Broadband makes tiny town an English-teaching hub

Interesting article from Associated Press for anyone interested in e-learning:

The nearest Wal-Mart is two hours away, and only foul weather, a deer in the road or a Washakie County sheriff's deputy would slow down anyone with a mind to drive there faster.

Yet Ten Sleep, population 350, is just as connected as any place these days, and home to a new company that is outsourcing jobs not from the United States to the Far East, but in the opposite direction.

Eleutian Technology hires people in towns across northern Wyoming to teach English to Koreans of all ages using Skype, the free online calling and person-to-person video service. Two years old, Eleutian already is one of Wyoming's fastest-growing businesses. The company has close to 300 teachers hooked up to more than 15,000 students in Korea, and CEO Kent Holiday said he's just getting started.

"Our plan was never to be a company that had a few thousand subscribers," Holiday said. "It's a $100 billion market just between Korea, Japan and China, and so we wanted to be the leader and we wanted to have millions of users."  Full article >>

Comment: The article goes on to say that the teachers are paid $15 per hour to start with, which doesn't sound a lot. I'm sure the online teaching of English will grow as the technology improves but there's always a danger of using technology for technology's sake. I saw a programme on French TV last weekend which showed how some local authorities in France are replacing face-to-face English teaching in primary schools with online lessons given by students in the U.K. via videoprojector. Now that is crazy!