EnglishCentral and Tosho Group Establish an EdTech Joint Venture in Japan
Tokyo, Japan – October 26, 2021.
EnglishCentral today announced a joint venture to develop and distribute English language learning solutions for the school market in Japan with Tosho Printing Co., Ltd (”Tosho”). Tosho is a subsidiary of the Toppan Group, one of Japan’s leading publishing and printing companies with more than $13 billion in annual revenue and more than 52,000 employees.
As part of the joint venture, Tosho educational group and EnglishCentral will establish a venture dedicated to providing services for the K-12 and University school market in Japan. The venture will operate under the EnglishCentral brand and will focus on the K-12 and university students that Tosho touches every year, targeting 1 million students.
EnglishCentral’s IntelliSpeech℠ platform will be at the core of the venture. IntelliSpeech℠ uses AI-powered interactive exercises to help students develop their spoken English by given them instant feedback on their pronunciation and fluency. The IntelliSpeech℠ platform is already bundled with Kirihara’s most successful government approved Textbooks, Pro-Vision, WorldTrek and Empower. The goal of the venture is not only to expand the number of titles and reach of IntelliSpeech℠ but also to create a whole new set of products based on AI-powered chatbots that can effectively both train and assess students’ true communicative ability.
“EnglishCentral is proud to play a key role in Tosho’s digital transformation strategy, “‘ stated Hirofumi Matsumura, the General Manager of EnglishCentral Japan. “I am delighted to expand our partnership with Tosho to accelerate adoption of IntelliSpeech℠ into the K-12 market. The demand for EnglishCentral’s English speaking solutions has been exploding and we are delighted to have a partner with the size and reach of Tosho to help us dramatically expand our footprint in the Japan school market. With the support of Tosho in this new venture, we will exponentially increase our sales and support coverage for the school market in Japan, with seven local branches covering each region of Japan. I’m delighted to be leading this new venture,” he added.
“We are very impressed by how EnglishCentral is applying the latest in AI-powered learning and assessment technologies to the English learning products,” stated Seiji Yano, Senior Managing Director at Tosho. There is still a long way to go to bring the speaking level of Japanese K-12 and university students to compete effectively in the global marketplace. Through this new venture, we are proud to offer new, innovative solutions to Japanese students to help improve their spoken English.”
About EnglishCentral:
EnglishCentral is the most widely adopted AI-powered English language conversation platform in the world, changing the way students and professionals across the globe learn to speak English. Adopted by over 1000 universities, schools and corporations in over 100 countries, the company delivers interactive, video-based language learning experiences for both self-study and one-on-one tutoring, providing one of the most widely adopted and complete platforms for practicing and mastering English conversation online. Its extensive library of video lessons, proprietary IntelliSpeech℠ speech assessment technology, and pre-built course modules guarantee results for English as a Second Language (ESL) learners.