of you that prefer screenshots: (This is only the Advanced PACK, the other packs have even MORE features)

The Home screen

The First Screen that you are likely to encounter is the home screen:

1. The 29 flags represent languages, clicking one will switch the software into a different native language. En101 can by students from over 50% of the world.
   
2. Each of the 9 flags represent languages taught. Clicking on these will make the software teach you the selected language. These are the key business languages the knowledge of which will quickly create opportunities for you. You can fully learn English and Spanish and begin to study Chinese, Latvian, Japanese, German, Russian, French, and Korean.
   
3. The lessons offered for the language in the selected chapter. The links come in 3 flavors:
   
   The Red links bring you to printer friendly copies of the pages: take a set of drills with you to practice
   
   The Green links take you to the lessons (more on that here).
   
   The Yellow links take you to tests (more on that here).
   
   All of the drills teach you parts of the language that you can use immediately in everyday conversation. These are parts of the language that you NEED to know to get by in everyday life.
   
4. The Nav. menu allows you to select a different Index. Higher indexes cover more advanced concepts. The House is the beginner level which teaches you some basic concepts to get you excited about the language. Class really begins with Index 1.
   
5. Professionally crafted lesson plans for each index are available by clicking the “index #” links in the middle of the page. You can ignore them if you like, but following them will keep you going at a good and steady pace.
   
   

Clicking on one of the flags in the top row will set your language and clicking one of the flags in the green box (#2 above) will set the language that you wish to learn.

I picked the American flag in the top bar signifying that I speak English and the Russian flag in the blue box signifying that I wish to learn Russian. En101 will change to reflect these choices.

The Lessons

Below is a relatively advanced Lesson in Russian that an English Student would see.

This is an advanced example in Russian that provides exercise in multiple parts of the language including sentence structure, vocabulary, and pronunciation.  Clicking on the speakers will make the prompter say the sentence so you can practice proper pronounciation.

This approach gives the kind of personal attention to pronounciation that just isn’t possible in a classroom setting where the teacher’s attention is in high demand.

An Easy Test

Once the student has mastered the lesson to their content, they can take a test to measure their mastery of the material.

Below is an example of a test an English speaking student might run into during the early portion of the German course.
This test is exactly what it appears to be: drag and drop a food into the box with the name of the food (in German). After you have dragged all of the food groups, click the “Am I correct?” button to see if you answered correctly.

This test is not very challenging, even for a beginner; tests later in the course are difficult enough to challenge even a native speaker’s understanding of grammar, sentence structure, contractions, word choice, and other facets of the language.

A Hard Test

The following test is one that a Spanish speaking student might see when learning the English Language.

The drastically increased difficulty should be instantly apparent. Spelling words like ‘Caribbean’ is often challenging for Native English Speakers. A helpful recoding is available to correctly read the examples in English (as always) and assist with pronunciation.

A note on Exam Difficulty

After En101 was told by numerous teachers that its examples were too trivial, En101 challenged a large number of instructors to take the most difficult exams in the course. Most of the INSTRUCTORS were unable to get above 60% or 70% on the more difficult exams. The exams appeared easy because of the comfortable atmosphere that they were presented in.

This is actually one of the programs strengths: students are presented with a comfortable, pressure-free, environment where they can gradually improve their skill in the language that they are learning.

After spending some time learning with En101, you’ll be surprised how much you actually know and how easy it was to learn it.

En101 is not a small set of exercises; it is a full featured course, textbook, and instructor that can teach you all aspects of the language: numbers, grammar, pronunciation, spelling, sentence structure and handwriting.

Learning to Write

Below is another example of how En101 acts as an ever-patient tutor. En101 can show the student how to write each of these characters time and again until they are satisfied with their level of mastery.

The page above from the Chinese handwriting course demonstrates how to properly draw Chinese characters by drawing them in real time. Below you see a number of characters, most of which were partially completed when this screenshot was taken.

This Next screenshot shows the characters in a different state of completion.

For students learning languages that have fewer, simpler, letters such as English, there are also plenty of writing exercises available.

Above is just one of many from the point of view of a Spanish speaking student:

All of these examples are very east to print. In fact, printer functionality is present throughout the course. The course content can quickly be reproduced on paper to use as an in class hand out or as a test.

En101 Kids

There is a kids area with fun interactive games that can teach kids foreign languages at an age when they are capable of learning the language fluently. This is a great way to give your kids a head start and start learning a 2nd language before your school finally gets to it.

This screen shows a number of games that kids can play to improve their vocabulary. The games are fun and deal with things like Snimals, Sports, Geography, and Astronomy.

This game teaches kids the names of the planets and ends with a Quiz so kids can test their new Atrsonomy skills. Kids can hear the name of a planet by clicking on it. En101 kids is availible in a large variety of languages, just like the rest of En101.

En101 Business

Finally, Business101 teaches important concepts in the English language that are immediately usefull in business applications. These are parts of the language that form the everyday vocabulary of business people and that you are very likely to run into if you enter this field.

The Business pack is availible in 8 languages denoted by the flags in the image below.

The Home Screen of Business 101- On the left you can see the different concepts taught in this course and on the right a brief overview of the course. This course focuses on teaching English business concepts.

This is an example of a page from the course that teaches you how to write business letters in English. En101 presents the student with a translation in their own language, as well as a sound clip of the Text in English to teach proper pronounciation.

This is a collection of examples demonstrating how En101 can really make a difference. My personal favorite is Example 3 “GHOTI spells FISH"

Example 1 “Learning English”

Learning English as an immigrant to the United States is very difficult.

English classes are usually full of students speaking a large number of languages. Communication between the students and the teacher is often hard. As a result, these classes are very often taught in English—the students do their best to mimic the instructor.

Students stop showing up as the class progresses. A few give up, some get sick and fall behind, and other students can’t schedule the time required because they need to make a living.

Eventually, the class withers down to a handful of students. The instructor can focus a lot of attention on these few students and they manage to learn the language.

The amount of students that drop out and do not learn to communicate in English is tragic.

We can change this!

En101 has English courses for languages spoken by more than half of the world’s population.

Using En101 with a non-computerized classroom, an instructor can easily print handouts for the class that contain vocabulary as well as exercises and a quiz in several languages. This adds a lot of clarity to a classroom where students are usually stuck mimicking the instructor.

Instructors no longer need to manage several textbooks to teach English to students with different backgrounds. The students are less likely to fall behind because they have access to materials provided in their native language.

In a computerized classroom, there are even more benefits to using En101. It does not require software to be installed: you do not need to deal with CD-Keys or bother your administrator. As long as the computers have internet access, your students can go to the website and log in.

The instructor can pay attention to each handful of students while the others in the class practice their pronunciation, spelling, and grammar online using a suite of interactive tools, games, and audio clips.

Although the instructor’s time (and patience) is limited, the program will work as long as the student is willing to study. Students can practice pronouncing words until they are happy with their level of mastery.

Even more importantly: students are able to practice pronunciation at home with ease. All they need to do is log in to their accounts on En101 and study.

If a student can’t make it to class, it no longer means that they have to fall behind or give up– not when they can log in to En101 and catch up to the class as soon as they find time.

Example 2 “STUDENT”

I have always wanted to learn another language, but life always got in the way. In high school, I ended up staying up nights trying to cram hundreds of words into my head before tests. Learning a new language wasn’t smooth or easy.

In college, I was always to busy to even crack open a textbook and the bits of french that I picked up in high school slowly faded from my memory.

I decided to start learning again, to improve my career prospects, and to take advantage of all the opportunities that become available when you speak another language.

Language Classes were either too expensive or did not fit into my schedule so I picked up a textbook at my local Barnes and Nobles and started repeating the words. It did not take long for me to realize that I had no idea how to properly pronounce them. In addition, a sense of accomplishment and structure was missing.

I needed the right motivation, and some help getting the words right. So I turned to the internet and found En101: an online language suite.

I was skeptical at first: The first time I tried it, it didn’t strike me as something worthwhile.

I started playing around with it. I took a look at the Russian alphabet, then at a few other features. At first, I was not impressed: it seemed to simple, to gimicky. I was looking for something incredibly complex.

Something magical happened however: the words stuck. The next day, I still remembered the words that I had seen the day before while messing around with one of En101's online excercises. I hadn't even been trying to learn, I was just fooling around with it.

En101 is an effective tool. It is a bit rough around the edges: its designers didn't spend too much time on polish, but they focused on the important stuff.

A student using En101 Kids

Example 3 “GHOTI spells FISH"

The english language has many exceptions to any given rule which can make learning the language troublesome. The lack of an intuitive structure makes is very difficult to learn.

For example, If I want to say that I will go to the store, I can say quite simply:

"I will go to the store"   future

If I want to say that I am in the process of going to the store, I can again say it simply:

"I am going to the store" present

There is already an ambiguity here. "I am going to the store" can mean that I am currently walking there, or that I plan to go there at some point in the future.

In the past tense, things become even more confusing. I want to say that I've been to the store and have returned while still using the word 'go'. I should be able to apply the past tense "ed" to the sentence to get:

"I goed to the store" past

However, while logical, this is not proper english. Instead I would need to say "I went to the store" or "I have gone to the store".

This is one of the many stumbling blocks that students need to overcome.

The exceptions are not just in the sentence structure.

Pronounciation can be just as tricky.

This is an anecdote told by an Israeli english teacher to one of her students:

The "gh" in the word "enough" produce an "f" sound.

The "o" in "women" produces an "i" sound.

The "ti" in "motion" produces a "sh" sound.

So, gh-o-ti spells f-i-sh. ghoti spells fish.

Try saying each of the highlighted words if you're suffering from disbelief .

How En101 Can Help

En101 teaches conversational language that you can immediately speak and recognize upon hearing.

Using En101, students can not only hear how words are pronounce, but hear them used sentences.

Example 4 “The Internet has made the world a smaller place”

The availability of the internet has created a miraculous opportunity to improve foreign language study. Students can communicate with their peers instantly at the push of a button.

Nothing can do more to improve your grasp of a language than talking with native speakers. Unfortunately, it can be very difficult to find someone who speaks your chosen language of study to interact with on a daily basis.

Today, with webcams, instant messaging, and email, communicating in a foreign language could become something students do after school for fun, once they’ve grasped the basics of the language.

By gaining friends in other countries and practicing the dialects that they studied in school, students can cement their knowledge of foreign languages. Foreign language skills that normally atrophy after the end of classes in school can be reinforced.

What better way is there for a Spanish student to learn English, and an English student to learn Spanish than in lively conversation?

Students at a famous Summer Camp "Orlionok" in Russia in 2005. There they had fun while they learned by chatting.

Using the internet

Yet with all these opportunities, the internet is not being effectively merged with foreign language study in many classrooms. This is something that we need to work to change.

One of the main barriers to creating any kind of conversation with students in another country is (ironically) language.

Students need some common ground to begin the conversation and they need a way to meet.

The great thing about En101 is that it is an online system which has coursework in enough languages to represent 50% of the world’s population. With this system, students are able to learn common parts of each others languages and begin a dialogue.

Because En101's courses in different languages all cover the same ground, many new opportunities open up.

For Example: In project "common language" students in the Republic of Karelia and Finland both studied English with En101 and talked with each other in English when they finally met.

Students Finally meeting their Pen Pals Courtesy of Project "Common Language" in the University of Joensuu. See the video at the very top of the page to learn about the project.

Here is What You Get

The courses are broken up into indexes where each index contains multiple chapters. A full course has 8 indexes.

the program can teach the following languages:

• english -> 8 Indexes
• spanish -> 8 Indexes
• Chinese -> 7 Indexes
• Latvian -> 5 Indexes
• Japanese -> 3 Indexes
• German -> 5 Indexes
• Russian -> 8 Indexes
• French -> 4 Indexes
• Korean -> 3 Indexes

English and Spanish are taught to fluency and the other courses have varrying degrees of depth.
A professionally written course Schedule is profided for the English Language.

Most Importantly: With En101, you get a tried and true approach used successfully and loved by many.

These Lovers tied the Knot after meeting as a result of using En101.
A Mother in France named her daughter Enia in gratitude to En101.

BUYING INFO: Be Sure to pick the Biz Pack!
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This gold medal and this diploma were recieved by En101 at the Education-2008 Exhibition of an International Fair in Khabarovsk (Siberia).

The Catagories were:

• Innovative technologies in education
• Student exchange programs
• Professor exchange programs
• Business education
• International Education

BUYING INFO: Be Sure to pick the Biz Pack!
Click the link below to look at the current product selection.