1993: Born to transform the corporate language training industry

Our founder, Paule Grenier, was already teaching Bell Canada employees English as a second language in the Montreal office when they decided to close the onsite language school. Initially collaborating with three other English teachers, we formed a small company called: Montreal English Language Teachers (MELT). Coinciding with the Quebec government creating a program that encouraged corporate training, we quickly realized we had to hire teachers, move away from a home office to a proper downtown location, and switch over to our French name and acronym: les Enseignants de langue anglaise de Montreal (ELAM). Not long after (2001), we created e-langues Ltd. and offered online content which provided corporate learners with digital learning material. We also launched Publilang, our publishing parent company specializing in language learning printed tools with titles like Presentation Skills, French for Business, Spanish for Business, etc., all sold on Amazon.

At this point, language training was conducted over the phone or face-to-face. Paule was always itching to use more technology and had the idea to create a language app to support English language learners during conference calls/meetings: Bizbites: Language of Meetings was born (2010)!

Awards and Nominations

2008: Assessments R Us!

We had always been doing language assessments for hiring purposes, but 2011 saw us winning significant contracts and mandates from multinationals needing to simplify their hiring process with our English and French language assessments. We partnered with Talent Acquisition and Hiring Managers and developed an online tool for booking assessments seamlessly. Our HR partners were able to get faster language proficiency results and make faster hiring decisions. The outcome was an increase in our assessment team, and we were making a name for ourselves as expert assessors through HR groups.

2018: International Growth

2018 was an exciting year for ELAM. We taught language classes in New York City, London, and Hong Kong businesses. We expanded even more when a client with offices throughout North America, Europe, Asia, and South America put our course catalog on their L&D intranet, and ELAM became truly global! Our language training team also grew in new places! We still did onsite (50%) and virtual (50%) training.

2020: Pivoting and Virtual Training

When the COVID-19 pandemic occurred, we used our expertise to support trainers and learners. In April 2022, we transitioned 300 clients from in-person to virtual training, keeping 80% of the trainers on staff and offering them support and coaching for teaching in a virtual environment.

We were also able to share knowledge to assist businesses that suddenly switched to remote working, thanks to our more than 15 years of experience in digital transformation and our pool of talented trainers. We did this by offering a free global webinar series on language training in virtual environments and showing them the fantastic applications we can use in an online classroom.

2023 – Brighter Future

As we continue to build a brighter future for all and reduce our environmental impact, this year, we joined the Net-Zero Challenge – having spent ten years optimizing and refining how we work across the business. With our paperless training and virtual team, we have also helped our clients since Covid transition to sustainable training, saving estimated thousands of tons of carbon every year to become a carbon-neutral enterprise.

As we reflect on the past 30 years and look to the future, our mission is still the same: to create a better future for our clients, learners, team, and the planet. To that end, we are expanding our service offering to provide corporate learners with the skills they will need for the future of work, transforming our platform to serve the needs of the modern learner better, creating a happy, healthy workforce, and fostering a culture of effective communication.

Contact us today to learn more about ELAM and how our language training and language assessments can transform your business and unleash your talent.