Melanie Butler explores the secrets behind the UK’s top-ranking EFL region

The West of England is back on the map.

First, the UK government set up a new regional authority for this historic area, which encompasses Bristol and Bath and parts of the counties of Somerset and Gloucestershire. Then, the Gazette discovered that, based on British Council Inspection reports, it is the best UK region for English language courses.

With a mean average score of 6.5, Bristol and the West of England just nosed ahead of Cambridge and the East of England. Bristol itself comes in as the top-ranking ELT city, with an average score of 7.75, compared to 7.5 for runner-up Oxford.

But then, this region is the third-strongest economy in the UK. It boasts breathtaking countryside, historic towns and five universities: two in Bristol, two in Bath and the University of Gloucestershire, with campuses in both Gloucester and Cheltenham.

The EFL community is clustered around the university cities. These include the Regency spa town of Cheltenham, which boasts one of England’s long-established private language schools, Inlingua, along with the Gloucestershire College of Further Education and a new University.

The ancient city of Bath first became a name in EFL in the 1980s for its specialist business English schools. Only one, Linguarama, remains. However, there is a growing band of language schools and colleges in this UNESCO World Heritage Site, where 20 per cent of the population are students.

Bristol, the capital of the region, is consistently voted the best major city in Britain to live in. The city’s oldest EFL school, ELC Bristol, was founded fifty years ago this year and is consistently among the top in the EL Gazette rankings (see page 20). The school is part of the city’s educational establishment: its students hang out in the University Union and it holds summer classes at Clifton College, the nearby public school.

Another important part of the Bristol scene is International House Bristol, another high-ranking school and a major teacher training provider. As director Val Hennessy explains on page 14, the school recruits trainee teachers from across the region, which helps create a supply of good local teachers for the language schools, state colleges and universities that dot the city and region.

As the EFL infrastructure has widened, so has the range and variety of providers located in the city. They include BLC, which boasts its own innovative au pair and internship schemes, top-ranking home tuition provider, Living Learning Languages; and summer school Lines Languages.

In more recent years, other major chains have set up shop here: EC, EF and OISE all have centers in Bristol. Kaplan is just down the road in Bath.

But it is the steady growth of the West of England industry which has created the networks of teachers, host families and administrators which underpin its success in British Council inspections.

When it comes to EFL destinations, the West of England is second to none.