Using Typeform in ELT

A little about Typeform

Typeform is a startup based in Barcelona that took the humble online form and made it beautiful. By adding templates, multimedia, logic, the power of analytics and other aesthetic aspects, it not only makes the task of designing and filling in forms a lot less tedious, but it also significantly increases conversion rates for companies that rely on forms to get leads and make sales.

It’s also a freemium service, which means that you can use a limited version of the software for free, capture information from clients or students, and use as you need to. However, for a full service (and unlimited fields) you will need to pay a monthly fee (from €25 to €59/month, billed yearly).

We use it a lot at ELTjam for user surveys, InnovateELT calls for papers and customer questionnaires, but we wanted to explore how language schools, publishers and teachers can improve their services, classes and get better feedback with Typeform.

Capturing leads

First off, there’s no harm in using Typeform for its original purpose: collecting information from visitors on your website. Typeforms are fully customisable, allowing you to manage the look and feel of your forms and match your branding. You can also use templates to help you build them faster.

The main advantage? When gathering data from leads looking for English learning products or programmes, Typeforms are more effective than regular forms because fewer people abandon them halfway through.

The caveat is, of course, that you’ll have to pay for the service if you want full functionality, which not the case for self-built forms or free plugins. Clearly, this purpose is best for ELT academies with marketing budgets, but ambitious freelancers might also want to take advantage of this and get an edge over less tech-savvy competition.

Meeting expectations

Typeform offers a number of different templates, which can be used for feedback or market research. By gathering regular feedback from your clients, you can measure how well your service is meeting expectations – and then make changes where necessary. To make life easier, Typeform can be integrated with many other platforms such as MailChimp, Slack and Hubspot.

Schools could also use Typeform for online level testing or making their sign-up process more streamlined.

In fact, they have actually created an English Placement Test Template for you to use, so you don’t have to worry about creating one yourself.

For larger schools or businesses, the paid version is more powerful, however, for those who don’t need to collect more than 100 responses a month and are happy with just 10 questions per typeform – the free version would suffice.

Starting your course

Teachers, too, can use Typeforms to their advantage. Needs Analyses are traditionally quite boring things for students to fill in. By carefully designing an online Typeform, you can gather all the information you need and be a lot more creative at the same time. It allows you to add images, multimedia, and other information to illustrate your form and engage students further – and this can make an excellent impression at the start of the course.

Moreover, students can also be more creative when answering questions – giving you richer information including links, multimedia and all of the things you cannot do with a simple paper form.

Finally, when it comes to sorting the data, it will all be in one place and there is no danger of misplacing your folder full of analysis forms!

Measuring progress

While not strictly designed for this purpose, the paid version of Typeform can be used to build student quizzes to measure progress and understanding.  

You can easily design multiple choice and open answer tests (including photos or videos) and gather student answers. Thanks to its customizability, Typeform can compete with other excellent teaching tools like Quizlet.

Encouraging collaboration

Typeform is extremely easy to use for teachers and students. As such, both the freemium and paid versions of the service are great for in-class project work.

You can add an element of blended learning to your classes by having students design surveys for their classmates. While this can just as easily be done on paper, the multimedia features (adding images or video, for example) allow students to be more creative with their questions.

Online courses can also be enhanced, as students can interact and collaborate with their classmates remotely, using Typeform as a tool.

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Have you ever used Typeform? Can you think of any other uses for this service in your class? Let us know in the comments.

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