The addition of CCEL Christchurch, Eureka in Madrid and Expanish in Buenos Aires now brings IALC’s total membership to 135.

“We’ve been actively looking for new members in Spain and Latin America”

Founded in 1983, the association targets a small group of destination markets each year from which to accept new members, and membership is by invitation only.

“We’ve been actively looking for new members in Spain and Latin America, where past members Academia Columbus and Solexico have been bought by chains,” Jan Capper, executive director of IALC, told The PIE News.

Though New Zealand had not been a target market this year, Capper said IALC was encouraged by CCEL’s proactive approach, and that it “made sense” to invite the school to apply when it approached the association as an opening appeared in Christchurch.

“CCEL is a leading school that had been interested in IALC for many years,” she added.

“We introduced geographically planned growth a few years ago to help us manage the number of enquiries and to keep our global network as balanced as possible,” she explained. “But we divert from the plan when it makes sense, and this intake is a good example of that.”

IALC revised its membership strategy in 2012 to mean that it accepts only a handful of new members each year.

Unlike New Zealand, Spain was included in IALC’s outreach, and Eureka “completes a recent IALC recruitment drive” in the country, following the addition of CLIC last year and Lacunza earlier this year.

Meanwhile in Argentina, “Expanish has a strong reputation, is independent and we think its young owners will make the most of IALC membership.”

Expanish has already had positive feedback from its current partners and increased interest from potential partners thanks to its new IALC membership, its general manager, Murphy Scott, told The PIE News.

“The IALC membership is an instant way for our partners to feel confident with Expanish as a quality language school in Argentina,” he added. “It opens up many doors for new relationships with agencies around the world.”

IALC will continue to look to Latin America for new members in 2016, along with the US, Capper added.