Teaching English at CIBS

As I recount in the soon to be published “A Lost Chapter in the Transformation of the Turkish Banking Industry” the plan establishing the Center for International Banking Studies (CIBS) was to start teaching courses in English. Over time we were to train Turkish instructors and translate the curriculum into Turkish with the help of bankers seconded to the institute from local banks.

That plan encountered roadblocks that I describe in the book. But we also faced another challenge. The supply of qualified English speakers that could be enrolled in CIBS classes was limited. Some estimates at the time recorded that less than 20% of bank employees in the country had university degrees and fewer than 4% spoke a foreign language. I needed to find a way to increase the supply of bankers whose English-speaking competence enabled them to participate in our interactive courses.

After a search in Türkiye and abroad, I engaged The Experiment for International Living from the U.S. Their mission was to teach English to those who reached a minimum level of competency based on a test that we administered to hundreds of bankers in Istanbul and Ankara.  

The Experiment provided three instructors who quickly acclimated to the Turkish environment and did an exceptional job increasing the number of bankers eligible for our banking and management programs using a tailored for business, English as a second language curriculum.

A photo of graduates of CIBS’s first English language program plus a few members of our faculty is attached.

Next post, the Official Opening of CIBS.