Category: News

The ability to communicate in English is an important skill that can have a tremendously positive effect on job prospects in a globalised world while opening up opportunities for further education as well. If students miss classes due to Coronavirus lockdowns, the repercussions are equally significant to their lives. Thus, we are thrilled that Richmond, one of the market-leading publishers of cutting-edge English language teaching materials, has boosted its digital content and made access to their learning platform easier and cheaper for learners throughout Latin America during this global health crisis.

Since the Richmond Learning Platform is powered by both Avallain Author and Avallain Unity, we are proud to be a small part of this generous offer to Latin American learners. As Ursula Suter, Executive Chairwoman and Co-Founder of Avallain puts it: “With Richmond making access to their high-quality learning materials even easier and more affordable for select users in Latin America, they can now use their time in quarantine to keep up with their studies without taking unnecessary risks. E-learning is actively helping to flatten the curve while improving the lives of students at the same time.”

Richmond is equally pleased with this development: “Providing effective English-language education to students in Latin American countries is vitally important to us,” says Deborah Tricker, Group Publishing Director at Richmond Santillana, “and we are happy to be able to continue to do that in the current global health crisis through the innovative digital content we offer on the Richmond Learning Platform, powered by Avallain. The company has been a huge support throughout this endeavour, providing us with cutting-edge e-learning technology at individualised prices and helping us every step of the way.” Avallain will further support Richmond to ensure the stability of their learning platform during the crisis.

Update (20.05.20): We are proud to announce that Our World 2e Online Learning Platform has won the 2020 SIIA Codie Award for Best ESL, ELL, or World Language Acquisition Solution.

In 2018, National Geographic Learning (NGL), a part of Cengage, approached Avallain with the idea of producing high-quality digital learning materials to accompany their world-renowned “Look” and “Our World” product line of English-language teaching materials. Today, we are happy to announce that the Our World 2e Online Learning Platform has been nominated for a 2020 SIIA Codie, one of the industry’s most prestigious awards. This nomination is a great recognition of the effort that went into the NGL online learning platform – and a testament to the highly advanced technological foundation of the platform, provided by Avallain.

What is the best way to learn English as a second or foreign language?

NGL’s Our World 2e Online Learning Platform provides primary English learners with learning materials from innovative interactive activities and games to stunning video and audio content. These digital materials are designed as supplements that augment the classroom experience with individualised learning paths that perfectly accompany the print edition of Our World. Meanwhile, teachers enjoy a robust Learning Management System to guide their students through activities specifically chosen for their individual learning progress. The Avallain platform is also appropriate for secondary and adult learners.

This two-pronged approach is made possible with Avallain technology. NGL first draws from Avallain Author’s pre-designed learning activity “blueprints” to create a highly varied assortment of individualised learning activities to accompany the print version of Our World, then Avallain Unity packages all of this into a coherent and intuitive learning platform, with an accompanying learning management system for teachers.

“By nominating NGL’s learning platform, the SIIA Codie Awards judges have recognised that great e-learning requires both amazing learning materials and a robust but flexible technological foundation to build upon,” says Ignatz Heinz, Managing Director and Co-Founder of Avallain. “National Geographic Learning has been able to produce a staggering amount of high-quality learning materials in a concise time frame, and we have continuously supported them throughout this process. This is how you keep refining all aspects of your learning platform, and I think this SIIA Codie Award nomination will not be the last for NGL.”

Since 2018, VERITAS, the largest educational publisher in Austria, has been offering its complete range of textbooks digitally. With interactive e-books, this innovative range of products supports learning success through individual content and targeted feedback – regardless of location. It was created with Avallain Author, our market-leading authoring tool, and made accessible via our feature-rich learning platform architecture Avallain Unity.

Throughout much of our planet, the Covid-19 virus is preventing everyday school life as we’ve always known it. But times of crisis are always a starting point for innovation and solidarity as well. In order to help teachers, parents and students to bridge the time between classes and to ensure the continuity of education, VERITAS and Avallain now offer free access to the entire digital offer described above.

“The individual learning success and continuity in education for all students in Austria is a heartfelt concern for VERITAS. We are pleased that with the support of Avallain we can provide schools in our country with free, fast and stable access to our digital learning offer”, says Mag. Nikolaus Donner, Managing Director of VERITAS.

“The advantages of digital education are numerous and, in addition to the possibilities for creating highly individualised learning experiences, the independence of location is a significant added value – especially in the current situation. We are proud that we are able to support our long-standing customer VERITAS with our technology and a service tailored to the crisis to keep school education in Austria running”, explains Ignatz Heinz, Co-Founder and President of Avallain.

Free access is available now at https://www.scook.at/.

In this challenging moment for our world, we in Avallain remain committed to playing our part, bringing to bear our 20 years of experience in the Digital Education industry.

More than ever, companies, institutions, and individuals need continuity in the central pillars of daily life. Education is one of these pillars, and we believe that if deployed well, online learning tools could greatly reduce the impact of the current situation to at least this aspect of our lives.

Preparedness and proactivity

As a digital company with a 100% smart work/home office setup and 100 team members in 15 countries, we had a head start. However, we are still working hard to ensure that we support one another in terms of homeschooling and family support.

School closures in many countries have radically changed the usage landscape. We are seeing exponential increases in platform use as homeschooling and distance learning initiatives take hold. So working closely with our clients, we responded quickly to increase infrastructure monitoring and capacity, ensuring an uninterrupted high level of performance.

Ultimately, we are in uncharted waters, so if things get tight, we will rely on our formal Business Continuity Plan, which has been designed over the past years to allow us automatically to implement fallback options and communication plans in times of crisis. Any client can ask for a copy of this, or for further details about our preparedness.

Human-centered and technology-driven solutions

An essential component of our Digital Education strategy is to address the growing need for real-time interaction and features that enable teachers and learners to minimise the impact of the absence of face-to-face lessons.

Central to this has been an immediate need for live video integration within learning platforms, which allows realtime interaction and online classes without much preparation. We have reacted quickly to this need, and this month are rolling out the first integrations with virtual classroom / conferencing tools.

Our commitment to education

Avallain is keen to help you to support learners and teachers in the challenging weeks to come.

During this public health crisis, we are offering a limited number of free accounts to our leading Avallain Author authoring tool for creating interactive e-Learning content.

Anyone interested can apply directly to info@avallain.com or through the contact form on our website. Our team will help speed up the process of implementation and delivery to ensure the continuity of learning. For institutions, and education departments, we also offer limited free consulting to help implement a fast, accurate, seamless and appropriate solution for the current needs.

We have over 20 years of experience in technology-enhanced education for institutional learning, and now more than ever we understand the value of cooperation and delivering fluent combinations of our own and third party technology as needed.

Appropriate solutions for challenging times

For language schools needing to switch instantly to an online solution, we have a ready-made product suite to offer that will bring you online seamlessly in minimal time.

Our content production department can help create a critical starting mass, and through our long collaboration with the leading educational publishers, we can easily enable access to the best digital learning solutions in the market.

A word of hope and thanks

On behalf of all Avallain members, we thank all the professionals who are keeping up their essential work in these times, including those who keep education running. Driven by education and science, our collective effort, clarity of focus and creativity will see us through this crisis.

Our best wishes to all our clients, partners and friends in the education world.

Avallain (avallain.com), a Swiss-based company, that provides award-winning education technology and tools to create, manage and disseminate educational content, and EDIA (www.edia.nl), Dutch-based, EdTech company applying Artificial Intelligence to create smart content for educational use, have announced a technical and commercial partnership.

Avallain and EDIA will work together by integrating EDIA’s Smart Content capabilities into Avallain’s online authoring tool Avallain Author and learning platform architecture Avallain Unity. EDIA applies natural language processing (NLP), a form of Artificial Intelligence, to create metadata. Its technology analyses educational texts in order to determine readability levels on the CEFR framework, extract keywords and classify topics in a taxonomy. EDIA’s capabilities will further enhance Avallain’s powerful tools and offer educational publishers easy access to metadata automation. These services can be applied both in the process of content creation in Avallain Author, where authors and editors get better tools to add metadata, and in the learning content management in Avallain Unity, where automated tagging can be used to tag and analyze existing content portfolio.

“We are very pleased with our cooperation as we have complementary technology that will help educational publishers in their digital transformation”, says Walter Montenarie, Chief Commercial Officer at EDIA. “The two companies work very well together as we share the same values and are determined to make an impact on education.”

“Our clients have the highest standards when it comes to developing and delivering digital learning products. We are proud to be providing them for more than 15 years with the tools and experience they need to implement these standards and excited about the cooperation with EDIA. Because EDIA’s Smart Content capabilities will add lasting value to our solutions and in EDIA we have found a new partner on our journey to empower companies all around the globe to unlock human potential with technology-enhanced education.” says Ignatz Heinz, President and Co-Founder of Avallain.

About Avallain

Founded in 2002, Avallain quickly took on the role as a pioneer in Digital Education. Located in the idyllic canton of Appenzell Ausserrhoden in Switzerland, this was the ideal starting point for what was to come. Ever since our first steps in Digital Education, Avallain has grown into an international premium supplier with staff all around the globe and proud to be working with some of the world’s most ambitious brands, serving millions of learners in various educational settings. Together, our sole aim is to achieve a positive impact on human potential with technology-enhanced education.

About EDIA

EDIA education technology was founded in 2004 and is based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. In 2006, EDIA launched its first AI product for education, which used machine learning and natural language processing to curate online text sources for vocabulary training. The product won several international awards and is still widely used today. In recent years EDIA transformed into a SaaS platform by applying Artificial Intelligence technology to analyse text.

When it comes to aviation training, language skills are typically not the first thing that comes to mind. However, being able to quickly and successfully communicate information is a vital skill for prospective pilots. Thus, Latitude Aviation English Services Ltd. focuses exclusively on providing quality aviation English language training and testing solutions to aviation companies worldwide. Latitude now uses Avallain Author to develop and maintain Foundation, their web-based aviation English course, as well as Avallain Unity to create their bespoke learning management systems.

Focus on language: Why English skills matter in aviation

Many companies providing courses in aviation English typically do this as something of an afterthought, offering generalised English-language courses, with topics such as aviation or business English as “add-ons”. Latitude takes an entirely different approach: They provide aviation English training and testing solutions exclusively, as precise and unambiguous communication plays an immensely important role in aviation. Various international companies, from Qatar Airways to the Emirates Flight Training Academy, already rely on Latitude learning solutions to increase the language skills of their licensed operations personnel, ultimately improving overall safety standards as well.

“We were thrilled to be working with Latitude, not just because we relish working with high-quality teaching specialists, but also because of the highly specialised approach Latitude takes,” says Ignatz Heinz, Avallain Managing Director and Co-Founder. Ursula Suter, Chairwoman of the Board and Avallain Co-Founder, agrees: “Despite our wide range of customers, this clear focus on aviation English makes Latitude an entirely new type of partner for Avallain, and we are happy to bring our powerful tools into this specialised part of the language learning industry as well.”

Advanced Avallain software solutions for a niche market

Naturally, the highly specialised field of bespoke aviation English learning and testing materials offers only a limited number of customers. Thus, Latitude was looking for a premium software solution which is powerful and cost-efficient to boot. It quickly became evident that Avallain could offer precisely what they needed:

• Avallain Author: Latitude uses the highly advanced authoring tool in the development of content for Foundation, their 100-hour web-based aviation English course explicitly designed to prepare students for English-medium professional aviation training.
• Avallain Unity: Avallain’s learning management software architecture is used as the basis of Latitude’s SaaS solution, an easy-to-handle, highly reliable learning platform architecture. Latitude uses this to publish, deliver, assign, evaluate and market educational content.

Since both of our flagship products are designed to be highly customisable and reliable, Latitude and Avallain were able to introduce them into the existing Latitude ecosystem in a matter of weeks. Thus, Latitude now benefits from highly advanced software solutions used by the world’s largest publishers.

The future of aviation English training

After the successful implementation of Avallain products in Latitude’s software during early 2019, Henry Emery, Managing Director at Latitude, already has his eyes set on future cooperation: “We’ve entered into a mutually beneficial partnership which gives us highly advanced flexible technology to further enhance our learning programmes while providing Avallain with a glimpse into the world of aviation English training. We’re already working on new ideas to further build upon this relationship and we’re certain our customers will love what we have in store for them.”

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has long been the holy grail of the digital education industry. Few companies know this as well as L-Pub, which specialises in the use of AI in language-based applications. Thus, L-Pub and Avallain are now entering into a partnership, which will add the unique skills and technologies of the German language technology company to Avallain products, while introducing L-Pub’s customer base to Avallain technologies in turn.

What L-Pub brings to the table

Founded in 2015, L-Pub is a young and energetic startup with a clear goal: Instead of working on education technology solutions in general, L-Pub focuses specifically on developing highly advanced language technologies. These include automated natural language processing (NLP) algorithms, allowing computer programmes to understand or even produce natural language autonomously, e.g. for automated exercises or individualised learning tips.

“What makes us most excited to work with L-Pub is the fact that they do not follow a generalised approach to AI programming,” says Ignatz Heinz, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Avallain: “They are specialised in providing language processing technologies to publishers as well as educational institutions and that focus has allowed them to achieve great expertise in this area.”

Practical benefits for content creation

This partnership between L-Pub and Avallain is sure to provide numerous advantages to both companies and their end users down the line. Some specific benefits are already tangible and are already scheduled for inclusion in Avallain Author:

• Automated analysis of learner performance and learning success
• Analysis and curation of learning content via automated NLP tools
• Automated support for editorial processes and content creation
• Support for individualised exercises and information retrieval

For Avallain’s customers, this will bring about a faster and more versatile content creation workflow and Avallain users will be able to design even more individualised learning experiences.

Automated processes create more individualised learning environments

Thanks to AI automation support of the content creation process, Avallain Author will be able to create much larger and more varied sets of learning activities. This provides language learners with more didactic choice, allowing them to skip materials they already excel at in favour of learning areas in which there may be a need for improvement.

This degree of individualisation will be further expanded via adaptive learning algorithms, which L-Pub is currently developing in collaboration with the Technische Universität Darmstadt.

Leading the way to advanced learning technology

While Avallain will be able to use the unique expertise of L-Pub in its long-term strategy of AI integration, L-Pub will be able to offer their customers access to Avallain Author as an integrated authoring tool to simplify their workflow. Likewise, L-Pub customers will be able to increase their reach thanks to platforms and apps created with Avallain Unity. But in the end, the partnership may benefit learners the most.

David P. Steel, Founder & Managing Director at L-Pub puts it most succinctly:

Together, Avallain and L-Pub hope to offer the niche skills that L-Pub has honed to a wider audience. On the one hand, we will provide more publishers with access to cutting-edge language technology solutions, on the other hand, we will be able to reach more end users, making their learning experience better.

EtonX, Eton College’s prestigious online learning business, has partnered with Avallain, engaging in a proof-of-concept and research project. The goal of this project is to create high-quality online learning content as well as designing advanced online tutoring tools.Specifically, EtonX and Avallain have been researching new ways to teach important soft skills effectively in an online learning environment.

Soft skills are future skills

Knowledge and experience are not the only things that modern employers seek in their future employees. In the workplaces of today, so-called soft skills such as critical thinking, problem solving and teamwork are every bit as important as academic skills. EtonX recognises this and offers a number of ‘future skills’ courses to help students develop those abilities which will genuinely define their personal and professional futures.

EtonX and Avallain

EtonX chose to partner with Avallain for one reason in particular: Avallain is the most experienced provider of digital authoring technology worldwide. In over 15 years, the company has worked with some of the leading global publishers in the field. Perhaps most importantly, Avallain realises that the focus of development should always lie on the learner instead of purely technological considerations. Thus, Avallain is no stranger to teaching soft skills via a digital medium.

For EtonX, partnering with Avallain has further enhanced the company’s focus on soft skills research and developing ways to support soft skills teaching on an online-only platform. The research of this successful collaboration now feeds directly into the creation and deployment of custom content as well as application design within this growing educational area. EtonX is spearheading this particular area online for learners across the globe.

Avallain technologies for future skills development

Over the course of this research, EtonX used both of Avallain’s flagship products, Avallain Author and Avallain Unity, experimenting with different approaches to educational content and types. This process benefited immensely from Avallain’s vast experience of supplying high-quality education platforms across multiple territories, for both students and teachers. Some of Avallain Author’s features, in particular, are already well-suited for soft skill development:

• Advanced feedback features to allow easy communication between learners and tutors
• Audio, video and image integration to embed exercises in tangible, real-life scenarios
• Multiple features that can be used to fully individualise the learning environment

Rahim Hirji, COO of EtonX, says:

EtonX is looking forward to further collaboration with the team at Avallain as we look to build different types of courses in the fast-evolving educational area of ‘Future Skills’. The research phase with Avallain was an important piece of work to help launch a groundbreaking pilot of our Making an Impact Course in 2017. This pilot used a custom-built live virtual classroom and was hugely successful with interest from more than one hundred countries. With further collaboration, EtonX will launch more courses and courses with different formats building on Avallain’s many years deploying online education solutions around the world.

Bringing future skills into the digital classroom

For Avallain, working with EtonX has also been an exciting project. Commenting on the collaboration, Ignatz Heinz, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Avallain, said “In the complex and quickly developing area of online tutoring, Avallain is delighted to support EtonX as it continues to grow around the world. Our products support education businesses that operate in primary, secondary and further education all around the world and so we were happy that our experience could help EtonX fine-tune its offering for learners in countries that value these important educational areas.”

Given the technological affinity of both EtonX and Avallain as well as our shared focus on learners, EtonX users all across the world stand to gain from this exciting new partnership for advanced global online tutoring.

Update (25.01.18): We are proud to announce that Numicon Interactive Whiteboard Software won the Primary Content award at last night’s Bett Awards.

Mathematical concepts can sometimes be hard to teach, as they are often difficult to connect to student’s real-life experiences. This is why Oxford University Press developed Numicon Interactive Whiteboard Software in conjunction with Avallain. The Numicon teaching approach includes physical apparatus for primary school level Maths that are designed to teach mathematical concepts by employing a multi-sensory approach and taking advantage of children’s natural ability to recognise shapes and patterns in physical objects.

Thanks to Oxford University Press’ partnership with Avallain, these teaching resources have since been successfully adapted into the Numicon Interactive Whiteboard Software, enhancing a proven pedagogy with all the possibilities offered by advanced digital technology. The revolutionary software has now earned a place among the finalists of the 2018 Bett Awards for Primary Content, perhaps the most prestigious award in the modern education industry.

What is the Numicon concept and how does it improve Maths education?

Numicon is a proven approach to teaching mathematics using a multi-sensory approach and a significant degree of interactivity. In its original form, Numicon teaching resources include physical shapes representing numbers which can be freely put together and manipulated. Thus, the Numicon approach demonstrates mathematical concepts in a way that is easily understandable and relatable in the physical world. As this pedagogical approach has been shown to improve learners’ mathematical abilities, the National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics decided to fully endorse Numicon as a teaching tool.

Recently, the same teaching approach has become part of Oxford Owl, Oxford University Press’s digital learning platform for primary school learners. The Bett-Award-winning platform powered by Avallain Unity software architecture now includes the Numicon Interactive Whiteboard Software.

Adapting Numicon into a digital learning software

The Numicon software uses all of the advantages of Avallain Author to allow teachers and learners to project and interact with digital Numicon apparatus on whiteboards, both regular-sized and widescreen. This allows learners to interact directly with a great number of building elements by dragging and dropping them directly on the whiteboard. This object-focussed approach not only makes mathematical concepts easy to grasp, the physical interaction on the whiteboard and the use of spoken language to explain what they are doing also serves as a significant inspirational factor for students.

Numicon Interactive Whiteboard Software allows teachers to create highly motivational and effective Maths exercises using a great variety of digital resources and building elements such as different shapes, rods, base-ten apparatus, counters and numerical cards as well as explanatory text. All of these elements can be fit into various digital workspaces, including baseboards, number rod tracks, number lines and place value frames. This allows large sums and complex mathematical concepts such as division and multiplication to be handled more easily and conveniently than with physical resources.

Thanks to Avallain Author, all of these teaching materials and the ability to interact with them in a classroom setting are accessible via a highly intuitive user interface. Since the software is designed with primary education in mind, there are also many features that help children to use Numicon Interactive Whiteboard Software, such as the ability to minimise the interface panel at the bottom of the screen. This makes it easier for them to reach the Numicon apparatus projected on the whiteboard.

A partnership that is driven by innovation

The highly advanced capabilities of Avallain Author have been instrumental in the success of Numicon Interactive Whiteboard Software, as Simon Tanner-Tremaine, Director Digital & Home/School Services at Oxford University Press notes: “Our long-term partnership with Avallain has given us the tools to provide teachers and learners with highly effective and enjoyable interactive software. Being among the 2018 Bett Awards finalists is the most recent achievement in a long success story of award-winning Oxford University Press products created with Avallain Author and Avallain Unity.”

“Oxford University Press has firmly established itself as a publishing house driven by innovation and we are happy to be able to support them in this regard”, concurs Ignatz Heinz, Co-Founder and Managing Director at Avallain. “We have had great success using our technology and expertise to enhance many of their great products. With the help of Avallain Unity, Oxford Owl has already won a Bett Award in 2016, and we are confident we can do it again with Avallain Author and Numicon Interactive Whiteboard Software this year.”

Enhancing Maths education with advanced technology

The Numicon Interactive Whiteboard Software provides primary education teachers with the resources they need to make mathematical concepts instinctively understandable for their students. By combining the multisensory teaching approach of Numicon with the advanced digital capabilities of Avallain Author, we have created a digital education tool which is proven to enhance primary mathematical education significantly.

After already winning a number of Bett Awards, Digita Awards and ELTons for products created in cooperation with many of our partners in the past, we are thrilled that Numicon Interactive Whiteboard Software is among the finalists for the 2018 Bett Awards for Primary Content. We believe this is a testament to our high standards of quality and we hope to once again be able to conclusively demonstrate the positive impact of digital technology in Maths education with Numicon.

Image © Johannes Berrens, genuina.de. With kind permission.

Language is a vital part of human life. Not only do language skills allow people to get involved with their community, but they are also necessary for engaging with educational programmes and vocational training schemes. Thus, it should come as no surprise that a large part of the prison population in countries like Germany is comprised of young immigrants and unaccompanied child refugees. Their often poor language and social skills leave them with few prospects within German society.

Effectively teaching the German language to these people is the only way to prepare them for further education, with the final goal of successful rehabilitation. Simultaneously, it also enables prison staff to communicate with the inmates. For these reasons, German prisons are now using a specially adapted offline version of the e-learning platform ich-will-deutsch-lernen.de (‘I want to learn German’ or ‘IWDL’), based on Avallain technology.

The fundamentals of teaching languages inside the prison system

After the highly successful launch of IWDL, it did not take long for German correctional institutions to take note of the e-learning platform, which had been officially commended by then-President Gauck. They wanted the opportunity to use the software, which combines Avallain software architecture with high-quality learning materials created using Avallain Author, as an e-learning tool for German prisons.

However, IWDL had initially been conceived as an educational tool for immigrants and thus needed to be adapted to the realities of prison life first:

• It needed to be fully usable even without an internet connection.
• The platform’s collaborative learning materials needed to be modified.
• Its blended learning focus needed to be expanded with exercises for individual learning.

All of these changes are vital for using the highly successful learning platform within a prison environment, as places such as Ottweiler Prison had learned. More than 70 % of this prison’s inmates are first or second-generation immigrants, often with very limited German language skills. Many of them also have a history of substance abuse or mental health issues, preventing them from taking part in regular educational programmes. Thus, our software’s cooperative learning approach – which made it the first ever e-learning platform approved for use in German immigrant integration courses – could not be employed to its full extent within a prison environment.

The IWDL intranet version

We created a special offline variant of IWDL which was integrated into E-Learning im Strafvollzug (‘E-learning in the prison system’ or ‘ELIS’), the official e-learning platform of German prisons. This allows the software to be installed on individual computers or a prison’s intranet, giving inmates easy access.

“Thanks to the modular structure of the Avallain software architecture, switching to offline usability and integrating the software into ELIS was the easiest part of adapting IWDL”, Ursula Suter, co-founder and Managing Director of Avallain recalls. “Due to the limited internet connectivity of prison computers, the rollout of updates may take a bit longer, but the added security is well worth it”, she says.

We also used Avallain Author to adapt the existing learning materials for use within prisons. Due to time restraints, limited availability of staff or individual correctional measures, it is often not possible for inmates to attend regular German language classes. Thus, the software’s newly adapted learning materials can be used for blended learning as well as individual learning.

Social integration as the ultimate goal

However, the actual purpose of teaching the German language in prisons also includes a social component, as inmates are meant to acquire three sets of skills:

• Language skills
• Social skills
• Knowledge of German social norms

These skills are useful not only for re-integrating inmates into German society but also for managing their time in prison. For example, German language skills are vital for successfully communicating with prison staff on a daily basis.

As part of ELIS, the offline version of IWDL teaches these skills by applying a scenario-based approach to learning. The software includes over 11’000 interactive exercises and 30 learning scenarios that are designed to embed activities within situations of everyday life. This allows learners without German language skills to gain a better understanding of the exercises while simultaneously conveying the values of a culture that might still be completely alien to the inmates at this stage. As a digital learning platform, IWDL is perfectly suited to support this approach by drawing from a large library of images, audio files and videos. These allow inmates to experience and understand everyday scenarios interactively.

Education and rehabilitation

For all of these reasons, ich-will-deutsch-lernen is one of the most popular learning platforms used within the German prison system today.

“The fact that IWDL is being used within the German prison system is more than just another accolade”, says Ursula Suter. “We believe that people who have become offenders due to a lack of education can be re-integrated into society by providing them with such an education. Our German language learning software allows them to actually take advantage of educational programmes offered in German prisons – preventing them from completely losing touch with the rest of society.”