A project to make effective English learning radically simpler.
Simple English is an English-learning product built on one core idea: reuse the best existing knowledge and technology instead of rebuilding solved problems.
SE does not attempt to recreate decades of language-learning research or rebuild technology that already works. It combines:
proven educational knowledge
+ quality open learning material
+ existing open/free technology
+ carefully designed UX
The goal is the most effective and simple learning experience with the least unnecessary work and complexity.
- Research first. Educational decisions start from evidence, not intuition.
- Reuse first. If a problem is already solved well enough, reuse it.
- Simplicity over feature count. Complexity belongs behind the interface.
- Effectiveness over novelty. SE gets no extra credit for inventing things itself.
Internal motto: Research first. Reuse first. Build only what matters. Keep learning simple.
Foundation stage — local-first slice with first real lesson. The app
serves one adapted lesson ("Greetings: How are you?", from PCC's
A Digital Workbook for Beginning ESOL, CC0 — see docs/sources/), plus a
synthetic fixture used by tests. A learner can answer an exercise and
completion persists locally (IndexedDB) across reloads — no account, no
backend. It proves the architecture in ADR-0002, not the product. See the
open R1 issue for the ongoing research track.
Requires Node.js ≥ 20.19 and pnpm ≥ 10.
pnpm install # install dependencies
pnpm dev # dev server
pnpm test # unit tests (Vitest)
pnpm validate:content # validate lesson content against JSON Schema
pnpm build # typecheck + content validation + production build
pnpm test:e2e # build + Playwright end-to-end tests- SPEC.md — canonical product specification
- docs/principles/ — product, learning, and reuse-first philosophy
- docs/adr/ — architecture decision records
- docs/sources/ — educational source registry direction
- CONTRIBUTING.md — how to contribute
- SE source code and SE-authored documentation: MIT
- Third-party educational content retains its original license (e.g., CC BY 4.0) and is tracked in the source registry.
- The "Simple English" name and branding are not covered by the license grant.
Canonical licensing rules: LICENSING.md — see also SPEC.md §13 and docs/sources/.