How the ESL Industry in China is Changing
China is the wild west of the teaching world. With a booming ESL market, an obsession with English, and a growing economy, China’s newest generation of parents are obsessed with providing their children the best money can buy. In this case, it’s a native-speaking English teacher starting in preschool, all the way through TEFL and SAT tutors for Chinese high school students bound for international universities. While the ESL markets in Japan, Korea and Taiwan are slowly stagnating, China’s ESL jobs have skyrocketed in the last few years, and continue to grow exponentially.
In China, millions are learning English just for leisure
Lynn takes classes at Education First. And they’re not cheap. The course she’s enrolled in costs nearly $6000. EF has English training centers around the world. The company opened its first center in China in 1993 catering to 7 and 8-year-olds. Today, there are more than 200 centers around the country. And EF’s clients are increasingly young professionals — and stay-at-home moms, says EF China’s Executive Vice President Angela Xu.
Stay at home moms, she says, represent a new type of English language learner in China: the leisure learner.
