By Yun Suh-young

The Educational Testing Service (ETS) has launched SpeakingPal Plus!, a mobile phone learning product that helps users practice speaking English, in collaboration with SpeakingPal Ltd., the company said Tuesday.

The new application, which is available for a free trial through the Apple App store, the Android Market and selected ETS product distributors worldwide, offers interactive speaking exercises, role playing, language activities and TOEIC exercises from ETS.

The product will help users build English-speaking skills anytime and anywhere, according to ETS.

“SpeakingPal Plus! will give students more confidence because it’s friendly, personalized and private, and offers hours of practice,” said Eyal Eshed, president of SpeakingPal Ltd. “The need to speak English is greater than ever but using a new language for the first time can be a challenging task. SpeakingPal Plus! is an engaging and effective self-learning tool because it is media rich, highly interactive and entertaining.”

SpeakingPal Plus! provides mini-lessons to students so that they can learn English in small segments of five minutes or less. This allows students to learn effortlessly during their daily activities while taking advantage of their down time, according to the company.

Through the service, learners will engage in dialog much like in real-life and can control the flow of conversation, the company said. The program also provides instant feedback on students’ speaking performance.

Michael Wilcox, a director at ETS, said he is “proud to work with SpeakingPal Ltd. and help English language learners through mobile devices with which they are most comfortable and familiar.”

The mobile English learning application is available through subscription.

For more information on SpeakingPal Plus!, visit www.ets.org/speakingpalplus or email speakingpalplus@ets.org.