Nualang unveils live language tool following acquisition by Wayside

It’s been a big few years for Nualang, the Dublin-based language start-up.

The EI-backed firm has more than 20,000 users, following its partnership with and eventual acquisition by Wayside Publishing, the US language learning firm.

According to Stephen Kelly, the developer of Nualang, the growth came from their own webinar and promotional circuit as well as Wayside’s customer base in schools.

“We did a little pilot with Wayside, before we formalised things and made a multi-year agreement where they made Nualang available to all of their customers for certain languages,” he said.

Kelly explained that teachers all across the United States already used extra support materials and exercises on Wayside’s website alongside its language textbooks.

“It meant that through the existing Wayside platform, they could access Nualang alongside all of those other materials – so the process of adopting some of those customers was really easy,” he said.

Mistakes in language-learning

Nualang was developed by Kelly for Fathom – the tech consultancy firm acquired by Wayside – where he was an intern in 2018.

The initiative received Enterprise Ireland funding under its High Potential Start-Up (HPSU) fund.

This allowed Nualang to undertake an extensive research period, consulting with teachers across the US to find out what they wanted from tech-based language learning in the classroom.

Nualang’s technological approach, combined with Wayside’s standing in language teaching and publishing, made them a natural fit, according to Kelly – with chatbot technology at the fore of its innovation.

The interface’s chatbots, called Nualas, can participate in open-ended conversations with students.

Nualas can listen to a student as they speak into a recorder and conduct written role-play conversations, with their responses varying as they would in a real chat.

The development of the feature, and of Nualang in general, stemmed from Kelly’s frustration with school oral exams and language-learning apps – with both experiences failing to reflect the nuances of real-life conversation.

“I would have really loved to have an app that let me practice conversations without the fear of making mistakes so that when I am speaking to someone, I know they're not going to laugh.

“That’s all part of learning the language. You’ve got to get out there and try it, and make mistakes. But a lot of people struggle with that jump.

“Nualang gives people training wheels to go out and start using it. That’s the gap that we wanted to fit [into],” he said.

AI and chatbot explosion

The use of AI and chatbots like ChatGPT has exploded in recent years, a development that presents as many challenges as opportunities for edtech firms.

The risk that conversations could stray outside of their intended confines has informed Nualang’s approach from the beginning.

Since the introduction of the chat feature, teachers have been able to set strict parameters for what they want to be discussed.

“Because we're dealing with young students, we have to be careful about our use of technology, but we can't be we can't be afraid of embracing some of it.

“But we do have to tread a little bit carefully because we want to make sure that teachers and students are all comfortable with the use of it,” he said.

Treading carefully with AI, however, hasn’t prevented the development of further software.

Nualang Live, their newest feature, allows teachers to introduce interactive language games into the classroom.

The feature, which supports listening and translation exercises, integrates the Nuala chatbots into classroom games that provide students with live feedback.

According to Kelly, this goes beyond the type of exercise regularly relied upon in classrooms.

“What’s perfect for Wayside is that their content is already in Nualang, so the teacher doesn't have to do any extra work. They just have to click a button, a live game appears, with the Wayside content already in there,” he said.

This Making it Work article is produced in partnership with Enterprise Ireland