Globish offers a new and perhaps better way to learn
ONE OF the slowest and hardest industries to disrupt is education. However, in this fast-paced and rapidly changing world driven by Internet and technology, education technology companies are striving to make education more relevant, affordable and effective than ever.
Advocates believe that by introducing new opportunities made possible by the latest technology, "ed-tech" could offer users a whole new experience of learning without compromising the quality of education.
Thailand has its own ed-tech disrupter in the start-up Globish. With its young and passionate team members, Globish is one of the fastest growing ed-tech start-ups in Thailand, founded to disrupt Thai education starting with teaching the English language.
The name Globish comes from combining the terms "global" and "English". The start-up offers online English courses that focus on real time, private conversational English classes taught by international teachers. This makes it possible for anyone to learn English anytime and anywhere, despite their busy schedule, through the Globish web-based platform and application. Ranked the third-worst country in Asia in 2015 on Education First's annual English Proficiency Index, it is evident Thailand is struggling with helping its people speak this internationally important language.
Chuencheewan Wongsaeree a former International Business student at Thammasat, found that English classes in her last 10 years of schooling didn't help her speak the language. And so she co-founded Globish Academia.
"Thai people can do well on written exams. But the real key successes in speaking English are confidence and practice, not a one time exam every now and then", said Wongsaeree, reflecting on her own English learning experience. Together with co-founder Takarn Ananthothai, former president of AIESEC Thailand - the largest student-led global organisation in the world - Globish adopted the internationally accepted language learning model and localised it to best suit Thai lifestyle.
Globish connects Thai learners with international teachers around the world, including Europe, Asia and North America via a video call system using their own platform. Teachers at Globish are referred to as "coaches'. Not only to emphasise their nature as facilitators rather than a lecturers, but also their tremendous efforts in building students' confidence and positive attitude towards learning. Working closely with the Thai student-support team, Globish ensures every student will be matched with suitable coaches that can inspire and bring out their confidence when they converse in English.
They adopted the 25-minute learning module, reflecting study findings that it is the optimal class duration time because it allows the brain to concentrate and perform at its fullest in an interactive manner.
Globish now conducts about 150 online classes per day, and their goal is to preserve the quality and effectiveness of each class by ensuring every student receives full attention throughout their 25 minutes of intense English conversation and appropriate feedback from qualified coaches.
The start-up saw the importance of technology as a major key in making the learning experience more convenient and effective. Globish's engineer team has developed a user-friendly booking system that allows student to choose classes and coaches on demand 24/7.
The online learning trend continues to gain strength, with many believing it is the future of education. After all, ed-tech not only connects students and instructors in a unique way, but also is efficient, significantly reducing the amount of time people spend on the road travelling to and from a "physical" class. With ed-tech innovations like Globish, learning is finally available for anyone, anywhere through their choice of favourite devices.
Chuencheewan Wongsaeree, is co-founder of Globish, dtac Accelerate Batch 5
