British Council: English Online

Edward Davies's picture

British Council: English Online

Project name: English Online
Building a community of English language teachers and learners in China – 120,000 strong.

In 2008, in the wake of a British government initiative, the British Council and its partners announced that a new project titled 'English Online' would feature a website to help provide the latest in innovation and resources for teachers and students of the English language.

BrightLemon was asked by the British Council to develop a dynamic and innovative website to host those resources. To supplement these teaching resources the site also hosts a social network to connect students to teachers.

These social features rapidly grew the community to 130,000 users, going well beyond the expectations of the client and boosted the government’s initiative target for the uptake of the English language around the world - hailing the project itself as a great success.

The online community has become one of the largest community learning portals within education and the success of the project has received continued national press coverage.
 

Key Features


Listen and Watch

There is a wide option of both audio and video content throughout the site, the Listen and Watch section offers further episodes, tutorials and documentaries.

Videos are available to embed throughout the web and audio tutorials are commonly used alongside written exercises

 

 

Discussion boards

The discussion board is a forum of topics which members can exchange information on English language techniques, exam advice and general user discussions. 

Being updated daily with up-to-date news discussion, it encourages debate in the English language and creates interest groups between users.


 

Statistics

The site increased from 0 to 50,000 registered users within its first year
Google Translate doesn't work so well with Chinese Han so we built a translated site especially for Chinese learners of English
The site was featured in the top 30 list of a Drupal site showcase

Testimonials

We worked with BrightLemon when we commissioned them on a project for the British Council called English Online. In order to enhance our relationship management with our users, BrightLemon also developed a widget using Adobe AIR as well as a mobile website to cater for the growing number of users accessing the mobile web. All of this has contributed to over 50,000 members in our first year since launch. We have continued to use BrightLemon in order to enhance our offer as well as assist the project in developing our social media functionalities.

Andrew Newton
British Council

About British Council: English Online

The British Council creates international opportunities for the people of the UK and other countries by building partnerships and trust between organisations worldwide.

They are established in six continents and over 100 countries bringing international opportunity to everyday life. For over 75 years they have worked with millions of people, connecting them with the United Kingdom, sharing UK culture and the UK’s most attractive assets:  the English language, the arts, education and British ways of living and organising society.

BrightLemon has been working closely with The British Council for over 5 years and created the IHE website and English Online, a 130,000 strong community of English Language Teachers and Learners in China.