Ef: To be a different English training organization

"When I went to the UK as a teenager to learn English in a real language environment, that experience changed me completely. Later, I decided to create the same opportunity for others, to give them a real language environment, to help them learn new languages and learn about new cultures." Bertil Hult, founder of EF Education First.

In 1965, EF was born in Sweden. After more than 40 years of development, it has opened more than 400 English training centers in more than 50 countries, helping 15 million students learn English and employing 34,000 staff and teachers, making it the largest private English education institution in the world. In 1993, EF entered China and became the first foreign English language training institution to be approved to operate in the country. So far, EF has set up more than 160 training centers in more than 50 cities in China.

Michelle Liang speaks proudly of EF's history. Michelle is the Vice President of English for Work Training of EF China, responsible for the marketing and business development of EF's English for Work education in China. Having worked for leading advertising agencies such as Leo Burnet and Ogilvy & Mather, she likes EF's brand mission: "To break down geographic, linguistic and cultural barriers between people, and to help students acquire good English communication skills and core career development skills to transform their lives through education." In her view, EF is a different training organization. While many English training organizations in China aim to go public and maximize financial returns, EF is committed to breaking down communication barriers and avoiding over-commercialization.

In China, EF's business is growing steadily and its social influence is growing. In 2008, at the invitation of the Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games, EF became the language training service provider for the Beijing Olympic Games, and in 2010, EF contracted to be the language training service provider for the Guangzhou 2010 Asian Games. In the middle and high-end English training field, EF provides students with English for Work, English for Young Learners, corporate language solutions, overseas study Tours and flexible language courses.

What are EF's core competencies? How does EF find and win customers? What brand image does EF want to project? New Marketing spoke with Michelle Liang about these issues.

Dialogue:

Nm: What is the current product structure of EF? What are the target groups? How to segment products and markets for different target groups?

Michelle Liang: EF offers comprehensive and multi-faceted English training services worldwide: For those over 18 years old, there are Professional English courses in China, online English-only courses Englishtown, study Tours overseas for short and medium term study, and business school courses for business people. For young learners aged 3 to 18, there are local English schools for young learners, study Tours for summer and winter holidays, IB courses for overseas high school programs and pre-university courses. It can be said that almost all people who have the need to learn English can always find a suitable service in EF.

Different products and services are provided to the target groups in the system. For example, the English at Work training Center pays more attention to the service of white-collar workers. The curriculum embodies flexibility, including the flexibility of learning methods and course booking, and pays attention to English in practical situations to provide more practice opportunities. Including life club and EF advancement.

New Marketing: Product is the foundation of marketing. What efforts have EF made in product design and teaching capability formation?

Michelle Liang: EF is committed to providing students with the fastest and most effective language learning methods. The core of EF is a senior foreign teacher team, a scientific learning system integrating the latest technology and a global research and development team, which we call the three magic weapons.

The first big magic weapon is the senior foreign teacher team. For any student, the role of teachers is very important in the process of learning. Excellent teachers will make English learning more effective. Ef teachers are from the UK, the US, Canada and other countries where English is the mother tongue. Each teacher has the most authoritative TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) International English Teacher qualification certificate and TKT Cambridge International English Teaching Certificate. And after thorough training at EF headquarters, they are sent to more than 400 branches in more than 50 countries.

Actually, there's a misunderstanding here. I have heard people say that many foreign teachers in China are because they can't find a job abroad, so they have to go abroad to teach their mother tongue, which means that foreign teachers have poor ability and low threshold. Not so much. Having two certificates is the basis for becoming an EF teacher. In addition, we evaluate candidates in terms of character, background, and purpose. According to the feedback of the recruitment team, the success rate of the interview of foreign teachers is only 5%, which can be said to be very demanding.

The second is a state-of-the-art teaching system called Efekta. Ef invested 400 million yuan to develop the system for elite white-collar workers with busy jobs. In 2010, we launched the latest version of our Efekta10 English learning system at a cost of $5.5 million. In the past three years, we have been innovating, using advanced speech recognition technology, online English teachers and novel teaching videos, and the learning speed has increased by 50% compared with traditional learning methods. The system only works at EF's more than 400 language schools and online English courses run by EF Englishtown. It has cutting-edge speech recognition technology, has a unique 24 hour online English classroom, with breakthrough teaching methods, truly realize 365 days, 24 hours unlimited communication with foreign teachers.

The third magic weapon is the world's leading curriculum development team. Based in Boston and Shanghai, EF's academic research and development team consists of more than 200 scientists, linguists, design experts and software developers, focusing on innovation in language learning and helping students achieve the best results. They have designed 500 Hollywood-style videos and more than 1,500 hours of interactive courses to provide a unified, standardized teaching system for EF worldwide. We have set up the world's largest online English learning community (EF Englishtown Friends) and launched EFCELT (EF Cambridge English Proficiency Test) in collaboration with Cambridge University. This remarkable achievement demonstrates the ability of EF R&D to refine and improve language learning skills. Our self-developed textbooks have been recommended by the World Language Advisory Association (WCLT).

New Marketing: How does EF find and win customers?

Michelle Liang: I grew up in the Chinese education system. After I left school, I often didn't think it was necessary to learn English. After working at EF, I realized that I still need to learn English because it will be beneficial to my life. In fact, we are constantly conveying to our students and prospective students that it is necessary to continue learning English and that learning English will help you in your life.

In terms of finding students, we have two main ways: one is through word of mouth, mobilizing students who have a good experience of EF to spread the information of EF, so that they can mobilize people around them to learn; The other is to reach out to potential students and go where they are to spread the word. Instead of waiting passively, we take the initiative to introduce why we should learn English and why EF is the right choice.