Being on the subway to go to work, or traveling by train or bus with hours and hours to occupy or still queuing in the kilometric lines of public offices is already synonymous with a demanding activity. But if we add a mobile phone, an app and the ability to keep up to date by learning English to these ingredients, an intense morning of agony and anticipation can translate into an instructive and fun handful of minutes of study.
This is the meaning of Squid app, aggregator of the most interesting news from authoritative online newspapers, which since last September 24 has launched a new feature for learning English – Learning English. The application is completely free and especially loved by Millennials: once downloaded, you can choose the topics that interest you most and for which you want to stay updated, from technology to food, from travel to health, from fashion to the economy. You click on one of the articles available, read the text and then complete the interactive vocabulary and written comprehension exercises.
To access the articles with the exercises, the user just has to add “Learning English” to his list of favorite categories on the Squid app. Squid Learning English allows the user to keep up to date with the latest news and develop new language skills, instant feedback on the results obtained and an attractive background design.
The new feature is part of an educational program led by a team of linguists and operational since October 2017. The app was in fact launched by 6 young people of different nationalities, including the 32-year-old Italian Giulia Ranuzzi de Bianchi. The goal was to develop an English language teaching tool within the app and which was based on the method known as 'language immersion', i.e. the total immersion of the user in English culture and considered one of the most effective methods for learning a foreign language.
Squid, which is available in Italy, Austria, Germany, Spain, Holland, Poland, Russia and Great Britain, has already started to compete with the most famous aggregators such as Flipboard, News Republic and Feedly, having already reached one million downloads last year April.
Funding initially came from the government and a major Swedish publisher, the country of one of the co-founders, and one of Europe's largest television production companies, Zodiak.
“It is known that when you read a topic that really interests you, you learn with pleasure and much faster,” says Johan Othelius, founder and CEO of the app. Learning English while staying up to date is the main objective of the services offered by Squid.
