FEATURE: MUSIC & THE PERFORMING ARTS ELT Songs provides the perfect blended


learning solution in the form of high-quality video content, downloadable Student Worksheets, Teacher’s Guides (also available to purchase as individual books), Flashcards, and links to popular music streaming platforms so that the learning doesn’t have to stop when there’s no screen available. It ticks all the boxes academically as it's firmly


curriculum-based. However, there’s also a high entertainment value which is attention-grabbing and appealing to all of Gen-Z who are growing up in a fast-paced, gamified world, and influenced by the likes of TikTok and Fortnite. It's the perfect mix for logical thinkers and creative thinkers. “Additionally,” Jake says, “it assists visual


learners and learners with disabilities such as me through British Sign Language, songs, and stimulating visuals for which the 18th-century learning approach clearly failed to do.” A base layer learning management system will


business management, and hitting tight deadlines. That’s when the concept of ELT Songs really


hit. “It was an epiphany moment where I realised I could capitalize on these unique stacking skills to create an innovative learning experience perfectly fit for the 21st century,” Jake recalls. “This new concept immediately gave me a huge sense of purpose and quickly superseded any previous aspirations of mine, largely because I was convinced it could help the lives of millions of children who learn in a different style to the outdated ways of the current education systems, such as myself.” By this time, Jake’s son was five years of age


and would notably watch Netflix or YouTube for hours on end but would lose concentration after 5 minutes of lesson time. Jake vividly recalls being his age and having the same experience, even without the fast-paced media we are surrounded by today. Following an entire year of market research,


fine-tuning financial models, pitch decks, and business plans, Jake finally launched ELT Songs LTD in late 2019. “My mission statement was loud and clear, WHERE WORDS FAIL, MUSIC SPEAKS! I promptly raised our first seed investment through iGroup APAC, which enabled me to begin developing content that would soon bring the entertainment industry directly into the classroom.” Music is very important for the development of


children as it motivates minds and stirs emotions in a positive upbeat fashion. For thousands of years, music has solidified itself as the universal language of the world and this is by no means a coincidence as it has the ability to connect humans in a way like no other. There is a significant array of scientific studies


and publications that clearly demonstrates the benefits of using songs in education. It supports multi-level social participation, by uniting an entire classroom of individuals with different confidence levels and diverse backgrounds to listen, learn and engage in a way that they feel most comfortable. Music creates a fully immersive experience, which improves recognition, pronunciation,


November 2021


concentration and has a powerful effect on memory. The content ELT develops is specifically designed for children to learn unintentionally through play and to compete with the fast-paced media that they are becoming increasingly accustomed to outside of the classroom. After ELT Songs was introduced to schools,


100% of teachers using the methods and resources reported instant progress in their students’ scores throughout their early tests of the Planet Pop syllabus. “The teachers themselves were very grateful to


have their lesson plans perfectly prepared by us, with online video content, accompanying offline video workbooks, and very comprehensive teachers notes created by some of the best-selling authors in the world of English Language Teaching,” Jake said. Supported by iGroup, one of APAC region's


largest international publishers, ELT Songs has raised £1.8 million to date in investor capital for their ground-breaking and multi-award-winning work, including funding from Manfred Kastner and his brother Gunther Kastner - founders of Vision micro-finance and Vision education. The brothers have remarkably supported underprivileged families with more than 2 billion USD in microloans and created a free language learning app called LearnMatch, which has received almost 3 million downloads to date. iGroup introduced ELT Songs to the Tokyo MX


in early 2021, a mainstream broadcast TV station in Japan. After viewing the content, they requested that Jake and his team develop a TV show. Since April 2021, the show has been aired weekly and is the only TV show in history to teach English from the ground up. It also happens to be the only TV show ever to be released in Japan without localised embedded subtitles, which according to Japanese natives is very unusual and impressive. ELT Songs has since had over 50 TV broadcast stations in the APAC region alone requesting to license the Planet Pop TV show. Jake stated, “all of our investors came on


board because they are visionaries in their own right and can see the massive potential in our content that is far superior to all other competitors in our arena.”


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soon be added to the platform that will provide teachers and parents with the ability to track their students’ progress. The system will also feature interactive video lessons, speech recognition, gamified points, and reward systems to further engage children and support their parents and teachers worldwide. “All our Planet Pop content is fully aligned to


national and international educational structures and has been created by some of the most influential and successful educators in their respective fields,” Jake said. “I am so excited to announce that we are


opening a new office in Dubai on the 1st of January 2022 where we will be starting some very exciting initiatives with some of the most prestigious educators in the world. Our neon- coloured Planet Pop galaxy will soon be branching out into STEM education for kids, the 17 sustainable development goals, and adult learning for pre A1, A1 and A2 English levels.” In summary, the goals for ELT Songs and Planet


Pop are somewhat limitless in the field of education. Jake and his team fully intend to dominate the B2B and B2C education market with their online platform, accompanying offline video workbooks, teachers’ notes, and additional resources that simply and disruptively blur the lines between education and entertainment.


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