• Home
  • Programs
    • Learn English!
      • Intensive English Program
      • Free English Program
        • Drop-In Free English
    • TESOL Certificate Online
    • World Language Classes Online or On-Campus
    • Language Travel
    • Private and Semi-Private Tutorials
    • IEP University Pathways
    • Workplace Training
    • Spanish for Healthcare Professionals
    • Host a Student
      • Procedure for Becoming a Host
    • Program Registrations
  • About ILI
    • ILI’s Mission
    • ILI Staff
    • ILI Board of Directors
    • Join our Team
    • Northampton
    • ILI Support and Accreditations
    • ILI Learning Resources
    • Privacy Policy
  • News
  • Partners
    • Educational Partner Resources
  • Volunteer
  • Contact
    • Directions to ILI
  • Donate!

ILI

The International Language Institute of Massachusetts (ILI) promotes intercultural understanding and diverse communities by providing high-quality language instruction and teacher training.

You are here: Home / News / ILI Responds to COVID-19

March 30, 2020

ILI Responds to COVID-19

It’s been a hectic few weeks, but ILI is meeting the COVID-19 challenge!

Teachers and staff are working nonstop to keep ILI up and running for you. Here’s what we’ve accomplished so far…

  1. Our World Language classes are now online. We’re scheduling online private tutorials and taking registrations for 4-week online classes that will start April 7. Get all the details here.
  2. Our Intensive English classes are now online. Teachers are working with students across a number of different platforms to continue delivering high-quality English instruction. ILI is also designing part-time online classes, incorporating the same excellent learner-centered approaches that students from around the world have welcomed over the past 36 years.
  3. Our free English classes for immigrants and refugees continue online, but we need your support now more than ever. Like every nonprofit in our area, we’ve cancelled our annual fundraiser—Giving Voice, which accounts for more than 30% of the money needed to run these classes. Many of our immigrant and refugee students have lost their service-sector jobs and face serious challenges in accessing vital services such as food and health care. They need strong English skills to compete for future employment once hiring resumes. Please help us help them! Donate today.
  4. Our Teacher Training and Workplace Training courses are temporarily postponed while we set up the means to offer them online. Stay tuned!As the scope of this worldwide crisis continues to evolve, you can count on ILI to meet all your language and training needs, now and into the future. If you have any questions about ILI or want to learn more about our online programs, please refer to our Staff Page.

Article by ILI Staff / News

ILI News

  • Erica Avery – October Volunteer Spotlight September 21, 2023
  • Is it really beneficial getting a TESOL certificate? August 15, 2023
  • Our Top 4 Destinations to Learn Spanish Abroad July 19, 2023
  • Volunteer Spotlight: Meet Kim Wolfson July 18, 2023
  • A Beginners Guide on French Culture and Learning French in France June 7, 2023
  • Marco Bittencourt brings a lifetime of multicultural experience to teaching! April 12, 2023

Email Newsletter

Sign up for our email newsletter to get periodic updates on programs and services.

ILI on Instagram

Celebrating the last day of September’s program Celebrating the last day of September’s program with an amazing potluck. Congratulations to Frank for a very successful program. He will be starting a new job at the @uconn on Monday. And happy moon festival, everyone! 🌕
It's a new school year! Here are some highlights o It's a new school year! Here are some highlights of some of the exciting things happening at ILI! ⭐️

•We doubled the number of sections—from 5 to 10—in the free English program for immigrants and refugees. 

•144 students from 29 countries now study online and in-person in standard evening classes and in a new, intensive morning course—all to help them reach their education and career goals! 

•French, German, Italian and Spanish classes are underway with 120 students from across New England learning mostly in person and also online.

•27 International students from 18 countries are spending one to three months or more in our intensive English course. Many stay with host families in the area and are mutually sharing cultural traditions.

•21 employees at Baystate Health, one of ILI’s business partners, are improving their English through our workplace language training program. We tailor the curricula to suit each business, in this case the needs of healthcare workers.

•Students from New Hampshire, Northampton, Pennsylvania and Vermont are enrolled in our online teacher training program, gaining skills that will enable them to teach English to speakers of other languages right here at home or around the world!

•ILI is getting a makeover, thanks in part to a grant from the City of Northampton’s American Rescue Plan Act funds and in collaboration with our landlord, Emerald City Partners. Looking forward to larger classrooms, improved airflow and other renovations, all in compliance with post-COVID recommendations, to better serve students and western Massachusetts communities.

The support from our community helps to make these things possible through donations + investments in ILI’s IMPACT Fund. Visit ili.edu to learn more.
Free English classes expand and so does ILI’s te Free English classes expand and so does ILI’s teacher corps! Meet Greg Kerstetter, another new teacher on the Free English Program Team! 

Greg started teaching elementary school in 2001, switching to teaching from a 10-year stint writing for local newspapers. After nearly 20 years of teaching fourth and fifth grade, he left elementary school teaching to write full-time, both poetry and essays. Greg graduated from ILI’s intensive TESOL program in the fall of 2022.

Learn more about our Free English Program at ili.edu ⭐️

#ili #internationallanguageinstitute #massachusetts #englishprogram #staffspotlight
Unlock your potential! 🔓 With a TESOL Certifica Unlock your potential! 🔓 With a TESOL Certificate, you are qualified to teach English language learners anywhere in the world. 🌏 The International Language Institute of Massachusetts's next Intensive TESOL Certificate Online Course is coming up October 16th-November 10th!

Whether you’re a new or experienced ESL/EFL/ESOL instructor, our World Learning SIT Graduate Institute TESOL intensive course provides practical skills to become a more successful teacher and make a greater impact on the lives of your students.

The SIT TESOL Certificate course is a 180-hour English teacher training program in which you will experiment with and reflect on key teaching frameworks, core TESOL concepts, and multiple language acquisition tools. 

SIT-certified TESOL trainers guide you through a comprehensive curriculum with the following modules: learning, teaching, speaking, pronunciation, structure, listening, reading, writing, and culture.

Learn more and sign up today ili.edu/programs/tesol-certificate ✨ For more information email macey@ili.edu
ILI is looking for local families, living within w ILI is looking for local families, living within walking distance of ILI in downtown Northampton or on a bus route, to host adult international students enrolled in the school's intensive English courses. Currently we have students from 17 different countries studying at the school. It’s a wonderful way to welcome very interested and interesting people as they work on their English skills. And it’s a terrific opportunity for you to broaden your cultural experiences, sharing your family’s traditions with the students as they share theirs with you. 

Hosts receive a weekly stipend to cover their costs ($150 a week for a private room without meals; $250 a week for a private room with meals). The length of stay can vary with the minimum stay of one month. Students attend intensive English classes at ILI Mondays-Thursdays 9-2:30 and Fridays 9-noon.  Visit ili.edu for more information.

And for a first-hand experience about hosting, read Greg Kerstetter's article, Hosting international students is rewarding. Greg teaches in our free English program- read his article in the Daily Hampshire Gazette here: https://www.gazettenet.com/Guest-Columnist-Kerstetter-51945600

Photo by @vagabundodeltiempo 
#ili #internationallanguageinstitute #internationalstudents #hostfamily #northampton
Free English classes expand and so does ILI’s te Free English classes expand and so does ILI’s teacher corps! 

And speaking of the 2023-2024 school year, we have expanded the number of “seats” in the free English program by 72% over the past few years, starting this month! How did this come about? Last December, we received news from our partner, the MA Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, that they accepted our proposal to expand the program, including the addition of a new intensive morning class.

 And that brought about a need to grow our teaching corps. Over the next few days we'll spotlight some of the new teachers in the free English program team.

Meet Calebb Louis
Calebb holds a B.A. in literature and political science from Rutgers University, an M.A. in applied linguistics and a TESOL graduate certificate from Texas A&M University. He is working on an MFA in creative writing at Drexel University.

#ili #internationallanguageinstitute #massachusetts #staffspotlight #englishprogram #ialc
  • Home
  • Programs
  • News
  • Support & Accreditations
  • ILI’s Privacy Policy
  • Contact

© 2023 International Language Institute of Massachusetts, 25 New South Street Northampton, MA 01060 · Site by Turn Signal Media