Plantyn and Linguineo boosting French fluency

Teaching kids skills you possess is tough. Teaching a whole new language when you’re not a native speaker yourself? That sounds like mission impossible. But in Belgium, that’s an everyday reality. Starting in fifth grade, students start learning French from teachers who aren’t fluent themselves. How can you teach someone to speak a new language confidently if you yourself are not? By the end of primary school, kids are expected to be able to have a conversation in French. Instead, they’re stuck talking it to their siblings and parents when they’re (finally!) on vacation. Every teenager’s dream, right?

“Giving kids the courage to speak a new language is something we really wanted to invest in. It’s such an important part when learning a new language. But it’s difficult to teach that within the confines of the classroom.” – Plantyn

The solution: Casse-Cou & Linguineo

Educational publisher Plantyn was developing a new language learning method for French in primary education in Flanders, Casse-Cou, and looking for a digital tool that would help students improve their speaking skills, correctly learn French and become self-confident in using their knowledge. You know, just so that they would be able to say more than Bonjour and Je ne comprends pas. Magical potions aren’t in stores yet. So, they went for the next best thing: Linguineo.

“There are indeed a lot of digital tools that don’t have a positive effect on learning. Unfortunately, we’re quite often lumped together with these because we do something with AI. What sets us apart is that we focus on speaking—actually using the language yourself—rather than passive learning. We use common sense – I know, groundbreaking – alongside new technologies and incorporate learnings from scientific research. We collaborate with researchers at KU Leuven to keep improving our technology.” – Linguineo

Testing and refining

To have this new method ready by 1 September 2023, pilot projects were launched in the two preceding school years. Qualitative tests were conducted in the first year and quantitative tests the year afterwards.

The Casse-Cou method consists of 8 modules, each centering around a different challenge. At the end of each module, students can have a conversation with an interactive chatbot about a topic that ties in with the challenge. That means the content of the language learning dialogues needed to fit the modules perfectly. Plantyn created a comprehensive briefing for two sample conversations which included information on the target audience, the difficulty level of the interviews, and reference phrases and words that needed to be included.

“A key point for us to partner with Linguineo was that they are fully focused on didactics and their product is based on scientific research. Their technology is specifically designed to help learn a language.” – Plantyn

Now, it was time for Linguineo to get to work. A French-native content creator created an outline for these two sample conversations. These were first tested internally at Plantyn. After a round of feedback, a quantitative test was conducted by students from a fifth-grade class. Based on these results, the dialogue was finalised and once again tested by several classes. The data from these exercises was processed by Linguineo and then applied to the AI. This allows corrective feedback and speech recognition to be fine-tuned even better.

This was all made possible by Linguineo’s specialized speech recognition and pronunciation analysis designed specifically for language learners—a challenge that generic, off-the-shelf AI still struggles to address. Standard models lack the accuracy needed to provide meaningful transcription and corrective feedback, making custom solutions essential.

Impact

During the first school year the Casse-Cou method and Linguineo chatbot were finally used for real, 18.456 students tried it. Each user carried an average of 7,93 conversations (out of a total of 8) with an average time of 11 minutes and 17 seconds per conversation. Meanwhile there are already 30.000 students who’ve used it and this number will increase more as Casse-Cou is rolled out in more schools.

Linguineo’s language learning technology has become an important and unique part of the Casse-Cou method. By integrating an interactive chatbot with a natural voice into the learning method, students can:

• Grow in their fluency and speaking skills. Bonjour, on peut jouer aux boules ensemble ? will be a better way to make new friends than a hesitant wave.
• Hold differentiated dialogues with the chatbot at three different levels. We’re trying to build confidence, not nitpick about grammatically difficult constructions.
• Practice easily and at their own pace, wherever they want.

“We hear loud and clear from teachers what a positive effect the speaking exercises have. There just isn’t enough time to give everybody a chance to practice speaking in class.” – Plantyn

In addition to the Casse-Cou project, Plantyn and Linguineo have started another project to integrate a chatbot into a language learning method for French and English in secondary education. On top of that, we started a pilot project with Noordhoff, Infinitas’s Dutch subsidiary, to incorporate Linguineo’s technology. Because there are striking differences between Dutch and Flemish kids speaking French, new test phases were necessary to apply that data to the corrective feedback and speech recognition technology.

About Plantyn

Plantyn is part of Infinitas Learning, a European player that provides the educational field with educational materials, with a strong digital focus. They are the parent company of educational publishing companies Plantyn in Belgium, Noordhoff in the Netherlands and Liber in Sweden. Plantyn’s extensive print and digital product portfolio is specifically designed to enhance and enrich the learning process and raise standards of education at all levels.