Who We Are?

This school is the product of a group of people, who while trying to learn Azerbaijani in less structured private situations, got frustrated. We came to Baku in 1992, when phones lines were bad, tutors were hard to find, and few materials were available. It was slow, painful and inefficient. We knew it could be done better, and each newcomer seemed to be reinventing the wheel. There were no schools or materials available that were of the quality and intensity that we wanted. There were a few resources in the west.... a few cassette tapes, a course here and there at a university, but nothing that was really enabling, here in country, that the average person could learn to speak from.

As more of a critical mass of people collected at our company, (Learning Center) those with linguistic training appeared in the ranks. Over a period of several years a systematic curriculum was introduced, revised, tried, re-revised, and is currently in the process of being published. This includes a systematic grammar in English, and class material for a 3 semester intensive course.

We wanted our course to be taught in Azerbaijani, by Azerbaijanis. So teachers were hired, and trained, and let go, and trained and counseled and and and...It was a great effort to find the right group of teachers who could communicate well cross-culturally, use new and effective learning methods, and work together as a team. But we have, we love them, and we are committed to keeping a quality staff for this course.

Our material is original, including dialogs, songs, artwork, homework, tests, etc.

The course is fun, but it is also intense. To really succeed, our students need to put in at least 1-2 hours of outside work a day. That's in addition to the 3 hours a day, five days a week of class time. Homework is also provided. There are written tests every 2 weeks and oral exams with the final. There are 3 levels, each 10-11 weeks long.

To insure a variety of teaching styles, we have 3 different teachers in every course. Once a week an explanation of grammar in English is also provided by a trained native English speaker.

This course is for those, who, for whatever reason, want to develop actual comprehension and fluency in the Azerbaijani language. It is therefore full time, intensive, and cumulative. It is not a "Berlitz" course that gives a few key phrases so you can get around. It is for those who want to form real relationships with Azerbaijani speakers, such as to work in jobs that require speaking Azerbaijani. It starts at ground zero. Its not for people who already speak Turkish, or who grew up hearing Azerbaijani. We take them from nothing, and make them talk.

Some students choose to live with local families in order to have a more complete language immersion experience.

So far, people from Brazil, Mexico, Sweden, England, Canada, Finland, Norway, Germany, Korea, Kazakhstan, Colombia, Russia, the United States, and Texas have attended our course.

Their vocations have included humanitarian aid workers people on sabbatical from their own work, linguists, church workers, family members of people working here who had free time, English teachers, doctors, college students who took the course and then returned to course work, people who came to Azerbaijan to start businesses and wanted language training first, and our former students retaking the course for review.