1. issue 39 — 091
report
Language teaching
lucerne’s streets throng with well-to-do
Japanese, Chinese and indian tourists
drawn by its chocolate-box charm and
the chance for an obligatory group photo
in front of the kapellbrücke (Chapel
Bridge). Just a few metres away on the
shores of der vierwaldstättersee, the old
Hotel national, now converted into
apartments and offices, is unlikely to top
any of their must-see lists. But many of
them may owe the occupants a thank you.
and a perfectly pronounced one at that.
The top two floors of the national are
the international headquarters of educa-
tion First (eF), a firm that has been revo-
lutionising the way many of these tourists
have been learning a second language for
more than four decades.With over 25,000
teachers and 15 million students they are
the world’s largest private educator.The
lucerne tourists can be forgiven for their
lack of interest however, as current eF co-
Ceo (along with his brother alex) philip
Hult concedes:“if you say you work in ed-
ucation to someone at a drinks party, they
tend to head the other way.”
This is probably just fine with Hult, a
member of the very private family of
swedish educators and entrepreneurs
that run this enigmatic education empire.
almost unheard of outside sweden, eF
founder (and philip’s father) Bertil Hult
is consistently ranked in the country’s top
10 wealthiest businessmen in Veckans
Preface
In the past three years,
Swedish language-teaching
company EF has tripled
in size and has left its
competitors speechless. We
profile the family firm that is
transforming the industry.
writer
Jonathan Openshaw
photographers
Nelly Rodriguez,JonTonks
& James Bollen
01 Staff at the London office in front of a
wall of retro EF posters
02 Jesper Bergendal, chief of staff
03 View over Lucerne from the
EF boardroom
04 EF learning materials
speaking
volumes
—Global
01
02
03
04

2. 092 — issue 39
report
Language teaching
issue 39 — 093
Affärer’s annual rich list, and despite
nominally stepping down in 2003, he still
plays an active role in the company along
with sons philip and alex.
“it’s interesting that such a huge
swedish success story with an interesting
character behind it should get so little
news coverage,” says gabriel mellqvist,
reporter for swedish financial daily
Dagens Industri. “any press they get
tends to focus on the family being inter-
national jet set, or on controversies over
their close relationship to the royal family.
very little is reported about the company.
nobody here can remember actually
seeing an annual report from eF.”
“When Bertil established eF in the
mid-1960s there was no real global lan-
guage industry. it was just a messy patch-
work of small, local operators,” explains
Jesper Bergendal, a former male model
who is now chief of staff for eF – and one
of a clutch of swedes holding top posi-
tions. speaking on the balcony of a
boardroom in the lucerne hQ, com-
manding views over the lake up to mount
pilatus and the alps beyond, he says this
“patchwork” industry is actually worth an
estimated €54bn a year (and growing).
The opportunities in asia alone are
vast, with private language teaching in
Japan and south korea estimated at
€11bn each, and the Chinese market
surging to €3.5bn in recent years. “The
big change has been the development of
sophisticated and expensive teaching
technology that gives a clear advantage to
global corporations for the first time,”
explains Bergendal.
The powerhouse behind eF’s rapid
growth (their staff has tripled in the past
three years to around 34,000) has been the
development of one such piece of teach-
ing technology: efekta. in development
for over a decade, with €40m ploughed
into it so far (and €10m allocated for 2011
alone) the system has left other organisa-
tions scratching their heads. Headed by
Dr enio ohmaye in shanghai, eF’s “chief
experience officer” and formerly chief sci-
entist at apple Japan, a 250-strong re-
search and development team constantly
refines the programming, using data from
15 million students. “efekta runs through
a try/apply/test loop,” says Dr ohmaye.
“Beginning with activities online (try), fol-
lowed by group or private lessons (apply),
and finally the test of ability.The system
then adapts to different strengths and
needs on the next learning loop.”
“The more students use the system,
the stronger it gets,” explains Bergendal.
The efekta principles now underpin
all of eF’s global operations, from the Hult
Business schools campuses through to
their international Baccalaureate institu-
tions, englishtown website, travel pro-
grammes and the 400 language schools
dotted everywhere from moscow to
Dubai. “We’re creating the first fully uni-
fied approach to learning, across all coun-
tries and all platforms,” says Bergendal.
With specialist courses in anything from
“oil and gas english” to “medical eng-
lish”, and membership access to unlimited
classes for your monthly fee, this is a world
away from the timetabled classes of old.
eF has found success in this fast
moving industry as competitors have
crumbled, with the 130-year-old giant
Berlitz markedly failing to approach eF’s
growth in recent years. “They had their
heyday in the 1970s, but i think Benesse
[the Japanese company that bought Berlitz
in the 1990s] has done a terrible job,
which we’re obviously thrilled about,” says
Hult. other large local operators have also
struggled; the Japanese giant nova went
through a high-profile meltdown in 2007.
This seems to have left the industry
wide open for eF’s plans for market dom-
ination. “When you think of search, your
reference is google. When you think of
Mp3 players, you think of apple’s white
headphones.We want eF to be that refer-
ence brand for education. i think 70 per
cent of the language market should be
thought of as a goal,” says Bergendal.
and the company’s sights are set on
new markets too. “We’re just beginning
to scratch the surface of a new frontier
05 EF company flag
06 Meeting room at the London offices
07 Jana Thoron, London office manager
08 Entrance hall of the London office
09 Students and staff in Cambridge
Flexible learning
— Japan
It has often been noted that
when it comes to speaking
English, Japan lags behind.
English lessons are part
of the school curriculum,
yet with the focus on
grammar, many pupils
emerge as able readers
but poor conversationalists.
It’s often left to private
language schools to fill
in the gaps later in life.
Gaba is one such
school. The punchy name
is a shortened acronym for
“Girls, be ambitious!
Boys, be audacious!” –
a well-worn phrase uttered
by an American academic,
Dr William S Clark, the first
president of the University
of Hokkaido.
Flexibility is key –
students aren’t tied to
particular times or locations,
which probably explains
why 70 per cent of Gaba’s
18,000 students are working
men and women, mostly in
their twenties and thirties.
They can attend classes at
any of the 34 teaching
studios across Japan –
which run on Sundays,
holidays and early
mornings – and choose
their teachers.
Gaba specialises
in one-on-one lessons,
which suit the typically shy
Japanese student who feels
inhibited by a group class.
The emphasis rests on
conversation rather than
grammatical perfection,
and lessons can be
customised to suit the
student’s needs. Progress
reports are stored online so
that any teacher can pick
up after the last lesson.
Gaba is trying hard to
attract groups who don’t
usually frequent language
schools, offering tailored
plans for children, teens,
university students and
retirees. According to
the company’s Madoka
Oniki, the Gaba method
is all about ditching the
textbooks and encouraging
a natural use of the
language.
The English language
teaching business is only
just recovering from the
dramatic collapse in 2007
of its biggest player, Nova.
However, there was good
news for the industry last
summer when two major
Japanese companies –
the clothes retailer Uniqlo
and the internet shopping
operator Rakuten –
announced that they were
making English their official
business language from
2012. “With the accelerating
globalisation of the business
world, we think that the
demand for English will
grow,” says Oniki. — Fw
01
02
03 06
07
09
04
05
08
01 Fiona Kennedy, creative director
of architecture and built design
02 The Efekta system in action
03 Pär Glautz, staff at Lucerne HQ
04 Andreas Wester and Jacob
Holmberg, graphic designers at
Lucerne HQ

3. 092 — issue 39
report
Language teaching
issue 39 — 093
Affärer’s annual rich list, and despite
nominally stepping down in 2003, he still
plays an active role in the company along
with sons philip and alex.
“it’s interesting that such a huge
swedish success story with an interesting
character behind it should get so little
news coverage,” says gabriel mellqvist,
reporter for swedish financial daily
Dagens Industri. “any press they get
tends to focus on the family being inter-
national jet set, or on controversies over
their close relationship to the royal family.
very little is reported about the company.
nobody here can remember actually
seeing an annual report from eF.”
“When Bertil established eF in the
mid-1960s there was no real global lan-
guage industry. it was just a messy patch-
work of small, local operators,” explains
Jesper Bergendal, a former male model
who is now chief of staff for eF – and one
of a clutch of swedes holding top posi-
tions. speaking on the balcony of a
boardroom in the lucerne hQ, com-
manding views over the lake up to mount
pilatus and the alps beyond, he says this
“patchwork” industry is actually worth an
estimated €54bn a year (and growing).
The opportunities in asia alone are
vast, with private language teaching in
Japan and south korea estimated at
€11bn each, and the Chinese market
surging to €3.5bn in recent years. “The
big change has been the development of
sophisticated and expensive teaching
technology that gives a clear advantage to
global corporations for the first time,”
explains Bergendal.
The powerhouse behind eF’s rapid
growth (their staff has tripled in the past
three years to around 34,000) has been the
development of one such piece of teach-
ing technology: efekta. in development
for over a decade, with €40m ploughed
into it so far (and €10m allocated for 2011
alone) the system has left other organisa-
tions scratching their heads. Headed by
Dr enio ohmaye in shanghai, eF’s “chief
experience officer” and formerly chief sci-
entist at apple Japan, a 250-strong re-
search and development team constantly
refines the programming, using data from
15 million students. “efekta runs through
a try/apply/test loop,” says Dr ohmaye.
“Beginning with activities online (try), fol-
lowed by group or private lessons (apply),
and finally the test of ability.The system
then adapts to different strengths and
needs on the next learning loop.”
“The more students use the system,
the stronger it gets,” explains Bergendal.
The efekta principles now underpin
all of eF’s global operations, from the Hult
Business schools campuses through to
their international Baccalaureate institu-
tions, englishtown website, travel pro-
grammes and the 400 language schools
dotted everywhere from moscow to
Dubai. “We’re creating the first fully uni-
fied approach to learning, across all coun-
tries and all platforms,” says Bergendal.
With specialist courses in anything from
“oil and gas english” to “medical eng-
lish”, and membership access to unlimited
classes for your monthly fee, this is a world
away from the timetabled classes of old.
eF has found success in this fast
moving industry as competitors have
crumbled, with the 130-year-old giant
Berlitz markedly failing to approach eF’s
growth in recent years. “They had their
heyday in the 1970s, but i think Benesse
[the Japanese company that bought Berlitz
in the 1990s] has done a terrible job,
which we’re obviously thrilled about,” says
Hult. other large local operators have also
struggled; the Japanese giant nova went
through a high-profile meltdown in 2007.
This seems to have left the industry
wide open for eF’s plans for market dom-
ination. “When you think of search, your
reference is google. When you think of
Mp3 players, you think of apple’s white
headphones.We want eF to be that refer-
ence brand for education. i think 70 per
cent of the language market should be
thought of as a goal,” says Bergendal.
and the company’s sights are set on
new markets too. “We’re just beginning
to scratch the surface of a new frontier
05 EF company flag
06 Meeting room at the London offices
07 Jana Thoron, London office manager
08 Entrance hall of the London office
09 Students and staff in Cambridge
Flexible learning
— Japan
It has often been noted that
when it comes to speaking
English, Japan lags behind.
English lessons are part
of the school curriculum,
yet with the focus on
grammar, many pupils
emerge as able readers
but poor conversationalists.
It’s often left to private
language schools to fill
in the gaps later in life.
Gaba is one such
school. The punchy name
is a shortened acronym for
“Girls, be ambitious!
Boys, be audacious!” –
a well-worn phrase uttered
by an American academic,
Dr William S Clark, the first
president of the University
of Hokkaido.
Flexibility is key –
students aren’t tied to
particular times or locations,
which probably explains
why 70 per cent of Gaba’s
18,000 students are working
men and women, mostly in
their twenties and thirties.
They can attend classes at
any of the 34 teaching
studios across Japan –
which run on Sundays,
holidays and early
mornings – and choose
their teachers.
Gaba specialises
in one-on-one lessons,
which suit the typically shy
Japanese student who feels
inhibited by a group class.
The emphasis rests on
conversation rather than
grammatical perfection,
and lessons can be
customised to suit the
student’s needs. Progress
reports are stored online so
that any teacher can pick
up after the last lesson.
Gaba is trying hard to
attract groups who don’t
usually frequent language
schools, offering tailored
plans for children, teens,
university students and
retirees. According to
the company’s Madoka
Oniki, the Gaba method
is all about ditching the
textbooks and encouraging
a natural use of the
language.
The English language
teaching business is only
just recovering from the
dramatic collapse in 2007
of its biggest player, Nova.
However, there was good
news for the industry last
summer when two major
Japanese companies –
the clothes retailer Uniqlo
and the internet shopping
operator Rakuten –
announced that they were
making English their official
business language from
2012. “With the accelerating
globalisation of the business
world, we think that the
demand for English will
grow,” says Oniki. — Fw
01
02
03 06
07
09
04
05
08
01 Fiona Kennedy, creative director
of architecture and built design
02 The Efekta system in action
03 Pär Glautz, staff at Lucerne HQ
04 Andreas Wester and Jacob
Holmberg, graphic designers at
Lucerne HQ

4. 094 — issue 39
report
Language teaching
for us, which is taking what we know and
selling it into existing school systems,”
says Hult. “We’re already working on a
pilot project in saudi arabia to redesign
their national curriculum.”
Back in london at the eF offices in
south kensington, the Hults’ total ap-
proach to redesigning education can be
seen in a four-year global strategy for
school design and architecture, already
well underway. staff sit chatting on eames
chairs surrounded by key pieces of con-
temporary art, such as a print from Zhang
Xiaogang.“great design is not a finishing
touch for us,” explains Fiona kennedy,
eF’s creative director of architecture and
built design. “it’s an integral part of the
whole approach to changing the way
people learn.”
kennedy is overseeing a 1,860 sq m
eF flagship school in central london,with
a £2m interior refit and a total re-imagin-
ing of work and recreation spaces. High-
end design collaborations are a key part of
eF’s future vision, and kennedy is already
kitting out facilities with vitra and knoll.
she has plans for bespoke eF designs with
the likes of Capellini, and there’s even talk
of a mobile “education pavilion” with
British designers Barberosgerby.
planning to double their student base
to more than 30 million in the next three
years, the Hults clearly still have a lot to
teach the education industry. — (M)
EF teacher and students in Shanghai
living the lingo
— China
Foreign language study in
China has long focused on
learning by repetition and
memorisation, which gives
students broad vocabularies
but doesn’t make them
conversant. EF has a
different philosophy: it
believes that students
are more engaged in a
multimedia and interactive
educational environment,
with plenty of outlets to
practise the language.
This methodology can
be seen at its Shanghai
children’s schools, where
the ambience feels more
like a birthday party than
a language class. Students
answer questions at
electronic whiteboards,
tape video newscasts at
a mock anchor desk, and
sing English songs while
their teacher strums a guitar.
The curriculum includes
online tutorials and games
so students can supplement
meet the students
— Pupils at EF school in Shanghai
their lessons – and parents
can monitor their progress.
“We need to keep them
motivated to learn for a long
time,” says Jacob Torén,
global president of EF
English First Kids. “It’s so
important that you don’t just
have a teacher telling the
children, ‘This is English’.
They need to live the
language.”
Older students require
similar motivation. At the
company’s adult schools,
there’s a three-step learning
process: students learn a
lesson on a computer in the
iLab, meet one-on-one with
a teacher to practise the
new vocabulary, and then
join other students for
debates in the lounge.
Weighty topics like rising
divorce rates in China are
the norm – not the typical
foreign language classroom
banter about siblings and
favourite foods. — JB
Dammy Jiang, 21
Logistics student
“It’s so competitive in China
that if you want to find a
better job, it’s important to
have skills. Oral English is
one of the best to have.”
Laura Yao, 14
Eighth grade student
“English is a subject
everyone must know – we
use it when we travel, listen
to music and watch films.”
Sayuri Wang, 20
Acting student
“I will go to New York to
study acting next year.
I want to learn English
to make friends there.”
Alex Shen, 12
Sixth grade student
“It’s good for us to learn
in this way because the
foreigners speak like they
do in their daily life.”
Tammy Tang, 14
Ninth grade student
“The teachers are different
to those in our regular
schools, where they teach
us from books. Here they
speak to us in English.”
Ding Guo Jun, 34
Account manager at Bayer
“I work for a Fortune 500
company and need English
to communicate and make
presentations. I want to
show I’m well educated.”