english language school industry tefl efl esol founded washington dc 1961 headquarters princeton new jersey united states number of locations 80 services english courses examination preparation courses university placement parent berlitz international inc. website els language centers the exterior of the els language centers building on oklahoma city university s campus . els educational services is a private entity that provides english language training in the united states . it operates through various language centers often based on a college campus . originally set up as an organization for creating and publishing esl materials els opened its first center in 1961 and shortly thereafter began to focus on teaching . it became a fully owned subsidiary of berlitz languages inc. a part of berlitz international inc. in 1997 . els is headquartered in princeton new jersey . it has been accredited by accet accrediting council for continuing education and training . 1 els if often used by international students to prepare for study at a u.s. university . its curriculum is proprietary and it has a structure that accommodates 12 levels of instruction . certain locations also offer ielts and toefl preparation and testing . contents 1 locations 2 programs 3 historical timeline 4 unions 5 references 6 external links locations edit as of june 2015 els educational services had over 70 locations in the united states canada and australia . els has the largest network of university based english language centers in the world www.els.edu centers . programs edit els programs include two intensive english programs general english and english for academic purposes as well as business english youth and vacation learning programs plus the complete prep program for the toefl ibt . programs features 12 levels of instruction from beginner to masters in most group programs ; practice in all key language skills speaking listening pronunciation vocabulary reading and writing ; classes monday to friday with monthly start dates ; unique curriculum textbooks and branded language learning software . historical timeline edit 1950s els educational services was founded as an english education institute affiliated with the u.s. state department . 2 1961 els language centers opens its first school in washington dc . 3 1970 perry akins named president of els . 1978 first international school is established in japan . 1997 berlitz international inc. acquires els . 4 1998 els headquarters relocates from culver city california to princeton new jersey . perry akins steps down as president remains as a consultant until founding boston educational services 2000 els and berlitz on campus centers merge under the els name . 2002 on line directory is launched for els s university & career school cooperative program at www.collegedirectory.els.edu . 2003 els develops standardized exit testing with ets s the chauncey group . 2007 prep program for the toefl ibt offered at 12 els locations . the els american education center in shanghai . unions edit teachers at els pittsburgh center unionized with the united steelworkers in 2014 . the unit was certified on july 22 2014 . 5 contract negotiation began on january 22 2015 . on march 31 2016 the national labor relations board issued a complaint alleging that els violated that national labor relations act by cutting teachers hours without first bargaining with their union . update as of august 24 2016 the complaint was withdrawn at the request of united steel paper and forestry rubber manufacturing energy allied industrial and service workers international union afl cio clc with approval from nancy wilson regional director of the national labor relations board region 06 . 6 references edit els language centers . study usa . retrieved 23 august 2012 . els language centers oman history . retrieved 21 march 2010 . familiarization tour to els language centers in the usa . retrieved 13 march 2010 . dead link berlitz to buy els educational for 95 million . www.nytimes.com . july 24 1997 . retrieved 13 march 2010 . nlrb . www.nlrb.gov . retrieved 2016 02 29 . nlrb . www.nlrb.gov . retrieved 2016 04 05 . external links edit els language centers homepage http www.els.edu els language centers programs http www.els.edu programs els language centers locations http www.els.edu locations retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title els language centers & oldid 742545919 categories language schools in the united statesschools of english as a second or foreign languageuniversities and colleges in new jerseybenessehidden categories all articles with dead external linksarticles with dead external links from october 2010 navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages edit links this page was last modified on 4 october 2016 at 09 57 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; 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