SpeakUp English is a private English language school founded in 2013 and based in Haifa, Israel. The school helps learners of all ages – from children as young as 4 to adults and business professionals – to improve their spoken English through highly interactive, tailored lessons. Every week, SpeakUp teaches about 650 students, with a team of 30 teachers delivering both in-person and online classes tailored to student needs.
SpeakUp’s methodology prioritizes spoken fluency, clear accent development, and conversational confidence, meaning students should be actively speaking and engaging during lessons, not merely observing or listening.
Kimmi Riggins, HR Manager and Educational Specialist at SpeakUp, shared insights from their experience implementing VEDAMO platform to support the school’s online teaching and broaden access across Israel.
What challenges did the organization have before using VEDAMO?
Before moving lessons online, SpeakUp delivered most of its in-person classes from a single city in Israel. When the school transitioned to online teaching during COVID-19, it discovered that virtual classrooms made it possible to reach learners across the entire country while maintaining the same interactive, speaking-focused approach.
What are the benefits of using VEDAMO?
When SpeakUp transitioned more of its classes online, the school adopted VEDAMO Virtual Classroom for all live teaching (excluding scheduling, which is managed separately via Google Calendar). Kimmi highlights key reasons VEDAMO became their platform of choice:
- Interactive tools such as whiteboard pages and features, drawing, highlighting, and writing tools that keep learners actively engaged.
- Template creation, allowing teachers to build reusable lesson frameworks and access them easily across classes.
- Visibility into lessons, enabling coordination and quality assurance.
This interactive environment supports SpeakUp’s core mission of getting students to speak actively during lessons, helping learners construct sentences, practice pronunciation, and speak fluently with confidence. Teachers love the platform because it mirrors the spontaneity and hands-on feel of in-person lessons—something crucial for spoken English classes. Another benefit we love about VEDAMO is that the students don’t need to download any software. We love the easy-to-use link that enables students to directly enter the lesson.
Direct feedback from teachers and students
Teachers at SpeakUp consistently praise VEDAMO for its ability to keep attention sharp and lessons lively. The platform’s tools, such as drawing and annotating on the whiteboard, encourage students to participate actively rather than passively receive instruction.
Students, too, appreciate the interactive nature of online lessons, noting how easy it is to engage in real speaking practice and receive direct feedback. This aligns with SpeakUp’s methodology of maximizing student talk time and building confidence in conversational English.
To sum up the key benefits of using VEDAMO:
- For teachers: Quick access to reusable lesson templates and powerful interactive tools that support real-time engagement, annotation, and effective teaching of pronunciation and fluency.
- For learners: Personalized, hands-on lessons that encourage active participation and speaking practice, closely replicating the energy of in-person classes in an online environment.
Why this partnership matters
SpeakUp English’s partnership with VEDAMO has been transformational in extending the school’s reach and strengthening the quality of spoken English instruction throughout Israel. By combining robust, interactive online teaching with a strong methodology focused on fluency and confidence, SpeakUp ensures that learners – no matter where they are – receive engaging, tailored lessons that build real communication skills.
This strategic use of VEDAMO has helped SpeakUp reaffirm its mission: to empower students of all ages to speak English fluently and confidently, unlocking broader opportunities in education, business, and life.
