More than 1.3 million Chinese students from the primary school to university levels have benefited from the English-language instruction provided by more than 12,000 qualified North American English teachers sent by the nonprofit English Language Institute/China (ELIC) over the past three decades, the organization says.

The institute became the first overseas organization to officially partner with the State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs in 1980. Its first placement was of American Linguistic Society president Eugene Nida as a visiting professor at the Guangzhou Foreign Language Institute.

Teachers must complete a month-long training in Chinese culture and earn a Teaching English as a Foreign Language certificate before their placements.

ELIC established a rebuilding fund and founded the Sichuan Education Assistance Program in Sichuan province's Dujiangyan and Hanyuan cities in response to the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake.