ELS Language Centers

I would tend to agree with the other reviewer that this school is better avoided, having taught at over a dozen different language schools myself. I also taught at this school and left voluntarily. The company culture of ELS in general is a bit too stiff to be successful in creating an environment where students can thrive in learning a language. Students are treated a bit like they are in a high school or junior high, and teachers are expected to adhere to a very specific agenda, leaving very little room for creativity and individuality. The best language schools create an environment where both the students and the teachers feel free to interact on a more realistic, personal level. If you are interested in learning English in Santa Barbara, I would recommend EF over this school, even though I have never taught there. I have been in there and can tell that they have the right balance of formality and academic rigor dialed in much more appropriately for a social task such as language learning.

I was a full-​time teacher at the ELS Language Center in Santa Barbara for about a year and I would like to share my in-​depth knowledge of this language school. While working at this school, I had the opportunity to meet some incredible people while coming into contact with cultures that I otherwise might never have had the chance to experience. But to be perfectly honest, I recommend that you DO NOT go to this language school. It is extremely expensive for what you receive in return and there are much better options in Santa Barbara. I will now explain why I say this. First of all, the school is located in a very small space. The location was not originally designed to be a school and has been very poorly adapted in an attempt to make it so. The school is unattractive and has a very low-​budget feel. The carpet is dingy and cheap. The classrooms are very small and even when there are only a few people in the rooms, they feel cramped and uncomfortable. The temperature control is inadequate and the rooms are either extremely too warm or way too cold. The teachers constantly complain that some of the rooms are so hot that it is almost impossible to get anything productive accomplished. The building is located right on a busy street and, at times, the noise outside makes it difficult to hear the teachers. The technological learning tools in this school are extremely outdated. There were two televisions for the whole school and the teachers must push them around on carts when they want to use them. If more than two teachers need the television, there is an obvious problem. The computer lab is filled with old, outdated computers and the computer programs that the students are encouraged to use feel like they are from another era. At times, the computer lab gets so hot that many people begin to sweat. Each student is required to spend one class period a day in the computer lab and I rarely met a student who enjoyed the experience. You are forced to sit in front of the computer and use old programs that could be used in the comfort of your home. Most of the teachers don’t even know how the programs work. The bathrooms for the school are located in a separate part of the building and you have to get a special key to gain access to these bathrooms. If all the keys are taken, you must wait outside the bathroom until somebody comes out and opens the door for you.
The books used in this school are extremely outdated. Many of the articles and stories are almost 20 years old and many times they have no relationship to the world we currently live in. Most of the teachers dislike the books and have to find their own materials to supplement the books to make the lesson work. There are no standardized quizzes for the books so each teacher is required to make their own. The difference in quiz quality from teacher to teacher is inherently unfair. The final exams have been used for so many years that the answers to these exams can be found on the internet. An entire semester is dedicated to teaching a specific book yet the final exam has almost no correlation to the book. There is so much cheating going on that people who should obviously not pass to the next level somehow move up. I encountered numerous students in upper-​level classes who could barely write a couple of sentences. There are several amazing teachers at this school but there are also plenty that have no business teaching. Many of the older teachers have absolutely no ability to relate to the younger generation of students. They are scared to incorporate technology into the classroom and rely on teaching methods that were used many years ago. Some of the teachers are so boring that the students find it hard to stay awake in the classes.
When new students first arrive at ELS, they are required to take a placement exam. This placement exam has been used for many years and is extremely inaccurate. Two parts of the placement exam are subjective and I have seen many instances in which different teachers give widely differing marks on the same exam. The students within each level have such widely different levels of English that the system seems completely broken.
ELS tries to sell their school by saying that anybody who graduates will have access to 600+ colleges and universities in the US. But what they fail to mention is that most of these available institutions are less than mediocre. Look at the list of schools and see if you can recognize more than a handful of them. Most of the students who I saw graduate from this school were nowhere close to being ready to go to university. They had passed the final exam by cheating and manipulating the system, but most still had a very low level of English.
The activities planned for the students are basic and unoriginal and seem to be planned without much thought. Most of the students don’t even partake in the events.
To be fair, there are several amazing teachers at this school. The