Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to the field of second language acquisition. More particularly, the invention relates to a kit for teaching English as a second language utilized for a phonetic-progressive-integrative teaching method.

Background of the invention

The usage of proper English is highly important as a basic tool for education and for success in many profession areas.

Traditional English teaching methods at schools, teach the ABC letters in its alphabetical order, and teach words by presenting their first letters and sometimes accompanied by a relevant image, so the students learn the word through its translation from their mother tongue, e.g., from Hebrew in this case.

The object of the present invention is to provide a teaching aiding kit that is based on a method that mimics mother tongue acquisition through a phonetic-progressive- integrative process.

It is another object of the present invention to provide prescribed teaching aids comprising a set of booklets and supporting games.

It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a teaching aiding kit that is adapted for students with learning and attention issues, through short experiential learning sessions.

Other objects and advantages of the invention will become apparent as the description proceeds. Summary of the Invention

The present invention relates to a second language teaching system, comprising: a set of booklets for practicing of a phonetic-progressive-integrative learning process, wherein each booklet comprises learning tasks for a specific group of consonants or vowel letters in an order determined by the phonemic and writing complexity of the letters and by their usage frequency in words of said second language, thereby enabling to gradually expose the student to groups of letters; at least one database adapted to store digital media files; and at least one processor configured to extract one or more stored digital media files from said at least one database upon interacting with content associated with at least one booklet, wherein the interaction is established by text-to- speech means that are configured to activate the playing of said extracted digital media files.

According to an embodiment of the invention, the text-to-speech means comprises one or more QR codes associated with each booklet or play cards, wherein each QR code links to at least one of the stored digital media files.

According to an embodiment of the invention, the digital media files are selected from the group consisting of text, audio, video, animation, graphics or any combination thereof. For example, the digital media files may represent voice expressions, vocal messages, images, video clips, animations, text translations, etc.

According to an embodiment of the invention, the QR codes are printed on one or more pages of each booklet.

According to an embodiment of the invention, the at least one database and processor are part of a remote server, a computing device (e.g. desktop or personal computer, laptop, tablet, mobile device such as a smart phone, smartwatch, etc.) or combination of both. According to an embodiment of the invention, the computing device is configured to interact with the text-to-speech means in order to trigger the playing of audible digital media files that may comprise recording of a voice that reads text or vocal expression of the word(s). For example, by optically scanning QR codes or printed text.

In another aspect, the present invention relates to a second language teaching kit, comprising a set of booklets for practicing of a phonetic-progressive-integrative learning process, wherein each booklet includes learning tasks for a specific group of consonants or vowel letters in an order determined by the phonemic and writing complexity of the letters and by their usage frequency in words of said second language, thereby enabling to gradually expose the student to groups of letters.

According to an embodiment of the invention, the learning tasks are adapted to support the learning of correct writing and phoneme of the letters, letters combinations and relevant vocabulary, utilizing multiple senses in parallel.

According to an embodiment of the invention, the learning tasks are selected from the group consisting of writing tasks, phoneme tasks and vocabulary tasks.

According to an embodiment of the invention, the teaching kit further comprises one or more games adapted for practicing and assimilation of letters and words as part of the phonetic-progressive-integrative learning process.

According to an embodiment of the invention, at least one booklet of the set of booklets is implemented on computer software.

In yet another aspect, the present invention relates to a system, comprising: at least one processor; and a memory comprising computer-readable instructions which when executed by the at least one processor causes the processor to execute a a second language teaching kit, wherein the second language teaching kit generates one or more digital learning files for practicing of a phonetic-progressive-integrative learning process, wherein each digital learning file comprises learning tasks for a specific group of consonants or vowel letters in an order determined by the phonemic and writing complexity of the letters and by their usage frequency in words of said second language, thereby enabling to gradually expose the student to groups of letters.

According to an embodiment of the invention, the digital learning files are generated in form of a booklet or play cards.

In a further aspect, the present invention relates to a second language teaching method, comprising generating one or more digital learning files for practicing of a phonetic-progressive-integrative learning process, wherein each digital learning file comprises learning tasks for a specific group of consonants or vowel letters in an order determined by the phonemic and writing complexity of the letters and by their usage frequency in words of said second language, thereby enabling to gradually expose the student to groups of letters.

According to an embodiment of the invention, the method further comprises extracting one or more digital media files from at least one database upon interacting with content associated with at least one digital learning file, wherein the interaction is established by text-to-speech means that are configured to activate the playing of at least one of the digital media files.

Brief Description of the Drawings

In the drawings:

Fig. 1 is an example of a part of the teaching kit that shows a writing task that applies to the group of consonants letters "D", "K" and "H", according to an embodiment of the present invention; Fig. 2A is an example of a part of the teaching kit provided with QR code and that shows a phoneme and vocabulary task that applies to the group of consonants letters "D", "K" and "H", according to an embodiment of the present invention;

Figs. 2B and 2C show examples of parts of the teaching kit provided with several QR codes, each of which associated with a different task or section of the teaching content that is directed to phonetic notation, according to some embodiments of the present invention;

Fig. 3 is an example of a part of the teaching kit that shows a phoneme and vocabulary task that applies to the vowel letter "I", according to an embodiment of the present invention;

Fig. 4 schematically illustrates an example for a four stages sequence of progressive exposure to consonants and then to vowel letters, according to an embodiment of the invention;

Fig. 5 shows an example of a cards memory game that can be part of the teaching kit, according to an embodiment of the present invention;

Fig. 6 schematically illustrates a method of representing the different pronunciations of voiceless alveolar fricative, according to an embodiment of the invention;

Fig. 7 schematically illustrates a method of representing the letters "A", "E" and "I" in Hebrew with no punctuation marks, according to an embodiment of the present invention; and

Fig. 8 schematically illustrates a second language teaching system, according to an embodiment of the invention.

Detailed Description of the Invention

The teaching kit of the present invention is directed to teach the correct phoneme of letters and combinations of letters (phonetic), teaching words comprised of previously taught letters and combinations of letters (progressive) and utilizing various learning routs by teaching the letters, letters combinations (2-3 letters combinations and interactions within a specific word), previously known words, representing text, images, animations and videos, translations and vocal expression of the words, and relevant games, e.g., combination of vocal, visual and textual (integrative) expression of the words. According to an embodiment of the invention, the translation may appear in a language selected by the user, i.e., the meaning of a source language text by means of an equivalent target language text. According to an embodiment of the invention, the teaching kit is also directed to teach phonetic notation (i.e., the visual representation of speech sounds by means of symbols) in accordance with common type of phonetic transcription that uses a phonetic alphabet, such as the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), Americanist phonetic notation, also known as the North American Phonetic Alphabet or NAPA, English Phonotypic Alphabet (EPA), and the like, as also shown hereinafter with respect to the examples of Figs. 2B and 2C.

According to an embodiment of the invention, the teaching kit is also directed to quickly and efficiently learn new words, by displaying the textual, vocal and visual representation of the words, as well as their translation in a selected language by the user. The visual representation of a word can be an image, animation or video that best explain its meaning, wheatear by displaying an object, a part of an object, a sign, a symbol, a number, a letter, gesture, action or interaction.

According to an embodiment of the invention, the teaching kit is also directed to efficiently teach the different possible pronunciation of words, abbreviation and word combinations, wheatear by country, region, dialect, culture or sub-culture.

Differently than previous English teaching methods, the teaching method of the present invention on which the teaching kit is based, gradually expose the student to groups of letters (e.g., alphabet letters) in an order determined by the phonemic and writing complexity of the letters and by its usage frequency in words (and not by the alphabetical order). The method, which the teaching kit is based on, refers herein to a phonetic-progressive-integrative process that involves several stages, where each stage focuses on a different group of letters and to which different learning tasks are applied.

According to an embodiment of the invention, the first taught groups of letters assumed to be the most frequently used, e.g., in the English language, and the easiest ones to learn in terms of phoneme and writing, accompanied by an appropriate vocabulary that can be partially known to the student, elevating a positive learning experience to strengthen the student self-efficacy feeling and to create learning motivation.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, the teaching kit comprises a dedicated set of booklets, where each booklet includes learning tasks for a specific group of consonants or vowel letters. Each group may comprise of at least one letter.

The learning tasks adapted to support the learning of correct writing and phoneme of the letters, letters combinations and relevant vocabulary, utilizing multiple senses in parallel.

The teaching kit may further comprise complementary games for a profound assimilation of the taught letters and words per each relevant learning stage.

Figs. 1 and 2A show examples for some pages of one booklet that is part of the teaching kit that shows learning tasks that applies to the group of consonants modern English letters "D", "K" and "H", according to an embodiment of the present invention. Fig. 1 shows an example for a writing task which is the first ordered learning task according to the method of the present invention that applies to the group of consonants letters "D", "K" and "H". In this embodiment, the writing task refers to how to teach children to write the letters with correct form and positioning by using arrows cues as indicated by numeral 10. Fig. 2A shows an example of a phoneme and vocabulary task, which according to the method of the invention, is a following learning task that applies to the same group of consonants letters "D", "K" and "H". In this example, the phoneme and vocabulary task comprises painting the letters in accordance with correct writing form as indicated by numeral 20, filling-in lower case form of the letters as indicated by numeral 21, and writing the first letter of each object in capital and lower case form as indicated by numeral 22. Using the teaching kit of the present invention, such learning tasks expose the student to specific group of consonants letters and practicing their writing, phoneme and vocabulary, utilizing the student's photographic and acoustic memory. Optionally, the teaching kit may further comprise a cards memory game (shown in Fig. 5), or any other cards game, to provide with an experiential learning.

According to an embodiment of the invention, a booklet comprises text-to-speech means for triggering the playing of digital media files in conjunction with text that appears in the booklet or in a specific page of the booklet, such as playing an audible file that comprises vocal expression such as a voice that reads text, as well as, providing translations of words/text (e.g., by audible and/visual form), images, animations or videos that contain gestures, actions or interactions, in order to best explain the meaning of the learned words . For example, the text-to-speech means can be a printed QR code as indicated by numeral 23 in Fig. 2A. Each QR code may link to at least one stored digital media file (e.g., a vocal message).

Accordingly, Fig. 8 schematically illustrates a second language teaching system 100 in accordance with an embodiment of the invention, which comprises:

At least one booklet 101 for practicing of a phonetic-progressive-integrative learning process, wherein each booklet comprises learning tasks for a specific group of consonants or vowel letters in an order determined by the phonemic and writing complexity of the letters and by their usage frequency in words of said second language, thereby enabling to gradually expose the student to groups of letters; at least one database 102 adapted to store digital media files such as recorded vocal massages, translations, images, animations and videos. For example, a digital media file may represent a voice that reads text in conjunction with printed text that appears in each booklet or can be standalone just for vocabulary learning purpose; and at least one processor 103 configured to extract one or more stored digital media files from said at least one database upon interacting with content associated with said at least one booklet 101, such as printed text, QR code 23, two-dimensional barcode, or other form of a machine-readable optical label that contains information about the item to which it is attached, wherein the interaction is established by text-to-speech means that are configured to activate the playing of one or more stored digital media files.

Figs. 2B and 2C show examples of parts of the teaching kit that is directed to the teaching of phonetic notation, according to some embodiments of the present invention. Fig. 2B shows a part of the teaching kit that is provided in form of a booklet 25 that is directed to teach the different notation of the letter "e" in accordance with its location within a given word (i.e., as indicated at the top section of booklet 25 by the dotted square that indicates of a general location examples of the letter e: " _ e _ / ee / _ e"). Booklet 25 comprises a plurality of QR codes, e.g., as indicated by 26a-26d in the figure. In this example, each QR code 26a-26d refers to at least one digital media file that is associated with a specific teaching of a phonetic notation. In a similar phonetic notation manner to Fig. 2B, Fig. 2C shows a part of the teaching kit that is provided in form of a booklet 27 that is directed to teach the notation of the letter "o" at the end of a word and the notation of the letter "o" in combination with the letter "e" in a word, (i.e., as indicated at the top sections of booklet 25 by the dotted squares). Booklet 27 comprises a plurality of QR codes, e.g., as indicated by 28a and 28b in the figure. In this example, each QR code 28a, 28b refers to at least one digital media file that is associated with a specific teaching of a phonetic notation with respect to words that end with the letter "e" and "o" respectively, and it refers to the teaching of sound-letter patterns such as

"_o_e", e.g., "love", "come", and the like and such as " _ o", e.g., "to", "go", "zero", and the like. According to an embodiment of the invention, the text-to-speech means may comprise an optical scanning means, a processor and a dedicated application that is configured to convert scanned text (e.g., by using OCR) or captured QR code into a locator, identifier, or tracker that points to one or more stored digital media files (e.g., text, audio, animation, video, graphics or any combination thereof), in accordance, to retrieve digital media files, and to activate the retrieved digital media files, e.g., by correspondingly playing audible and/or video and/or animation files, displaying text and presenting translation (in a language selected by the user), etc. For example, the text-to-speech means can trigger a mobile device (e.g., a smartphone), a personal computer provided with an optical scanner, a tablet, a smart watch, a dedicated electronic device, etc.

For example, the digital media files may comprise audio content pronounced in one or more accents and the dedicated application may enable a user to select one or more voice characteristics from a list of available voices and characteristics (e.g., boy, girls, man, woman, as well as accents or dialects such as American, Australian, cockney or Yorkshire, etc.). In particular, this can be useful to emphasize how same words or phrases are pronounced with different accents.

According to an embodiment of the invention, the at least one database 102 and processor 103 are part of a remote server 104, a mobile device 105 or combination of both (i.e., database 102 can be located locally at the mobile device 105, remotely at server 104, or both at the server 104 and mobile device 105). For example, the mobile device 105 is configured to interact with the text-to-speech means in order to trigger the playing of voice read pieces of text, by optically scanning QR code 23 or printed text of booklet 101, sending the scanned data to the processor 103 which in turn extracts one or more corresponding stored digital media files. Mobile device 105 and remote server 104 may communicate via a data network 106 such as the

Internet. Fig. 3 shows an example of a booklet or a play card that is part of the teaching kit of the invention that shows a vocabulary task that applies to the vowel letters "A", "E" and "I" and includes words completion task accompanied by images as indicated by numeral 30.

According to an embodiment of the invention, the teaching kit further comprises a method of representing the different pronunciations of voiceless alveolar fricative with the tip or blade of the tongue against the alveolar ridge (gum line) just behind the teeth, as shown for example in Fig. 6 in which the sign is used to indicate the positioning of the tongue against the alveolar ridge in order to pronounce words that begin with "th" that sound like "S" or "Z", e.g., such as the word "three". For example, the different pronunciations of the "th" letters combinations when making "S" sound (e.g., when pronouncing the word "think") and "Z" sound (e.g., when pronouncing the word “the").

According to an embodiment of the present invention, the teaching kit further comprises a method, thus presenting a proposed convention of representing the letters "A", "E" and "I" in Hebrew with no punctuation marks, as the first two letters "A", "E" are based on the same vocalization of English names of the letters and the corresponding Hebrew words. The last letter "I" comes to differentiate between A and I. Fig. 7 schematically illustrates a method of representing the letters "A", "E" and "I" in Hebrew with no punctuation marks as indicated by rows 41, 42 and 43 respectively, according to an embodiment of the present invention. In this example, four columns are provided for each letter in the English language: column 44 refers to a capital form of the letter, column 45 refers to the lower case form of the letter, column 46 refers to the phonetic sounds of the letter as written in Hebrew, and column 47 refers to the name of the letter as written in Hebrew.

All the above will be better understood through the following illustrative and non- limitative examples. Fig. 4 schematically illustrates an example for a sequence of progressive exposure to consonants and then to vowel letters, in 4 following booklets which can be part of the teaching kit of the present invention. In this example, the exposure to a group of consonant letters P, T and C (step 1), then to a group of consonant letters F, M and B (step 2) and then to a group of consonant letters V, S and N (step B) is followed by the learning of the vowel letter A and related word vocabulary based on the previous learning of said consonant letters (step 4).

Fig. 5 shows an example of a memory game that can be part of the teaching kit, according to an embodiment of the present invention. In this example, the memory game comprises pairs of words and corresponding matching images, thus a user is required to find pairs of cards and each pair of cards includes one card with a word and a second card with a corresponding matching image, in particular while emphasizing the previously learned letter - other than common memory games in which the player is required to find identical images. For example, a card 11 comprises the image of a ball while a corresponding matching card 12 comprises the word "ball" while emphasizing the letter "B" (in this example both in capital and lower case form). Any other cards game may be played using the same cards, in order to establish or further enhance the student's language skills.

According to some embodiments of the present invention, the teaching kit may be implemented as computer software or as an application for a tablet computer and mobile phones, smart watch, or a dedicated electronic device. In such implementation, the invention can be described in the general context of program modules or codes that execute in conjunction with an application program that runs on an operating system on a computer system. For example, the phonetic- progressive-integrative process and the visual representation of the learning tasks described herein may be performed by executable code and instructions stored in computer readable medium and running on one or more processor-based systems. Embodiments of the invention may be implemented as a computer process, e.g., a computer system that encodes a computer program of instructions for executing the computer process. For example, such computer software or mobile application may include scoring of individuals and groups, user to user assistance, difficulty levels, avatars, user ranking, prizes, spiral learning etc., user-specific contents, learning tasks, repetitions and learning curves, etc.

According to an embodiment of the invention, the kit's methods and functions that are implemented on printed matter, may also be implemented on computer software, wheatear by chosen parts, or as a whole.