“Retail in the 21st Century” illustrates our approach to instructional design for language training. We use a video or podcast to build an exercise. The types of exercises can vary.

The most frequently built exercise is a fill-in the blank type. Here the student listens to an audio or watches a video while reading the transcript of the conversation.

But the transcript shows a “shot-gun” pattern. The student must fill-in each blank with the corresponding word.

To do so, the student can use a dictionary. Consequently, the student is focused on listening comprehension as well as checking grammar and spelling.

This is our magic recipe for vocabulary acquisition.

Furthermore, this approach is particularly effective with geeky populations.