Taiwan StartUp Interview - Seymour
2024-08-12
Traditional online learning is often a one-way process: the learner watches a video with the hope of retaining some of the information presented. Steed Technology, by contrast, has created Seymour: an innovative mobile English learning platform where user interaction is front-and-center.
Seymour combines original animated content alongside interactive exercises through a LINE chatbot. This innovative use of the LINE platform allowed Seymour to win 1st place at the 2022 LINE Chatbot Design Competition, all the while attracting over 17,000 followers and continuing to grow steadily.
Since its launch at the end of 2021, Seymour has created 80 hours of high-quality content for English learners in Taiwan. The platform allows busy professionals to learn around their schedule, optimizing the use of their spare time. A Seymour lesson normally takes 10-15 minutes, focusing on a single learning point each time. Users engage in AI-powered translation, sentence construction, spoken exercise and other challenges, allowing them to immediately and directly apply what they have learned.
In contrast to “global” language learning apps such as Duolingo, Steed Technology emphasizes its focus on the unique learning needs of local users. Seymour’s coursework and exercises are specifically designed with the Taiwanese learner in mind. The platform identifies common mistakes or blind spots of native Mandarin speakers, aiming to gradually cultivate the ability to think in English by understanding linguistic and cultural differences.
Seymour’s courses are designed for on-the-go learning. The content is well-structured, concise, and easy to digest. This is coupled with meticulously crafted original animated storylines to deliver authentic, everyday English dialogues. The dynamic, interactive approach contrasts with traditional passive learning, allowing learners to practice everyday English repeatedly and gradually build up their grammar, usage, idioms, and vocabulary skills for effective and confident English speaking.
Since 2023, Steed Technology has partnered with the leading English educational publisher Studio Classroom to launch its "Vocabulary Cloud" service on LINE. The service combines chatbot technology with spaced repetition learning theory, making vocabulary memorization more efficient and personalized, bringing a new dimension to the wealth of magazine content.
Steed Technology is dedicated to creating a "gym for the mind" for the mobile generation, with a vision that extends beyond English learning. The company is actively seeking partnerships with educational institutions and publishers to transform their learning content through Steed Technology's expertise, and create next-generation mobile teaching platforms, apps and chatbots that can deliver this content to a modern, mobile audience. The goal is to take existing linear content and turn it into formats that are more easily absorbed by the modern, busy mobile user.
Steed Technology emphasizes that their extensive experience in course design and interactive learning can be customized for various applications, content, and learner identities and habits. Whether conducting internal training on Slack or customer-facing teaching via Messenger, Steed Technology can apply their expertise to take the content provider’s vision to fruition.
Having built upon LINE’s vast user base in Taiwan, Steed Technology will continue its focus on providing comprehensive learning content targeting Taiwanese learners first-and-foremost. However, it is eager to collaborate with content providers which are looking for the right technological partner to execute their digital transformation plans, and to deploy their digital materials overseas.
Reference: Seymour
【Media Contact】
Taipei Computer Association Tel: +886-2-25774249 Fax: +886-2-25785392
David Liu ＃360 Email: david_liu@mail.tca.org.tw
Sharlene Hung ＃324 Email: sharlene@mail.tca.org.tw
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