Enconcept E-Academy

Enconcept
Enconcept English to the MAX
Location
LearnBalance Building, 2991/52-53, Soi Ladprao 101/3, Ladprao Road, Klongchan Sub-district, Bangkapi District, Bangkok Thailand
Coordinates	13°46′27″N 100°37′56″E / 13.774094°N 100.632286°E / 13.774094; 100.632286Coordinates: 13°46′27″N 100°37′56″E / 13.774094°N 100.632286°E / 13.774094; 100.632286
Information
Type	Tutorial School
Established	March, 1995
Opened	1995
School district	Bangkok
Principal	Dr. Dhammasak Ua-Apithorn
Grades	7–12
Color(s)
Information	662-736-3600
Website	www.enconcept.com

Enconcept E-Academy(Thai: th:โรงเรียนเอ็นคอนเส็ปท์ อี แอคเคเดมี่) is an English language tutorial school under Office of the Private Education Commission, Ministry of Education, Thailand. Its main office is located at LearnBalance Building, 2991/52-53, Soi Ladprao 101/3, Ladprao Road, Klongchan Sub-district, Bangkapi District, Bangkok. Enconcept E-Academy was established by Mr. Tanate Ua-Apithorn and Ms. Arisara Tanapakit in March, 1995. At present, Dr. Dhammasak Ua-Apithorn acts as General Manager. Now Enconcept E-Academy has 30 branches nationwide. The academy received Internal Quality Assurance System Award in a Very Good level from Office of the Private Education Commission in 2009.

History

First Era (1995-1999)

Enconcept E-Academy was first established in March, 1995 at 1575/43-44, Soi Watphaitan, Samsennai Sub-district, Phayathai District, Bangkok. The school initially opened for upper secondary school level’s tutorial in various subjects such as English, French, Social Studies, Thai, and Mathematics. It began with only 7 students, then 40, and became 400.^[1] Later, it scoped down and focused on the English language subject led by Ms. Arisara Tanapakit or Kru P’Nan.^[2] In 1999, the academy started to compose music for English teaching based on Edutainment principle. The first song composed was ‘Kong Keaw’ ^[3] (Be concerned with) and another song is ‘Noom Seven’^[3] (A 7/11 guy). The teaching practice accompanied by the songs became popular among students. As a result, the academy produced more songs by combining vocabulary, conversation, grammar, and word roots into the songs. The songs usually talk about teenager lives such as love and fashion with various kinds of music genre, for example, folk song, hip-hop, pop, and rock. These songs were named Memolody coined by blending ‘memory’ and ‘melody’ together.^[4] Now Enconcept E-Academy has more than 260 memolodies, covering more than 3,000 English vocabularies.^[5] After Memolody was integrated into the classroom, the students became enjoyable and spread the new method widely by word of month. The number of students enrolled considerably increased from 400 to 2,000 within only 2 years.^[6] Enconcept E-Academy has also developed new learning materials. While most of tutorial schools use mimeograph or paper copying, Enconcept distributed textbooks by offset printing with attractive design.^[7] The Academic Division and Creative Division are the ones accountable for the learning materials. Some of textbooks were printed with special color to be accompanied with magic filter (color filter paper) which is used for Stereogram to cover English vocabulary items.^[8] Currently, Enconcept has produced approximately 200 English learning textbooks.^[9] At the end of 2009, Enconcept E-Academy has totally 30 branches.

Second Era (2000-2007)

In term of school administration, Enconcept E-Academy provided live teaching and together applied video recording, allotted to other branches in the similar way that other tutorial schools conducted. In 2003, the academy was the first tutorial school that employed the MPEG2(Super VCD) recording which gave better visual display and sound than VHS system.^[5] In 2004, Enconcept E-Academy renovated the classrooms to be more modern based on the idea that knowledge and entertainment could be merged concordantly. The academy developed the class recording system with DVD and installed Smart Board system to increase learning efficiency since digital file formats could be used as teaching materials.^[10] Enconcept E-Academy has also developed Student Call Center, Learning on demand, server set-up, registration system and payment system to support the branch expansion.^[10] In 2006, Enconcept E-Academy expanded its branches to 19 provinces, together 26 branches. In the same year, E-Live system was introduced into the instruction to broadcast the teaching and academic events to all branches over the country. By this way, the students would have a chance to interact with the edutainers and other students in different branches such as asking questions via SMS, Call Center, Web site, and E-mail. Furthermore, Enconcept initiated the use of Boost Back-up, CD Multimedia for practicing listening and speaking English with native speakers in a small amount of time.^[5] At now, Enconcept E-Academy has totally 31 branches as follows.^[11]
1. Enconcept E-Academy Udonthani
2. Enconcept E-Academy Rayong
3. Enconcept E-Academy Ayutthaya
4. Enconcept E-Academy Rama II
5. Enconcept E-Academy Nakornpathom
6. Enconcept E-Academy Suratthani
7. Enconcept E-Academy Chonburi
8. Enconcept E-Academy Nakhornratchasima
9. Enconcept E-Academy Ratchaburi
10. Enconcept E-Academy Nakornsrithammarat
11. Enconcept E-Academy Hat Yai
12. Enconcept E-Academy Hat Yai 2
13. Enconcept E-Academy Phuket
14. Enconcept E-Academy Ubonratchathani
15. Enconcept E-Academy Nakhonsawan
16. Enconcept E-Academy Surin
17. Enconcept E-Academy Khonkaen
18. Enconcept E-Academy Roied
19. Enconcept E-Academy Chiangrai
20. Enconcept E-Academy Trang
21. Enconcept E-Academy Pisanulok
22. Enconcept E-Academy Chiangmai
23. Enconcept E-Academy Future Park Rangsit
24. Enconcept E-Academy Visutkasat
25. Enconcept E-Academy Ngamwongwan
26. Enconcept E-Academy Pinklao
27. Enconcept E-Academy Wongwianyai
28. Enconcept E-Academy Bangkapi
29. Enconcept E-Academy Suphan Buri
30. Enconcept E-Academy Phayathai
31. Enconcept E-Academy Siam Discovery
32. Enconcept E-Academy Siam Orient
33. Enconcept E-Academy Siam Oasis
34. Enconcept E-Academy Mahasarakham
35. Enconcept E-Academy Suphan Buri

Third Era (2008-Present)

In 2008 Enconcept E-Academy invested 25 million Baht^[12] to build an innovative educational technology “S.E.L.F.” (Student Extensive Learning Fitness), which is the genius multimedia for learning English outside the classroom. It includes the translation helping program for the whole article and read the article out loud with different accents of English. S.E.L.F. facilitates listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills for practice in both broadly and deeply. Moreover, a “classroom-like” program brings live teaching in classroom to students for self-revision, “My Coach”, the 24-hour-online program enables communication between teacher and learners, and English proficiency measure program helps students recognize their level comparing to other groups.^[13] In 2009, the Ministry of Education issued the temporary shutdown order to the tutorial schools to avoid the spread of H1N1 influenza virus.^[14] However, Enconcept E-Academy could lessen the impact by applying S.E.L.F. as an alternative multimedia for students to learn from their homes.^[15] Later, the academy improved the technology constantly and opened the Integrated TOEFL iBT Online Course in which students could learn through the system with high quality in visual and audio from homes.^[16]

School Color

     Pink means liveliness reflecting the academy principle “English is alive”

List of Executives

Mr. Tanate Ua-Apithorn
Mr. Thanin Ua-Apithorn
Dr. Dhammasak Ua-Apithorn
Ms. Arisara Tanapakit

School Quality Standards

Enconcept E-Academy is a private English language tutorial school under the promotion, support, development, and enhancement of educational management quality based on Office of the Private Education Commission (OPEC). In 2009, OPEC has awarded Enconcept E-Academy with Internal Quality Assurance System Award in a Very Good level for following all 12 internal quality standards stated below.^[17]
Standard 1. Philosophy and goals of the school are appropriate and can be an indicator for school performance.
Standard 2. Courses are developed to meet the needs of society / local and students.
Standard 3. Learning process management can be based on the curriculum efficiently.
Standard 4. Measurement and assessment process for learners meet actual conditions.
Standard 5. Teachers / instructors are knowledgeable in the subjects they teach and behave/ act appropriately as professional teachers.
Standard 6. Learning achievement is in high level.
Standard 7. Learners have a good attitude towards learning and have pleasant characteristics.
Standard 8. Executives are professional leaders.
Standard 9. Management system is efficient.
Standard 10. Classrooms, school buildings / facilities practices and environment are appropriate to learning. The curricula are adequate and practical.
Standard 11 Services and benefits are provided to learners thoroughly and sufficiently.
Standard 12 The institute has a good relationship with the community in continuous education.

Educational System

Enconcept E-Academy has created a unique teaching approach with the combination of 5 components as the following:

English Excellence

4 major learning structures called “MagiCore”, enhancing English skills and knowledge. These unique English studying strategies called MagiCore were created to help students deal with the English exam effectively, as well as comprehensively use English. The MagiCore is as follows.
1. Strategic Structure introduces the learning methodology which helps support the understanding of components in English structure, resulting in the increasing speed in reading comprehension and grammatical accuracy in writing.^[18]
2. Tree Tactics, initiated by Enconcept, captures essential strategies to achieve high scores in the test. The explanation of English Grammar with a tree that could depict grammar as varied parts of tree so that the students would easily understand the English grammar.^[19]
3. Memolody (Memory + Melody) innovatively commences melody for memorizing vocabulary and grammar in a long term.^[20]
4. S.E.L.F. ( Student Extensive Learning Fitness ) Fitness for learning and practicing all English skills. There are plenty of programs in S.E.L.F., offering self-study at home. With S.E.L.F., students can anywhere practice themselves in Grammar & Structure, Vocabulary, Reading Comprehension, Writing and Listening & Speaking skills.^[21]

Educational Technology

By this step, our school is fully equipped with the efficient audio-visual system such as SmartBoard and E-Studio system which completely contributes to the effectual broadcasting all over country.

Edutainment

The academy attempts to create a pleasant learning environment by combining education and entertainment together in the classroom. The key objective is to build enjoyable atmosphere for students with teaching methodology and application of songs “Memolody” into the classroom.

Endearment

In the concept behind the academy establishment, we recognize that the success of students does not end when they have entered a university. However, life includes other subject matters in which students have different interests and specialties. Students need to learn by their experience to find oneself. Thus, apart from the knowledge, the academy includes moral teaching and extra activities such as educational guide sessions and social activities in order to motivate lifelong learning and be a role model for every student.

E-Live

The E-Live System and WAN Link(Wide Area Network) was applied to our school to broadcast our teaching and academic events to all branches over the country through fiber optics system. By this way, the students would have a chance to interact immediately with edutainers and other students in different branches such as asking questions via SMS.

Student Registration

Student registration at Enconcept E-Academy can be accessed in several ways including via telephoning or going in person at any branch over the country.

School Activities

In-house activities

Apart from English language instruction, Enconcept E-Academy also organizes various kinds of activities for students as follows.
1. Home room provides an opportunity for students to talk or discuss about their lives or problems with their teachers or tutors intimately.^[22]
2. Educational guidance is provided to students in each semester with different names. For example in 2007, the academy conducted “Success Navigator”,^[23] and the faculty selection guidance.
3. English language contest “Enconept E-Mania Tournament”
4. E-Ceremony: Dream Catcher’s Day is organized to congratulate the students who have high performance scores and are able to enter a university with the highest score in each faculty.
5. Enconcept Memolody Singing Contest
6. English Poem Composing Contest
7. English Composition Contest
8. Course Closing Day

Social activities

Enconcept E-Academy usually conducts social activities outside the classroom with the executives, tutors, and staffs, including students and parents in various purposes such as academic, charity, or helping those in need in the country and overseas.

Awards and recognitions

Internal Quality Assurance System Award in a Very Good level from Office of the Private Education Commission in 2009

In popular culture

1. “Kru P’Nan Arisara Tanapakit Sud Yod Diew Karn Sorn Pasa Angrit (Supreme Solo English Teaching)” in VIP TV program, Channel 9, on January 18, 2010^[6]
2. Publicize the academy teaching approach in Poo-Ying thung Poo-Ying TV program, Channel 3
3. Publicize the academy teaching approach through Nawattakum Kwamkit TV program, TPBS Channel
4. Publicize the academy teaching approach through Sabutshow TV program, Channel 5
5. Publicize the academy teaching approach through Saket Kao TV program, Channel 7
6. Publicize the academy teaching approach through Thai Mung TV program, TPBS Channel

External links

• Official Website of Enconcept E-Academy
• E-Academy Facebook Page
• Enconcept E-Academy Hi5 Page

References