The article that really caught my attention this week was titled, “Google has built a free app to teach English to children in India.” The reason this caught my attention was for a couple of reasons. First, the fact that it was created by Google interests me, as Google is such a large corporation and usually creates quality products. Second was the fact that it is a free app that is helping another country. It was definitely something I wanted to read more about, and I’m glad I did.
The app, called Bolo, was designed to work completely offline and work in rural areas with poor mobile coverage. According to the article, it is optimized for native Hindi speakers and uses Google’s speech recognition and text-to-speech technology. It is geared towards primary aged children and includes cartoon characters and a voice assistant, Diya, to help them learn both English and Hindi in a fun and meaningful way. There are stories in both English and Hindi for students to read and practice, as well as word games. Diya helps children with pronunciations and automatically detects problematic words.
A startling fact is that in India, only 44% of grade 5 students are capable of reading books that are written for grade 2 students. In a pilot scheme of 1,000 children, 64% of children were able to improve their reading skills after using the Bolo app. It is designed to encourage children to love reading and make it become a daily habit. Google also noted that Bolo was released in the name of philanthropy and does not wish to monetize the app in any way. They will continue supporting the app and want to continue improving it as well.
I think it’s amazing that Google is making a difference in the world by creating apps like Bolo. I know that I obviously do not live in India, however there are students in my building that speak Hindi as their native language. This app can be a useful tool for those students in my building just learning English. I also have had students who speak Hindi, but cannot read or write it. I think that not only could this help those students learn English, but it would be a wonderful app for them to even learn how to read their own native language as well. I’m excited to see how Google will continue to grow this app and what others they will develop in the future. The most amazing part is that they have made this free and have vowed to always keep it free, while still developing it to make it better. Shantanu Sinha, Director of Product Management (Google Al), says, “It’s critical that we ensure that everybody on the planet has a shot at creating a better life for themself,” and I couldn’t agree more.
Wow, this is really a cool app! I think it is great that it is for primary grades. There are so many tools for older students to use to aid them in learning English but I sometimes find it challenging to find age appropriate apps for my first graders to use. I think it is awesome that this app is making such a difference and that Google is going to continue to support it and make it better. I hope that they will expand this to other languages as well. Thanks for sharing!
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