beyondbrics

The news that China has become the world’s largest market for something no longer surprises anyone – the country’s hunger for everything from steel to Louis Vuitton bags has already transformed many industries. But now that change has reached an unexpected area: English language teaching.

Eleutian, a Wyoming-based company which specializes in English language instruction via video conference, announced Wednesday its expansion into the Chinese market through a merger with Idapted, a Beijing-based English language instruction firm.

“Asia, and especially China, will need far more English teachers than are available to move there,” says Kent Holiday, chief executive of Eleutian. Therefore, he has concluded, the future will be US-based teachers tutoring Asian students via broadband connections.

Eleutian estimates the global English language learning market at US$100bn a year and says Greater China accounts for about 40 per cent of that. South Korea makes up about US$25bn and Japan about US$20bn, while the rest comes from Latin America and the Middle East, according to Holiday.

The bulk of the teachers, however, are elsewhere. Eleutian is based in a place named Tensleep, population 304. Most of the more than 500 teachers employed by the company are based in rural Wyoming as well, and neither finding jobs nor moving to China, where the demand is, would be easy for them.

Eleutian’s entry into the Chinese market will bring them onto video screens in classrooms in a number of second-tier Chinese cities, where the expanding presence of western companies is helping to increase people’s desire to be part of a bigger world.