Alexandria City residents, Susanna and Maria McPhilomy, recently opened an English school, Forum Intensive English Center, in Old Town Alexandria that offers affordable and effective English language training to local immigrants in the D.C. metro area. The new school opening is timely considering Obama’s new immigration proposal may require 11 million undocumented workers to learn English.
The McPhilomys have experienced the challenges of immigration first hand, as both are of Armenian descent and immigrated to the US in the mid-1990s. Knowing that English is the key to success in this country, the mother and daughter duo decided to combine Susanna’s 37 years of teaching experience and effective teaching methodology with Maria’s communications background and tap into the vast international market of the D.C. area to atlas pursue their dream of working together.
“It’s been a lifelong dream of mine to work with my mother and help spread the word about her effective and unique approach to the English language. I thought it was about time that I help my mom transport her methodology to the east coast after witnessing thousands of her students successfully learn English in record-speed both while she was a professor and as co-owner of her language school in Utah”, says Maria McPhilomy, Forum’s Director of Communications and Operations.
Forum officially opened its doors for enrollment June 1, 2013 and is quickly gaining traction with already eight attending students and another six that are due to begin classes in mid-August. Attending students seem pleased with the program and are already trying to maneuver their schedules in order to be able to attend more hours.
Classes begin in the beginning and middle of each month and are offered three times a day in the morning, afternoon and evenings and weekend classes are available as well. Forum is conveniently located near King St. and Braddock Road metro stations off of the blue and yellow lines.
The McPhilomys remain hopeful that word-of-mouth will soon kick in and enrollment will boost in the fall.
