ICLS is a woman-owned, independent language school based in Washington, DC that was founded in 1966 to provide English as a Second Language (ESL) and foreign language training. They also offer high-quality internships at US companies and organizations through their “WIN in the USA” Program.
Their relationships with government agencies and international organizations such as the Department of Defense, US Agency for International Development and the World Bank have been long standing; most have been their clients for over 20 years. Their relationships with individuals who have made language learning a life-long commitment have been just as long.
They are much more than a language school, though. They are a community of teachers, students, and staff who believe in life-long language learning, and they foster a strong student-centered and communicative approach to teaching. Their unique programs, such as their full-service Washington International Internship Network (WIN in the USA) Program and High-Intensity Language Training (HILT), were designed to meet the needs of the international, national, and local communities.
Because they are a boutique language school, their staff provides a high level of personal service and attention to meet the needs of their foreign language and English language students as well as their internship program participants. They place students quickly in a program that is tailored to fit their needs and with a teacher who will ensure they meet their personal and/or professional goals. Their instructors believe in the active use of authentic language and view grammatical knowledge not as an end in itself, but as a tool to convey and comprehend intended meaning in the target language.
THEIR APPROACH
ICLS offers proficiency-based language programs that are designed not only to help participants learn a language’s grammar rules and proper pronunciation, but also to ensure they can comfortably speak the language in conversation and listen to and understand native speakers.
All programs, whether group, individual, or high-intensity, are outcome-oriented rather than book-driven, focus on meeting the goals of the class participant(s), and build confidence in a comfortable learning environment that caters to each student’s learning style.
Working from the premise that students will successfully acquire new knowledge and language skills by engaging in the target language, they encourage them to speak from the very beginning of instruction and to actively form new language structures. Instruction is grounded in meaningful and context-based interactions and the verbal exchanges between students and teachers are designed to ensure that new structures are introduced and recycled.
Companies, non-profits, and government agencies rely on them to help their employees improve their language skills for global success. They measure foreign language proficiency using the Interagency Language Roundtable (ILR) scale, which was developed to measure a person’s ability to communicate in a language. It consists of five levels of language proficiency and is the standard grading scale for language proficiency for the Federal Government.
Programs are continually assessed and monitored to ensure objectives are being met. Due to their school’s size and student-focus, they implement changes quickly based on the feedback they receive.
