by CLAIRE FIELD

Learners aren’t enrolling

With the UK keeping its international border largely open during COVID it was very surprising to see the impact of the pandemic on English language enrolments there. At last week’s English UK conference the sector reported an 88 per cent decline in student numbers on pre-pandemic levels.

In the same week global market intelligence firm, HolonIQ, identified the “direct to consumer” language learning market is now worth US$60bn, and projected it will grow to $115bn by 2025.

The growth is powered by digital language learning and with more than 1.8bn people currently learning another language (and 1.4bn of them learning English) it is timely to examine the significant growth in the digital language learning market – much of which happens outside formal educational channels.

In recent months Pearson has continued its evolution from a publishing company offering English language testing to a significant EdTech player in a number of domains, with the acquisition of online language learning platform Mondly. Pearson is listed on the NYSE with a market cap of US$7.5bn. Mondly has 100 million learners and offers 41 languages.

Meanwhile, language apps like Duolingo are being accepted for English language entry purposes by a growing number of tertiary education institutions. Duolingo is listed on the NASDAQ and has a US$3.3bn market cap. It has 40 million active monthly users and offer 40 languages across 100 courses. They claim they can deliver five university semesters worth of learning in half the time (not to mention at a much cheaper cost).

And now comes a new development from Google which could transform or seriously disrupt language teaching – glasses that can automatically translate whatever anyone says, then display it as live captions. If the technology is half as good as it appears then language schools focussing on students looking for conversational or business level language skills would seem to be under some pressure.

At this stage, digital language learning apps like Duolingo and Mondly are not accepted for student visa purposes but it remains to be seen how long that continues.

Undoubtedly, there will always be international students who want an English language learning experience while living in Australia, but it also seems clear that significant digital competition is emerging to challenge traditional English language educational models.

Claire Field is a HolonIQ contributor and an advisor to the tertiary education sector