Staff Writer

Tech’s Educational Language Service helped Lee Kyoung Moon learn about Louisiana’s culture and how to speak English. The ELS Language Center, located on the second floor of the Student Center, was established at Tech in January to help international students learn English and get the experience of living in an American society. “I wanted to attend college, but I couldn’t speak English very well, so I enrolled at ELS,” Moon, an ELS student from South Korea, said. “I came to ELS in Ruston because I wanted a very peaceful place with friendly people.” Moon said she likes living in Louisiana but plans to attend college in New York in October. “ELS is a very good program to improve my English,” Moon said. Daniel Erickson, the director of the International Student Office, said he is excited to have the only ELS center in Louisiana at Tech. “The company is called ELS language centers; it teaches [English as a second language],” Erickson said. “They have schools all across the country and all around the world, and we feel very fortunate they picked Tech to locate one of their centers. It says a lot about Tech, that they could have located anywhere.” Erickson said ELS came to Tech because of its campus environment. “It’s kind of a partnership between Tech and ELS on campus because their students live in the dorms, eat in the cafeteria and participate on campus,” Erickson said. “They are not actually Tech students, but we want them to feel at home too.” Erickson said a lot of recruiting goes into keeping the ELS classes full. “Students test into different levels,” Erickson said. “You can’t put students from different levels into the same classroom, so you might have to keep three or four different classrooms full to be operational, and universities sometimes have trouble recruiting.” Erickson said many of the students in the ELS program enroll in the colleges where their center is located. “It brings more diversity to Tech,” Erickson said. “The countries that many of these students come from are from places that [Tech] doesn’t have students.” Erickson said the students come for six months of English before they go on to study. “It is a very intensive program, they have six hours of class a day,” Erickson said. “The students show a great deal of progress because ELS is the best program in the country.” Erickson said they have different classes, such as private instruction, for the students. The classes have a 3-1 student per teacher ratio. “We know that it will be successful, and that it is just going to take some time,” Erickson said. “All the surveys indicate the students are very happy with the program.” Cindy Philips, the ELS center director, said ELS is very happy to be at Tech. “ELS is an intensive English program for international students,” Philips said. Philips said the center opened in January causing the enrollment to be small. “As we get more applications in, we hope that our students learn more about Ruston and Tech, and the great opportunities they present then enrollment will increase,” Philips said. Philips said Tech is a good place to recruit students. “It’s a beautiful campus and being in a small town close to the downtown area, all the new facilities and the many activities the Union Board and Student Government Association bring help the students,” Philips said. Philips also said ELS is happy with their facilities. “We like being in the center of campus because it gives our students an opportunity to interact with Tech students,” Philips said. Philips said when the students finish the program they do not have to take the Test of English as a Foreign Language if they want to enroll at Tech. Philips said, “We encourage Tech students to become conversation partners with our students and to get to know our students because the more our students get involved on campus the more likely our students will enroll.”