Chung Dahm Institute (CDI) teaches English as a Second Language (ESL) to more than 40,000 students throughout South Korea. The institute itself is composed of over sixty-five schools (at the time of this writing) as company-held branches and franchise-licensed campuses. Throughout its major expansion from 2004 to present day, the school system has been the primary generator of revenue for its corporate parent, CDI Holdings, Inc., which is headquartered in Seoul.

Its main branch, Chungdahm Main Branch, started in 1998 as "Mr. Kim's English," after its current CEO, Kim Young Hwa, and is located in the affluent Chungdahm neighborhood of Seoul. First a school with a reputation for rigorous academic English lessons attended primarily by children of wealthy families in the neighborhood, it evolved over time into a mainstream ESL academy targeted at a broader, nationwide student population. It continues to emphasize academic English while orienting its programs toward success on the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) or achievement through enrollment in overseas, or international, programs.

CDI Holdings, Inc., incorporated in 2002, was formed with a broader vision of meeting Asia's rise with diversified language, content, media, and life consulting above and beyond mere English language acquisition fare. It offers as its mission on its corporate website, "to help people realize their potential and thereby discover new meaning in their lives."

Business Areas

CDI Holdings, Inc. operates a variety of businesses to include ESL; u-Learning, or online instruction; Chinese language; new media content, global learning, ESL lifestyle; and instructor recruitment and training. CDI academies are located throughout South Korea and the corporation itself maintains a global network of affiliates in the Philippines; China; Canada; and New York City.

Language academies. CDI operates schools in Seoul and throughout Korea under the brands, April English, CDI, and CDI Test Prep. CDI's instruction develops students' fundamental, applied, and academic English skills for listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Their multi-level courses take students from beginner to advanced native-level refinement, and their prep centers prepare students for achievement on the iBT TOEFL exam. There are also several elective programs oriented towards specialty topics such as Parliamentary Debate or Report and Essay Writing, which may contribute to success at private academies. CDI is also diversifying its programming, having acquired Quick Chinese, a Chinese language instruction program, in 2006.

ESL Content and R&D. CDI runs a research and development center which conducts research on various disciplines such as second-language acquisition theories, teaching and learning methodologies, linguistics, educational psychology, with the aim of applying this research to designing, planning, and developing specific products for the educational market.

Overseas Study. CDI also provides study abroad in Canada, which affords the opportunity for students to dramatically increase their language fluency and application skills in a short, compressed period of time.

e-Learning. Called WM, for Waking Minds or Writing Master, the online site provides students with e-learning coursework to develop logical writing and organization skills.

Faculty Human Resources. Since 2005, and the opening of the CDI Training Center, CDI has screened, interviewed, and selected from thousands of foreign applicants in Korea and from recent university graduate pools overseas. The Training Center has to date successfully trained over 600 teachers, and placed them at branch and campus schools throughout the nation.

Recruitment

Initially the faculty was personally formed by Kim Young-Hwa, the school's princpal and owner, with Korean and Korean-Americans who graduated from Ivy League schools such as Harvard, Princeton, Duke and other notable North American universities. With increasing need for high quality teachers, the first leadership team introduced a writing test and interview process to screen potential candidates from broader university backgrounds and experiences. This system is still intact today as a more professionalized process involving application screening, interview, and a multi-day training regimen.

Impact on ESL Education in Korea

Since its inception, "Passion for Education and Compassion for Students" has been its mantra, as stated in training literature its code of conduct, and recruitment website. The overall focus of the school has been to select high quality native English-speaking teachers from a systematized recruitment process and to match such people with the content, which geared students toward achievement in academic English and test-based skills. At around 2004, this business and education model was in stark contrast to large portions of the "hagwon" (Korean, for private academy) industry which focused on drills, unstructured free conversation, vocabulary, and grammar.

Notable Contributors and Faculty

Kim Young Hwa, CEO<br />
Song Moon Keun, CRO, V.P.

Trivia

In November 2006 the "Almond Tease" scandal received national news coverage in Korea when an instructor was discovered to have been an amateur porn star in her native country Canada. The resulting controversy not only highlighted the overall sensitive topic in Korea of under-qualified foreign teachers, it also raised the ire of citizen, pundits, politicians, and the media alike as to the resulting disclosure of personal information on the web by anonymous web posters, called netizens. Cited as a form of online "cyber-terrorism" or an "online witch hunt" the Internet Real Name System was further discussed and debated. <ref>1</ref>

External links

Corporate homepage

Recruiting homepage

U-learning / WM homepage