ELT CONTENT: What does the future hold for this market?

Author:   EPS, Ltd.

English Language Teaching (ELT) has always been considered a massive cash cow by many of its main players, it is a market characterised by high volume, low margin sales across widely disparate territories. It is plagued by piracy, and limited to an extent by a market that does not particularly need to embrace technological developments. But perhaps most importantly it is a market that is driven by the needs of a core group of people - the ELT teachers. Although it can coax and encourage those needs by offering new technology developments, it will have to continue to deliver to an increasingly mixed group of people for some time to come:

• those teachers and students who embrace technology, who can access material via broadband and who push for online examination systems;

• those who prefer print materials to electronic; and

• those who can only access the internet via a dial-up connection.

On top of this, whilst English will remain the main language for business and global communication for some time, the predicted growth of other languages will mean that many non-native English speakers will also be conversant in one of the other major languages. How this will impact on the ELT market remains to seen, but there seems to be no doubt that the future for ELT publishing will be on multiple media, and multiple platforms for some time to come.

This report examines the history of the ELT market; looks at its current state; covers the offerings and competitive positioning of the key players; and considers change factors such as:

• innovations in testing;

• digital piracy;

• virtual learning environments; and

• technologies such as iPods and iTV.