Testimonies and Results

Poland Case Study

Helen Doron Early English (HDEE) has been taught to hundreds of thousands of infants and children throughout the world since 1985. In 1997, after extensive studies, it was decided that the product was ideally suited to a franchising network. We give below a brief case study on Poland.

In 1998 a prospective MASTER FRANCHISOR approached us, totally convinced that the Polish market, despite its poor economy, would be an excellent market for Helen Doron Early English.

In January 1999 an agreement was signed for an area of around 9 million inhabitants. HDEE had never been taught in the area, it was totally virgin territory. This was our first penetration of the Polish market. The results for this first Polish Master Franchise are shown below.

In April 2000 another Master Franchise area was sold, in July 2000 two more Master Franchise areas were sold, and a final area in May 2001. Today Poland is separated into five Master Franchise areas, with over 140 Helen Doron Early English Learning Centres. There are no remaining areas available for additional Master Franchisors.

Armin Ritschny, Helen Doron Early English MF in Southern Germany:

I was the Group Leader of the Electronic Goods Purchasing Department of a large Austrian company. I was working hard and earning my company a lot of money.

Sometime in 1998 I thought: I'm working very hard for this company but no matter how hard I work I'll never own it! So I started looking around for my own business. Then I realized that there was already a business in my own home. My wife is a Helen Doron teacher and was very happily teaching and earning right under my nose. We talked about the business side of it and I contacted the company's HQ and started to discuss things with them. Every thing went very smoothly except for the fact that there was already a National Franchisee for Austria. But parts of Germany were still free and it was such a great opportunity that we moved! We moved in 1999 to Munich. There were already a handful of teachers in the area and almost 500 students. Now we have over 5000 students. I have only scratched the potential so far and the awareness of the value of our work to the children grows day by day.

I'm self-employed but I have more time for my life and my family.

I am definitely very much happier, working about as hard but with a lot more job satisfaction, especially as I was soon earning more than twice as much as before.

Mohammed Igbario - Learning Centre Franchise Partner:

I am an English teacher by profession and calling. I teach in the Arabic Sector of Israel's State Schools system. I have written two work books on the subject of teaching English as a second or even fourth language. I think of myself as a dedicated teacher. But I was far from satisfied with the results I was getting from the young people in my classes. Despite all my efforts, many of the children - from 12 up to the Schools exam age were poor in English and said they didn't like English.

Nothing I tried worked with them, we were getting 25-30% exam successes and that is no success. I was not happy, I had studied for 4 years how to do my job and had no satisfaction from it. Somewhere I heard about the Helen Doron Schools. My own children were very young and what I had learnt at University and training college was pretty inappropriate for them. I found out more about Helen Doron, discussed it with my wife and decided to take the Teacher Training Course and then teach my own children.

I loved the course. It was so practical. So different to the 4 years of theory I had been taught at University.It was a great experience and opened new doors to teaching English. I learnt more about real teaching on this course than in my 4 years training. More than that, it had given me back my love of teaching again. I started with my own children and those of my family. Friends and neighbours brought their children.

In 2 months I was teaching 200 children! I recruited another teacher colleague and opened my Learning Centre. People came from all over. You must understand that we Arabs know the need for education. We all have the same dream, that no matter what we are, not just the Lawyers and Doctors and Teachers among us, our children will go to University and get degrees. Especially degrees in English.

I send teachers out to small villages with only a few families but ALL the children come to our lessons. By the end of the first year I had 700 students. By the second year it was over a 1000. Last year we had 1500 and my aim by the end of this year is to have 2000. Last year we joined the Mathjogs pilot scheme and this year we started teaching with it and it's just as good as the English.

The children naturally show great improvement in their school work but they are also so much more self-confident. It shows in their speech and their general behaviour

And for me, I am again enjoying my work. Helen Doron taught me how to link to and understand my students. Not to see them just as bodies on chairs but as real people.