International Language Institute

The International Language Institute ILI has long had a global presence through the students it instructs and the teachers it trains. When the leaders of the Halifax-based ILI established the associated English Canada World Organization, their global influence became that much stronger. According to marketing director Chris Musial, English Canada World Organization EC is designed to take the best practices of ILI and establish institutes overseas with other partners.

In October 2005, EC opened an English language training centre in Syria at the new Wadi German Syrian University, having competed for the five-year contract against the British Council and contenders from Australia and the United States. “I am very pleased to see a Canadian firm involved in educational development, a field which is important to Syria and where Canadian companies like yours have a valuable expertise to offer,” wrote the Canadian Ambassador to Syria, Brian J. Davis, in a letter to EC president and CEO Dr. Tom Musial.

“The global economy is controversial but there is a very positive side to it and the positive side is that it can promote worldwide peace and understanding and goodwill and, upon that, commercial interests and trade will follow,” Dr. Musial says. “The positive foundation, however, begins with language and cross-cultural understanding and education, and those are the components that we are now trying to contribute to the positive side of the global economy.” Language, cross-cultural understanding and education have been trademarks of ILI – Nova Scotia’s oldest independent language school – since it was established by the Musial family in 1983. Students from over 60 countries have received language training from ILI teachers, who themselves have taught throughout the world including Egypt, Spain, Korea, India, Guatemala and Germany. Between 400 and 600 students a year receive English training at ILI –registering for periods ranging from two weeks to more than a year.

Students engage in a program which brings together full-time study, an active and wide-ranging social program and the opportunity to stay with a host family. Musial says the homestay program, with its network of about 250 families, is a rich resource. “They have done everything they possibly can to open their families up to non-Canadians and that’s something, to the degree that Nova Scotians do that, that you don’t find in the same way in other parts of Canada or even in other English-speaking countries.” ILI’s Nova Scotia setting also provides a beautiful natural backdrop for a host of social activities ranging from tidal bore rafting to touring Cape Breton’s Cabot Trail.

Pictures of smiling students picking apples, eating lobster and skiing adorn a section of wall at the Institute. The province is, in effect, showcased globally, as participating students receive copies of the photos that they can show to family and friends upon their return home. A second central ILI offering is teacher training. More than 20 years ago, the institute was selected to be the first organization in North America to deliver the University of Cambridge certificate in English language teaching to adults. Students in the teacher training program spend their mornings in study and their afternoons in practice teaching. Senior teachers guide them in their planning of lessons, which are delivered free of charge to adult learners from the community interested in English language instruction. “One of the things that we decided to do from the earliest days was to put in a very good teacher training program so that we always had a steady supply of well-trained teachers,” Musial says. “And by training the teachers, we always got first pick of the very best, and we still do.” Musial says Dalhousie University and Nova Scotia Agricultural College have reviewed the teacher training curriculum and have deemed it the equivalent of a full university credit. He says students benefit from not only completing a requirement for their undergraduate degree, but in gaining “a teacher training certificate designation that’s recognized around the world and that allows them a great deal of job mobility upon graduation.”

ILI has partnered with postsecondary institutions on a number of other projects. These include a university preparatory English program for international students who are interested in attending Nova Scotia Agricultural College or New Brunswick’s Mount Allison University but need further instruction to meet the language requirement. “One student described it to me as a boot camp for university entrance,” says Musial. He explains that there is zero tolerance for absence, there are mandatory supervised homework sessions and students are exposed to a variety of teachers and methods of teaching which mirror the university experience.

Another learning initiative is the Summer Institute in Medical English developed in collaboration with the International Health Office at Dalhousie University’s Faculty of Medicine. The program was initially designed to foster an international medical community by bringing together Canadian and international medical students to train collaboratively using English as the medium, and to forge lasting connections. A low response attributed to costs and medical students’ lack of free time has led to an exploration of adapting the program for physicians, while maintaining the same vision. Additional offerings by ILI include the delivery of French language instruction for government employees and English language testing. ILI was selected to serve as a test centre for the International English Language Testing System and Test of English as a Foreign Language. From English language instruction to teacher training, university collaborations to testing, ILI and now the English Canada World Organization, are making their mark internationally. Still, Musial says Canada has not been assertive enough in promoting its language training capabilities.

“The Canadians have been the last of the English-speaking countries to show up in this marketplace and we’re one of the only Canadian choices for this in the global marketplace,” Musial says. “And so we are really out there working as closely as we can with our trade commissioners to say, ‘You know we don’t have to give this up to the Americans and the British and the Australians. Canada has been too modest for too long.’”