Sanako Connect
Rationale for Analysis
The Market of
Learning Management Systems
for
Language Learning
Learning Management Systems (LMSs) are the beating heart of most online educational platforms. Most primary, secondary and post-secondary institutions have one – adopted either through highly centralized purchasing (like a board of education) or very decentralized purchasing (such as individual teachers/departments). Companies too will set LMSs up for training employees. But we recognize on some level that learning management systems can't teach everyone every skill. While it is great to watch a video on CPR, hands-on practice is needed – especially so with language. Individuals can consume a slew of foreign media and perhaps can pick up a few words in the language. But actual proficiency will require training, interaction, and feedback from another interlocutor both in a written and oral format. Most LMSs cannot provide that level of detailed feedback on the four skills necessary for language learning: listening, speaking, reading and writing. This is one of the reasons why many foreign students choose to study abroad: for the immersive interpersonal experience that they receive from home staying in a foreign culture (or studying at a foreign university).
As we know, pandemic, inflation and supply chain issues have created circumstances that complicate foreign students traveling overseas to study abroad. As a result, many organizations have been offering online language learning - often acquiring native speakers who live at home but teach online to an English Foreign Language (EFL) student base abroad. Nonetheless, choices leave these instructors struggling with the learning management system that their host institution has in place which is probably not designed for language learning specifically.
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Is there a learning management system which could do this better, allowing instructors to give focused feedback on language production? Yes, there is. As an ESL educator of 10+ years who has taught through the pandemic, I’ve tried numerous LMSs, and there is one which does tick all the boxes.
It is called Sanako Connect.
My name is Trevor Laughlin and I am an English Second Language instructor functioning the the capacity of an Educational Venture Analyst for the purposes of this report. I've taught for over 10 years and on 3 separate continents. I've taught synchronous and asynchronous; live, hybrid and remote. I've taught a variety of Englishes from Financial to Aeronautical. So I know as a subject matter expert and a language expert what is needed in good assistive technolgy for the language classroom.
