About Opentopia
Opentopia Directory Encyclopedia Tools

Berlitz Language Schools

Encyclopedia : B : BE : BER : Berlitz Language Schools

 

To meet Wikipedia's and conform with our [NPOVNPOV] policy, this article or section may require [Cleanupcleanup].
The current version of the article or section reads like an [What Wikipedia is not#Wikipedia is not a soapboxadvertisement].
Please discuss this issue on the [[Talk:|talk page]]. [[Help:Editing|Editing help]] is available.

Berlitz Language Schools, now known as Berlitz International, Inc, derive from an institution founded by Maximilien Berlitz in 1878, in Providence, Rhode Island. It has now expanded into an international franchise with some 600 schools worldwide. The success of the school has been based on the direct method of language instruction, in which pupils learn the new language from scratch, which at its most basic form begins with the teacher pointing to a pen and saying, "It's a pen."

Contents

History

Berlitz had immigrated to the United States from Germany in 1872 with the intent of teaching Greek, Latin, and six other European languages according to the traditional grammar-translation approach. Working as a private teacher for a few years, he later joined Warner Polytechnic College as a professor of French and German language instruction.

The school was severely understaffed, and Berlitz served simultaneously as owner, dean, principal, and only faculty member. Needing an assistant who could teach French, Berlitz hired a Frenchman named Nicholas Joly. Joly had been the most promising candidate, but when the Frenchman arrived in Providence, Berlitz was horrified to find that Joly spoke no English. Already infirm from overwork, Berlitz went on sick leave and told Joly to lead classes to the best of the Frenchman’s ability. Berlitz asked his assistant to point at objects, repeating the French word for them, and act out verbs.

The method was seen as a success. Berlitz returned after six weeks to find the students engaged in fluent exchanges with Joly. The students had progressed more than they would have under traditional rote techniques. Berlitz began to employ this method in the school, and the school—and its ideas—achieved success over time.

Proficiency levels

When a student wants to study a language with Berlitz, he or she must first be placed at a particular level:

Ownership

Berlitz became a subsidiary of Macmillan Publishers in 1966. Berlitz became a publicly traded franchise in 1988 after Maxwell Communication Corporation took over Macmillan. However, in 2001, Berlitz was acquired by Fukutake Publishing Co., Ltd., now known as the Benesse Corporation, and is no longer publicly traded.

Language Center Locations

There are more than 450 Berlitz Language Centers in over 60 countries.

Labor

The country with the largest number of Berlitz Centres in the World is Japan, which has well over 100 schools. However, it is in Japan that there have been some labour-related disputes in recent years regarding union membership and workplace conditions. Due to the fact that most teachers are international workers from English speaking countries, they often have limited access to assistance in any matters of contention with Berlitz.

Sources

See also

External links








 




From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.















Search Titles









0123456789
ABCDEFGHIJ
KLMNOPQRST
UVWXYZ?
















E-mail this article to:



Personal Message: