Pearson empowers language students to learn faster in a natural way with Azure AI capabilities

Education evolving

Pearson is no stranger to change. The company started in the construction industry 176 years ago and expanded into media. Today, it is a world-leading learning company with well-known brands like Addison-Wesley, Prentice Hall, and Longman. Schools and students around the world use its education resources.

The international company expanded its business into China around 35 years ago where most customers know Pearson by the Longman brand. More than 35 million Chinese students have used Longman over the past 15 years.

Pearson China began a digital transformation journey more than a decade ago and has a focus on digitizing its English-language products going back to 2015. The company used to provide CDs to supplement Longman textbooks, but CDs offered limited interaction. Typically, Chinese students get stronger at reading and writing in English, but they lack opportunities to hear and speak the language because they often don’t have anyone to practice with outside of school. Pearson wanted to not only digitize its trusted textbooks but also make the experience of learning English more interactive, adaptive, and personalized.

“School-age students want to learn English faster in a much more natural, efficient way,” says Joe Lam, Managing Director, Greater China and Southeast Asia, English Language Learning Division at Pearson. “We started to define what kind of solution would help young students gain the skills they need to communicate in English fluently and succeed academically and beyond.”

Power of collaboration

Pearson wanted to use AI to deliver better services to students and empower teachers with highly accurate assessments and other tools. The company began working with the Microsoft Research Asia team and the Azure Speech product team to jointly develop AI-based services for language learners. Together, they explored how to augment Microsoft Azure Cognitive Services to expand language learning features to benefit Pearson, other education customers, and students. Through this collaboration, Pearson has adopted new Microsoft algorithms and a leading-edge pronunciation assessment feature, which is a part of the Speech to Text capability, to assess pronunciation in real time and provide feedback to speakers on their accuracy and fluency.

“From day one of working with Microsoft on this project, it was a reciprocal relationship and one of the best experiences we’ve ever had,“ says Lam. “We respected the knowledge, skills, and reliability that all parties brought to the table, and we were united in our single objective to deliver the best experience to language learners.”

Innovation in interaction

Pearson adopted Cognitive Services for Longman Welcome to English, a digital learning program for primary students in China. The company designed the program for students to use for regular English practice and to help teachers manage assignments and language assessments. In addition to Speech to Text, Pearson adopted Text to Speech, using its machine learning and custom neural voice functionality to generate a natural-sounding voice from text so that students can improve listening and comprehension. Longman Welcome to English also uses natural language processing to support student interaction with the program.

Pearson deliberately chose to adopt AI that it deemed truly useful and that would continually improve.

“We see AI as an iterative technology that requires solid investment in research and development,” says Lam. ”And we felt confident with the strong support we received from Microsoft.”

As a result of adding high-quality AI, Pearson gives students ample opportunities for more language practice and feedback than teachers—who are spread across many students during school hours only—can provide. “We enriched Longman with Cognitive Services to help reduce the workload of the primary school teachers while providing a companion for students to optimize their daily interactions in English,” says Lam.

Agility in teaching and learning

Pearson is pleased to offer such effective remote learning at a more affordable rate than what parents might have to pay otherwise. Plus, students can use the Longman program at any time, from any location. “In China, some parents hire a private tutor to improve particular skills like math or English, but that can be quite expensive,” says Lam. “With AI-based technology, we help lighten parents’ education spending burden.”

When China closed schools to in-person learning in response to COVID-19, Pearson pivoted quickly to provide cloud-based, remote English education content so that students had a tested, digital alternative to help them continue their learning. Concludes Lam, “We gave access to Longman Welcome to English to a majority of customers in China, making Wuhan customers a top priority. There were more than 100 primary schools in Wuhan that needed our services immediately to support their students’ desire to study English at home, and we saw a huge spike in the number of learners. For us, technology is not just about addressing a commercial issue but about contributing to social responsibility.”

Find out more about Pearson on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.