Eleutian is a company focused on teaching English over the Internet. And Oxford is really good at — well — teaching. The program created between the entities, called TeachCast with Oxford, combines Eleutian's curriculum-delivery abilities with Oxford's curriculum. Oxford approached Eleutian about the partnership about a year ago.
"It (Oxford) didn't go to Harvard ... it came to Cody, Wyo.," said Eleutian CEO Kent Holiday during a phone call from Beijing today. "I think that says a lot. Again, it's Oxford; this isn't some small private college partnering with us."
Oxford's 500-plus-year reputation as a publisher and 900-plus years as an educator should aid Eleutian's image as a 6-yar-old company.
"It's great to know that in Cody, you have a team of people working with the oldest, largest, most respected publisher in the world," Holiday said. "It's kinda two worlds coming together."
The TeachCast system, instead of drawing on Oxford for teachers, will still teach American accents since it will make use of Eleutian's team of U.S.-certified teachers to deliver daily English language lessons. The lessons, drawing on content from Oxford University Press's "Let's Go" and "Business Venture" books, will occur via video-conference to students around the world to large groups of students, making it affordable at under $100 per student per year.
"The TeachCast system is an innovative solution that makes English-language teaching more accessible to children and adults," said Peter Marshall, managing director of the English Language Teaching Division of Oxford University Press in a release. "Over 24 million people have learned English with our Let's Go and Business Venture courses and, by partnering with Eleutian, we will extend our reach even further."
Eleutian is no stranger to teaching English with more than a million English lessons under its belt. Even so, Holiday expressed excitement at the new curriculum.
"If you look at Oxford, right, they're seen as the world leader for education and publishing," he said. "It's great to know that we in Wyoming ... are actually bringing value added to an institution like Oxford. I think it says a lot about the employees that work for Eleutian and in Wyoming in general."
Oxford and Eleutian are initially focusing on Asia, the Middle East and South America but will offer TeachCast with Oxford to their existing channels throughout the world.
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