The Iphone is probably the best tool ever made for learning English.  An Iphone can be used in so many different ways it is unbelievable.  Most people don’t consider it to be amazing for learning ESL but it truly is.

First of all, you take your Iphone everywhere you go so you will always have it with you.  You can use it any time you have a spare few minutes.  It’s also an MP3 player and a book reader.  We make a really cool app that puts our MP3 podcasts with the PDF texts.  The Iphone is designed perfectly to read and listen at the same time.  The battery on an Iphone 4 or even 3G is outstanding.  It is very possible to use it for several hours before recharging.  If you listen to the native spoken English while reading the main phrases we talk about, your English will improve like you wouldn’t believe.  It’s like having amazing teachers in your pocket everywhere you go.  If you can get in the habit of listening for 30 minutes per day, even if that means 3 separate 10 minute study sessions, you will improve very quickly with this application.  You will find so much more study time without disrupting your day.  Our podcasts come out every week and we have several hundred.  Check out our homepage and start downloading now and studying when you have a few minutes.  This is really the future of language learning.

The new mobile operating systems will create huge opportunities for the English as a second language (ESL) market.  Operating systems like Google’s open source Android, Apple’s iOS, and Microsoft’s Windows 7, are getting more sophisticated all the time.  They are making the mobile smart phone and tablet computer market work.  These new interfaces make tiny devices easy to use.  Students can download PDF’s podcasts, MP3 lessons, and other apps.  They can organize these easily on their mobile devices.  PDF’s used to be almost impossible to read on a small screen, but now the Epub for the iOS and other Android and Windows 7 formats make reading actually possible.  If you read along with a podcast you can learn English at a rapid pace.

We make a fun podcast that is perfect for use on the Iphone, Kindle, Ipad, Ipod touch, and other Android or Windows 7 smartphones.  Samsung and many other large hardware companies make great stuff where our show can be used.  Millions of people in over 160 countries worldwide listen to our show and we get hundreds of emails everyday about how we’ve helped.  Go to our homepage to check out our facebook page to see comments from real people.  I learned Chinese this way and that’s what inspired me to change and improve the ESL market for students who already know some basic English but want to learn some cool slang and interesting topics.  These podcasts and apps work perfectly in the university, college, or private classroom too.

Multimedia interactive mobile devices like the Ipad and Iphone have the potential to dramatically change the English learning (ESL) industry for the better.  It wasn’t long ago that we had physical textbooks and cassette tapes.  This were limited and the content was boring as well.  Schools made most of this material since the market was so tiny.  For a variety of reasons, English teaching in the past has focused on grammar, vocabulary size, and very formal English.  This combo of bad and boring lessons made most students hate learning ESL.

Fast forward to 2011 and we’re in a totally different age.  The world is becoming global and people see the need for learning English as a second language for business, travel, and personal reasons.  MP3s, PDFs and mobile devices like the Ipad make a killer combo for learning a language.  Now you can download over a thousand hours of high quality audio and millions of pages of text.  For the first time, real people can publish lessons instead of relying on the school system.  It’s easier to enter this market because anyone can make a podcast, Ipad app, or lessons for the Iphone.  It’s free to put them on the Itunes store and other online app stores.  The internet is a huge international marketplace and there are millions of eyeballs on many products with no money needed for advertising.

Native speaking lessons along with written PDFs or Epub files are the best way to learn a language.  They are fun, casual, and really useful.  You can pick up a new language quite passively.  Tablet computers are becoming more affordable and internet speeds are increasing around the world.  The same lessons can be put on an Iphone too.  There will be a lot of competition in both the mobile hardware and software industries for years to come.  There will be more and more opportunities for students to download ESL lessons that are perfect for them.  The advanced learning market is a growing one that has been untouched.  Many students have basic English but don’t have the level of a native speaker and really want to improve.  The tablet computers and smart phones will provide the perfect environment for these people to learn.  The mobile payment system is getting better all the time too.  This will create huge consumer demand for English learning products as the developing world continues to get richer.   The international middle class is growing like crazy and they are moving and traveling to English speaking countries.  These people want and need to learn American or British slang to survive and enjoy their lives.  We focus on this market and make the best podcast and multimedia English lessons in the world.  Check out our homepage and sign up to our free VIP lessons to see for yourself.   These are great for individual students and work well in the ESL classroom as lesson plans.

How can you learn to speak English fluently with the Iphone, Ipad, or Iphone touch?

Improving spoken English comes down to a couple of things.  First you need to learn the vocabulary and the speaking style of native speakers.  You can download apps for both the Iphone and the Android (as well as all other main mobile devices).  These ESL apps have podcasts and the written material that accompanies each one.  I’ve learned foreign languages and I learned that the key is listening to real native speakers and trying to imitate them.  The textbook style of language learning makes no sense because it’s simply not the way anyone speaks.  After you listen to enough hours, let’s say 100 or so, of native speakers talking about cool stuff and explaining the slang and idioms they use, you will naturally start to speak like them.

Foreign professors learn English the hard way.  They study from books.  It’s true that many of them have huge vocabularies, but when you hear them speak you can feel that it’s choppy and awkward.  It’s so obvious that they never hung out with native speakers in a fun daily life type of situation.  These apps can plug you into the world of real native speakers hanging out.  We do our absolute best to make the world’s coolest and most useful English lessons.  We have hundreds of talk show style MP3’s and PDF’s.  Many of them you can download for free.  Go to our home page and load up your Iphone or Ipod with a bunch of our free podcasts.  I guarantee your Spoken English, listening, and slang vocabulary will improve a lot in just a couple of weeks.  If you are preparing for tests like the TOEIC, TOEFL, or IELTS, your scores will go through the roof with this method.  Check it out and let me know what you think.

The Android app market is growing like crazy.  Google is selling about 300 000 phones per day.  This is driving a lot of demand for app makers.  A well made app is great for learning languages.  Apps are great for promotion.  Expect the English learning apps to grow in both number and quality over the next couple of years.  We are currently in the process of making an awesome ESL app for the droid.  We’re putting our podcasts and the transcripts onto an easy to use UI.

China232 is about a couple of brothers living in Shanghai who make an English learning podcast and are trying to change the way that English is taught to the world.  We believe that until now, most language programs are super outdated and boring.  When we listen to non native speakers speak, we realize there is so much room for improvement.  It’s all the fault of an outdated education system that focuses too much on grammar and not nearly enough on how English is really used by native speakers day to day.   Go to our homepage and check out some of our free podcasts.  We talk about daily life and teach the kind of slang you’d never learn in school or at work.  You’ll understand movies and conversations and jokes between real native speakers.  We’re using all cool methods and keeping up with the latest in technology such as making Iphone apps, Ipod touch apps, and using facebook and twitter.  Follow us and I guarantee your spoken English will improve like crazy.

The ESL market is slow to catch on with all new technology.  If you do a quick search on the Itunes store, you’ll find some apps for the Iphone, Ipad, and Ipod touch.  The thing is that most of these apps have been made by people who want to take advantage of this great new market, rather than by people who actually want to make quality products.  Often, being there first gets you money in the business world.  It is unfortunately often more important than content quality.

The good news is that there is more and more competition and new apps coming out all the time.  Eventually, the good ones will win over the bad ones.  There are ESL apps for kids, (children’s games, puzzle’s etc) as well as ESL apps for intermediate and advanced students.

I believe that the best kind of English learning app is one with good audio content that is matched with the written stuff.  The quality of the material is more important for learning than how cool the app looks.  This will be more of a functional type app rather than a flashy one.

For obvious business reasons, podcasts seem to be less important on the new app store.  They are free and Apple makes a % of each app sold.  The kind of app we are making is a free one with many podcasts and learning material.  It’s easy to navigate and you can learn on the go.  The first reason we wanted to enter this market was to get more exposure to our podcast.  We wanted to find new customers that would otherwise not have found us.  Since then, we’ve realized that we can actually improve our product and make English learning that much easier.

If you can actually read this article, even if it’s a bit difficult for you, than it means your English is already good enough for you to really benefit from our fun English learning free app.  Listen to 1 lesson per day for 30 days and you’ll find that your English will have improved more than it would have in a whole year of school classes.  Check it out!