Language teaching is one of the most important parts of education that has a direct link to our international economic competitiveness. We have covered reports by the British Council, new ways of learning (e.g. Berlitz and Singapore Airlines), companies winning military contracts (Rosettastone & US army) and great new textbooks (Galore Park Publishing).
Now, there is another player whose products seem to be making a distinct impression in this market. Earworms key difference is that they try to help students learn a language rapidly by linking the teaching of a language to music.
Earworms lexical approach (meaningful chunks broken down) is not a new idea, but the approach of this family company has already attracted media attention and interest from potential investors. A real EU company, while Earworm’s head office is based in Norfolk, their Managing Director, Marlon Lodge lives in Germany where he teaches business English. It was his experience as a teacher and his self-developed music/language system that convinced his brother Andrew, a successful oil industry entrepreneur, to set up the company.
Available in some UK retail chains like Ryman’s, Waterstone’s and Ottakar’s in a CD kit, Earworm’s most important distribution channel internationally is online via sites Audible and iTunes. While this significantly cuts the cost of production and distribution the copyright protection that Audible wrap around the product failed to work on our office MP3 player and we had to revert back to a CD, which when copied worked fine via our player – parfait!
