In our Learn with Our Experts series, we invite specialists to #ShareViews on current trends in education. Today’s guest writer is Elina Marttila, Pedagogical Lead at Sanoma Learning. Elina has spent over 15 years at the intersection of education and digital innovation, connecting the needs of educators and learners with the possibilities of new technology. In her current role, she leads the pedagogical strategy that shapes the future of our Customer Facing Products.  

In this essay, she shares the process of building Speech Coach, Sanoma Learning’s AI‑powered tool designed to help students improve their speaking skills in foreign languages.



Speech Coach: how to build a successful AI solution for education 
By Elina Marttila, Pedagogical Lead at Sanoma Learning

A few years after entering the realm of learning, artificial intelligence already has a relevant impact on education. Although we are still gaining insight into which use cases will prove most successful, the opportunities AI offers for education are already evident, and the industry is looking for tools that can leverage it in strong pedagogical ways. Yet, creating AI tools for education is not an easy task and there are many questions to answer before bringing something to the market that truly makes a difference.

From the problem to the solution 
When developing Speech Coach, our AI‑powered tool to help students improve their speaking skills in foreign languages, the journey started with a real problem we heard from teachers. They told us that, in language learning, speaking practice is one of the most difficult elements to implement well. Students are often shy to speak out loud and use the language, and when practising with a peer, they do not receive the feedback they need to improve their speaking skills. This was a clear message from schools.

After listening to teachers, we sat down with our experienced language publishers from multiple countries and our AI experts to discuss what would be the most pedagogically impactful way to use AI for speaking practice. While the internet is filled with tools and services, the most effective way to make a real impact on learning is to offer support within a context teachers already use and trust. Our learning materials today support thousands of teachers and students across Europe, providing a strong foundation to expand into speaking practice.

Our pedagogy-first approach 
It is easy to lose focus when working with AI, as the domain is still relatively unknown and the opportunities are endless. To ensure we were addressing what schools truly need, we followed a very thoughtful approach guided by two principles: 

1. Always stay focused on the problem to solve  
2. Validate your thoughts regularly 

To develop a tool that genuinely supports educational goals, we worked with our language experts to define the scope for effective speaking practice. As we learned more about AI and the opportunities it offers, we asked ourselves in every step whether each idea supported the core problem we were solving, or whether it was simply a “fancy” feature AI enables. This way we ensured to put pedagogy first, not technology. 

Another key factor was to continuously validate our thinking with teachers: starting from the idea description, moving to mock‑ups, and all the way through to testing the demo.

We learned very quickly that when you are building something truly new, simply asking users what they need is not enough. The key is to iterate your ideas and validate each version to ensure you are solving the right problem in the right way. In this approach, the launch is not the end of development, but a step within the process.

Building success through collaboration  
Developing a successful AI tool for education requires a wide range of competences. At Sanoma Learning, we have a diverse set of knowledge and expertise, and bringing all of this together was essential:

- Our publishing companies in seven countries have extensive pedagogical experience in how to best support language learning and how to build successful learning materials. 
- Our commitment to digital development, together with our recent strong focus on AI, provided us with the best experts to explore how to leverage AI effectively and to identify the most suitable partners. 
- Our reputation as a reliable partner for schools made teachers willing to collaborate with us on the solution. 

This close collaboration between these groups - publishers, AI experts and teachers - helped us set the direction. Without any of these key partners, we would not have achieved the same results. 
 
Where do we go from here?  
The first launch of Speech Coach took place last autumn, and the initial rounds of feedback show extremely positive results. I personally followed a series of lessons where students practised speaking with our solution, and it is rewarding to see how engaged they were. What could be a better outcome than students who are eager to learn from the feedback and willing to iterate to improve their results!

After its launch, 12 teachers and 100 students shared their valuable feedback with us. According to a teacher in Finland, students gained “a new way to practice", and threshold to practising decreased when pronunciation was assessed by AI.

This point of view was supported by students. "AI does not judge, it improves vocabulary, and you end up putting effort into pronunciation", shared a pupil. Another Finnish student also highlighted the tool’s readiness: "Immediate feedback is really good, so you know what went wrong with pronunciation".

Educators told us that this fills a gap that has long been missing in their teaching. This confirmed that our approach to building pedagogically valuable AI products is working well. Now, while we celebrate our first launch, our focus is already on the next iterations and on identifying how to address new educational challenges — always together with our teachers and students.

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About Speech Coach
Speech Coach is part of our commitment to supporting language learning by offering AI-powered tasks that help students and teachers practise language skills more effectively. The exercises in Speech Coach are always connected to the main learning material, matching the vocabulary, theme, and learning level of the given topic.

By embedding AI-powered speaking tasks directly into our materials, we ensure that students can practise in a safe, pedagogically sound environment. The tool introduces AI-assisted pronunciation exercises and AI-assisted conversation exercises that help students speak independently, at their own pace, while receiving personalised support aligned with their learning needs. 
 
Get to know about Speech Coach.