Page 20 - ELG1807 July Issue 459

COMMENT .

COMMENT .

here is a common belief among EFL
teachers that the miserable terms
and conditions faced by many are
Ta result of rich money-grabbing Cheap
language school owners.
Outside of the current boom markets
such as China and Vietnam, this is unlikely
to be the case.
In mature unregulated markets with easy
access to native-speaker workers – such
as Spain or Thailand – private language
schools are predominately family-owned
single centres or small regional chains. but
The market is seasonal, the hours of
opening restricted and profit margins low.
Without an unending supply of cheap
migrant workers in the form of young
native-speakers happy to work for low
wages for a couple of years, many of these
businesses would collapse.
This is not an easy market to make a
fortune in. Though some people have.
Take Bertil Hult, the Swedish student
who founded a little language travel agency,
EF Education First, in the basement of his
university residence in 1965.
The private company, now run by his
sons, has branched out from language travel
to own language schools, an international
franchise, boarding schools, pathway
programmes, business schools, to name but
a few.
In 2015 Forbes magazine estimated his
personal fortune at $5 billion.
Hult may be the only billionaire to get his
start in English language teaching but there
are a number of other multi-millionaires:
Shane Lipscombe, who opened his first
language school in Japan in 1977, and
Khalid Mahmood who co-founded Apollo
in Vietnam in 1994, for example.
So what differentiates their chains from
the ‘mom and pop’ businesses that dominate
the industry, at least in Europe?
Well, they’re known for looking after they think of is English teaching. flee graduate unemployment at home for
their teachers and offering them career After all, what other work are they going the chance to work for peanuts while they
prospects, but not for lavishing money on to get, since they are unlikely to speak any polish up their English.
them. other languages? And what about the 70,000 international
What makes them different is that they When you tell them they ought to be students who head to the US every year to
all got into the market early and they all trained, they are often surprised. And, work in low-paid summer jobs?
diversified outside the local language school unless there is a recession at home or they Does all this mean that English language
business. teachers should put up with the poor wages
Above all, they all understood that sales The hard reality is that and terrible conditions that they currently
and marketing are much more important in face? Of course not.
building educational brands than providing the business model for It’s just means they are more likely to be
better-than-average teaching. language schools relies successful in regulated growth markets like
The hard reality is that the business Ireland, where better teacher terms and
model for language schools relies not on the not on the quality of the conditions can help good language schools
quality of the teaching but on the quality of teaching but on the quality keep cheap competitors out by raising the
the salesmanship. cost of entry.
Parents, companies and governments still of the salesmanship If the market you are working in is
believe that the only thing required to learn stagnating, move to a market that isn’t.
a language is a native-speaker. Teachers are more likely to be successful
Trained ones are nice, experienced ones need a particular qualification to get a when they unionise and take on the big
are nicer, but not nice enough to pay more visa, they will go for the cheapest quickest chains rather than going after the smaller
money for. option. It should not come as a surprise. family operations.
Worse still, most native-speakers believe After all, waves of European graduates If you are working in a school with no
the same thing. If an English speaker wants have kept the hospitality industry going career prospects, move to a big chain that
to work abroad for a while, the first thing in Britain and Ireland for years, as they has some and just keep moving.
20 July 2018

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