Evening language courses: why we introduced them to our product range
Thursday, 28th May 2009
Cactus’ first few years in the language learning and training industries revolved for the most part around selling language courses abroad, and tailor-made language training for individuals or small groups.
Our increasing experience within the industry however showed us that there are plenty of ways in which it is possible to learn a language, and that there were other avenues which we had yet to pursue.
It became apparent that there was a large market for part-time evening courses, given that virtually every FE college up and down the country offered foreign language evening courses. It also seemed however, that the majority of these courses were geared towards a GCSE or A Level qualification in a language, which is not always what people want or need.
Rich Ambler, Managing Director of Cactus, had always felt the need, and the responsibility, to work within the local community in some way, and offering courses of this type seemed to fit the bill very well in this regard. In 2004, we began offering part-time evening language courses in Brighton, where our UK office is based.
Although the desire to contribute to the local community was, to a large extent, the catalyst for deciding to offer this type of course initially, the model of this type of learning proved equally as successful as hoped and as a result it was decided that we should expand into the London language-learning market. Three years on, we now run evening courses in 38 centres across the UK, in 28 different languages!
Our initial hopes were that if we could book people onto evening courses we could then offer all our overseas programmes to these people and they would continue and progress their learning there. Although we have realised that they are essentially two different markets that attract different kinds of clients, people do sometimes cross-over to do both.
This third type of language-learning format has proved a great addition to our range of language courses abroad, and tailor-made language training options, and provides yet another way for Cactus’ clients to ‘learn a language their way’.
More about evening courses in the UK
Tags: english, spanish, french, german, italian, learning, languages, cactus, language, language course, evening course, language learning
Posted by Laura Harrison under Types of Courses,
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