Sasha's director at a major Russian utility had marked him out for the fast lane. Negotiating at international level was a key responsibility for this senior Moscow manager. And the boss felt there was nothing excessive in paying $20,000 a year on bespoke language training for the high-flyer's vital career development.

Then there was Lyuda, eyeing university education overseas and needing official, certified and tested proof of her ability to study and communicate abroad. But $3.60 an hour for large-group tuition was all this young woman could afford.

Contrasting circumstances, contrasting resources. But both had identified English as the world's number one language and the communications medium of today's increasingly global economy.

And both were among last year's 6,000 students in the Russia classrooms of the Language Link School of English, founded in London in 1975. Now, it reports market leadership in providing English lessons in Russia and Central and Eastern Europe, where each day, 300 native-speaking English teachers deliver their professional skills to 15,000 students.

Arrived in 1994

Language Link arrived in Russia in 1994. Today, alongside two centers in the Russian capital, it operates in St. Petersburg, Voronezh, Volgograd, Ekaterinburg, Samara, Krasnodar, Rostov-on-Don, Krasnoyarsk and at more than 30 sub-centers within those cities.

Today, it's the only school of English wholly owned and governed here by an English parent company, although it faces competition from firms including EF English First, BKC and Polyglot.

As Sasha and Lyuda demonstrate, Language Link's students are both private individuals and employees of corporate clients, among them some of the biggest blue-chip businesses working in the federation.

In financial management and banking, for example, courses have been tailor-made for Deloitte and Touche and Alfa Bank. In the energy and chemicals sector, clients have included British Petroleum and Schlumberger. Coca-Cola has sent employees from the food and drinks industry, Daimler-Benz and Otis Elevator from engineering and Bristol-Myers Squibb from pharmaceuticals.

Likewise, the school's teachers have given language training at the Moscow Intercurrency Stock Exchange, are speaking with the Moscow mayor's office about training for employees there and giving classes at the Hermitage in St. Petersburg.

But serving the needs of international corporations and the general public is only part of the profile, officials said. Language Link won its Russian educational license in 1996 and, at the same time, concluded negotiations with the Department of Education and the Moscow Institute for the Upgrading of Teacher Qualifications (MIPKRO).

"With the signing of this contract, Language Link undertook to improve and support the English-speaking abilities of native-Russian English teachers from the Moscow area," said Language Link's managing director for Russia, Robert Jensky.

"To this end, the school has developed a number of teacher development programs containing a mix of seminars, workshops and practical teaching sessions.

"Alongside this, our associations have extended to institutions and organizations, including the Mendeleev Institute in Moscow, the Academic Gymnasium of St. Petersburg University, the International Certification Center in St. Petersburg and the American Chamber of Commerce."

Russia's economic woes since the August 1998 crisis have given added impetus and importance to the school's work with official educational institutions, the company said. The boom years had drained schools and colleges of many highly trained and articulate native-Russian English-language teachers who left for highly paid translating and interpreting jobs with international businesses.

These vacant posts had to be filled, but the replacements often had less specialized skills. Language Link courses for language teachers are helping bridge the gap today, Jensky said, with intensive programs helping them develop their own professional skills for teaching young learners and secondary school students both in everyday English and in business language.

"The financial crash meant many companies reduced staff numbers, and training budgets were cut," Jensky said. "In the business world these days, there's more of a focus on developing the language skills of key management personnel who are responsible for driving an organization's work.

English skills needed

"Naturally, Russian personnel are being trained now for top jobs, and they need quality advanced-level English."

Cambridge Proficiency in English is the top achiever's target, and Language Link students excelled last year with a 100 percent pass rate, the school reported. But courses start at zero-level, too. There's even one for the very young. Children between 5 and 11 can take an elementary to intermediate course featuring songs, games, stories, rhymes and quizzes.

Youths from 12 to 16 are offered a program building on existing knowledge of the language through a topic-based approach of interest to their age group. This features pop music, family life and relationships, and social and cultural issues.

"We say that just listening to English doesn't deliver," Jensky explained. "Nor are books enough on their own. We use games, role play, music, drama and project work. The context isn't the classroom. You have to turn it into a post office, a sports stadium or an aircraft to make lessons real."

Getting students started means them taking a language placement test to diagnose their skill level, Jensky said. "As a course progresses, we monitor performance through a testing and tutorial system which lets us identify strengths and areas to work on.

International exams

"Courses normally last 108 hours at six hours a week, which adds up to half an academic year. More and more of our students want to take international examinations, which they know have widespread recognition in industry and commerce and the education world. This market was virtually nonexistent when we arrived in Moscow."

Equally, international recognition of the school's teaching standards has become a key factor, Jensky said. It gained recognition as an examination center from the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry Examination Board and Trinity College, London.

Keeping standards high means employing the best teachers, Jensky said. Language Link professionals are native English speakers from Britain, Ireland, the United States and Australia. These are university graduates or holders of qualifications such as Cambridge's prized Certificate of English Language Teaching to Adults (CELTA) — considered essential for those wishing to teach English to foreign students professionally.