When I was young, in Romania, English was the language of foreigners. When we heard English or read English it was not our language. The world has moved on. Nowadays it is the language of the global village.
Actually I have always loved English, and have always thought that it is a wonderful language...
I had always wanted to learn it...
and then something happened.
It was a Wednesday morning, I was in my office and the phone rang. Nobody else was there so I had to answer it. I picked up the phone and what followed was one of the worst, most embarrassing moments or rather eternities in my life. At the other end of the line there was one of our joint venture partners from an EU country. He greeted me in English and I hardly managed to say 'good morning” to him, followed by a “sorry, I don't speak English”, that was pretty much all I knew in English, or in a foreign language. He didn't know this, so he tried in French, German and Spanish but in vain.
I did want to learn English before, and had started learning it from books and cassettes several times, I have even attended a short course, but with little success. That experience however pushed me to make a decision and stick to it, to go to a course and learn English. I could have chosen to learn some other language, as I like German and Italian and Spanish too, but English was always the “real thing” for me. English was the language I really liked and enjoyed listening to the most, even if I understood nothing or close to nothing of it. So I thought it would be easier to learn a language I really liked as opposed to “just a foreign language”.
And this is how I started learning and falling in love with English. The more I learned the more I liked it, and now I can say that I do not like English, I LOVE it. I enrolled into an intensive language course, having two hour-lessons four times a week and lots of homework.
I was lucky to have several native speaker teachers from the US and they had a unique style, and used a very different but efficient method of teaching English. We had lessons that we really enjoyed, we were an active “part” of the lesson, it wasn't a teacher-student situation, we were talking, chatting, sharing. We got to know not only the language but also the world of the English (OK, the American) language.
And two years after that embarrassing phone call, I finished my course and was able to fluently communicate in English, both in speaking and writing.
All this happened many years ago, and I have not stopped learning and loving the English language. And as I have experienced myself how efficient and enjoyable the method of our teachers was I thought I should use it and help people/students/children grow to love this language. And this is the number one reason why we set up this business. The number two reason is a well-known quote I once read somewhere: “Find what you love to do and then share that pleasure with others”
I have always known I loved English and would liked to “infect” as many people as possible with the same enthusiasm and enjoyment. So all I needed was somebody to encourage me to follow my dream and would perhaps do it with me. And again, I was lucky, I have found more than that. I have found some devoted people around me and even a native English speaker friend who is a perfect support and “backup” for this adventure: setting up an unconventional language school.
So “English4Life” has been born and here we are...