A little fatter than 2 years ago, Luc is still simple with flip-flops, a T-shirt, and especially his eyes are still full of determination about a path "the further you go, the wider it becomes, dreams must come true" in a recent conversation with Thanh Nien Newspaper reporter. Luc said that in recent years, he has had more stumbles and has matured more in terms of partnership and business strategy.
"In 2021, we dreamed of bringing Linearthinking internationally, at that time we only had one center in Ho Chi Minh City. But in 2023, the dream is very close. The further we go, the wider the road becomes," said the former student of the specialized math class at the Gifted High School (Ho Chi Minh City National University), who started a business with DOL English in the field of technology education , valued at 25 million USD.
Luc (31 years old) is from Gia Lai. He still remembers his junior high school days. In his hometown, learning English was mainly about grammar, and teachers were not really strong in listening and speaking skills. Luc was a student majoring in natural sciences , so he did not spend much time on this subject. "Back then, I used to read the word "student" as "sờ tu den té", he recalled.
The obsession with English continued with Luc in high school, when he passed the entrance exam for the specialized math class at the Gifted High School (Ho Chi Minh City National University). "I was shocked. I didn't understand anything when I read the English test, and on the first test I got 3 points, while there were friends in my class who had an IELTS score of 8.0 since grade 9," Luc said.
Le Dinh Luc, founder of DOL English.
Seeing that the situation was not good, Luc tried to find a way to improve it. Normally, the math major spent 14 hours solving math problems every day, but now he cut it down to only 6 hours so that the remaining 8 hours could be spent studying English. The days of studying were all about diligence, the rest was not really difficult thinking methods. Luc bought a book to learn reading and grammar, looked up the pronunciation of each word, how to use each word, and related words. There were days when he stayed up all night, practicing listening until his ears hurt, determined to understand a basic conversation. Or there were English passages that were only a few lines long, but he took the trouble to look up each word in the dictionary, but when he linked them together, he still didn't understand anything. Sometimes it took him 5 or 6 hours to understand a passage.
Gradually, Luc explored and found a method for himself, which was to see the logic in English, apply mathematical thinking to learning foreign languages, thanks to which the learning process became faster than before. After more than a year, the Gia Lai boy found a new, effective method to learn English. Naming the method "Linearthinking", he started tutoring to earn money when he was in his final years at Ho Chi Minh City University of Economics . At that time, the class was temporarily opened in the living room of the apartment building where Dinh Luc lived. At first, he only intended to tutor English for a short time because he wanted to reduce the cost of support from his family, but unexpectedly, the number of students coming to study through word of mouth was very large, many of them said that studying was effective and saved a lot of time. He realized that this was the right method, and at the same time, this job brought him special joy every morning when he woke up.
Le Dinh Luc believes in the path he is taking.
From this English tutoring class, Luc gradually realized that the education technology market still had many problems and he himself had a solution. The young man graduated from Ho Chi Minh City University of Economics and had a master's degree in business administration from RMIT, turned down a PhD in Australia to start a business with DOL English in 2017. He called it an "all-in" decision, leaving behind all other opportunities.
"When I first started my business, I had nothing but confidence. No money, no team, in short, nothing but enthusiasm, a strong belief that I had a solution. This solution created a completely new educational product. Before that, the market only competed with teachers, with international students, and with that, only those who taught English well were considered good. It was not certain that the quality of teaching could be standardized. It was not certain that every student would be suitable for a teacher. But if there was the right method, every student would be suitable."
"I hold the key to being different, so that I can not only create different products but also help myself balance. Because I don't just rely on teachers, I need a method and teachers to bring this method to students. That is a strong belief, I cling to this belief to do it," Luc recalls.
Finding your own personal English learning method is one thing. Researching and building it into a scientific method that has been certified by the Intellectual Property Office, and then confidently starting an Edtech startup, is another journey that is not simple. Luc said it was a thorny journey.
Luc said that when teaching students, he saw that each person had a different learning style, different background knowledge, different personalities, some people liked to learn while having fun, others liked a serious learning atmosphere... Therefore, when researching a scientific method, Luc and his teammates spent 5 years to complete the method system that he called Linearthinking. Of which, 3 years were spent perfecting the method system, another 2 years were spent training teachers, imparting the method to the next generation, to see how students absorb the knowledge when new teachers impart it.
A class with lots of laughter at DOL English.
"I and teachers like Quynh, Phuc, Tho... tried hard every day in the process of building the method. From this problem, the team looked for problems and solutions, and when teaching, we tried to apply them and then discussed and dissected them to simplify or improve the method. The work was so tiring, we worked hard from early morning to late at night. After many years, trying day after day, the Linearthinking method was born."
When he started his business in 2017, Ho Chi Minh City already had many large, long-standing English systems with strong economic potential. However, Luc said he was confident that DOL English's strength, in addition to the unique Linearthinking English method, was also in the technology system that served the self-study of 4 highly effective skills, constantly improving.
DOL English exchange with students of International University (Ho Chi Minh City National University)
And thanks to following the Edtech direction - applying technology to solve educational problems since 5 years ago, the DOL English system has firmly overcome the pandemic with available platforms to smoothly operate online courses, when life returns to normal, online courses are combined directly. Thanks to this flexibility and quick adaptation, Luc's start-up has attracted the attention of many investors.
Up to now, DOL English is valued at 25 million USD. From the first center on Ba Thang Hai Street, District 10, Ho Chi Minh City, after 3 years, DOL English now has 10 centers in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Da Nang, the number of students up to now is about 50,000 people.
In particular, Luc revealed that this October, DOL will launch the IELTS program for secondary school students. He believes that it will be a "bang" in the Edtech market. And in early 2024, his team will launch a global English learning platform, bringing the Linearthinking method to the international market.
Le Dinh Luc and DOL English interacted with students of the Gifted High School (Ho Chi Minh City National University) a few days ago.
Le Dinh Luc, The owner of the IELTS training center system DOL English , shared that the recent fluctuations in the market of some educational investors made him realize that he should not develop too quickly, but only develop when there are enough teachers, good enough, and enough to supply.
Luc believes that teachers come first, students come later, and when working in education, one must focus entirely on education, not on other areas, and not "hotly" develop into a series of facilities before looking for teachers and managers. The most sustainable solution is to start with people, from teachers to students, and then to other issues.
Le Dinh Luc, founder of DOL English.
Because of this motto, the biggest challenge and obstacle in the development of DOL English is the human resource problem. Where are the teachers? Whether or not teachers can be trained in time is always the biggest concern of Luc and his colleagues while operating and developing their Edtech.
As of now, the IELTS course is the strategic product of this start-up. But the selection and training of teachers to work here is not just IELTS 8.0, there are people with IELTS 8.5, 9.0 still fail the recruitment. Because in addition to this score, candidates must have pedagogical ability, be dedicated, and be ready to answer students' questions sometimes at 1 or 2 am.
The teacher training process also follows a step-by-step process. First, every day, new teachers are trained 1-on-1 on teaching methods continuously for 1 month, then they have to practice teaching - have someone comment - correct and repeat. Before "practicing" teaching students, teachers also have to test the teaching for the instructor to see if the method is good before being taught. The price of this strictness is that teacher training costs are expensive, time-consuming, and the input teachers must be good and of high quality.
To ensure the operation of the center in Hanoi, Luc said that DOL English recruited teachers 7 months in advance and trained them, combining online and in-person teaching to ensure everything was ready. Or in Da Nang, DOL had to fly teachers from Ho Chi Minh City to Da Nang, rent a house to feel secure teaching students while waiting for teachers to be recruited and trained here.
"Although it was difficult at first, we were always confident in going slowly but surely. I always had a desire, since I started teaching English before becoming an educational investor, that what needs to be taught to students is thinking. I am not a fan of rote learning, learning tricks, learning test-solving techniques, but learning thinking, turning everything into thinking. Learning now, but being able to apply it to the future. I always hope that whether it is public education or private education, we will always follow this path, so that every student can improve. Learning becomes better, more interesting."
The recruitment and training of teachers at DOL English is done very systematically.
Currently, Luc allows users to experience many functions for free on the dol.vn website. At the same time, he and his colleagues are also focusing on compiling an online Vietnamese-English dictionary with about 30,000 words. Vietnamese is very rich, but many Vietnamese-English dictionaries are not translated enough and rarely update the "breath" of life. Luc wants his dictionary to have words like "pho tai", "trưng mật", "ố dé", "da de"... in English. The young man born in 1992 also has the ambition that after completing the curriculum, technology system... he will digitize all lectures online, helping high-quality education reach all learners at a cost of only 1/8 compared to the present.
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