The English Language Outreach Project is a British Council initiative, run with partner organisations in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. We also work very closely with Russia. The project began in September 2006 and the overall aim is to enable partner organisations in participating countries to deliver English language training in appropriate, up-to-date and innovative ways.

Currently we are working with:

• partner libraries in the British Centres, which are libraries run in conjunction with local partners such as universities, local councils and municipalities
• media (including web portals, radio, television and print)
• software companies
• teaching and training organisations
• exam centres
• alumni and professional associations.

The project reaches large audiences of language teachers, students and professionals through networks that the British Council establishes. This ensures that all these groups have access to a wide variety of resources and opportunities for English language development offered by the British Council. There has been a number of beneficial partnerships so far:

• English Language outreach has been working closely with national on-line providers. In 2007 information on how to learn English was received by over half a million people in the region.
• There are packages of books in thirty nine libraries across Central Europe. These books and CD’s offer English language learning opportunities to a network of 40,000 people in our target audiences.
• From September 2007 to April 2008 we reached over 33,000 teachers, students and professionals in Central Europe through our www.britishcentres.eu website.
• There are currently over 12,000 on-line English courses provided by the project that are being taken in Central Europe. These courses help people with important aspects of language learning such as exam skills and the English they need for work
• We have held face-to-face events for over 1000 teachers in six countries, training them in how to use technology to improve their language teaching.

Go to www.britishcentres.eu for more information.