A business plan is currently being developed by Don Snider and Janet Flewelling that describes an online ESL program which will be designed to give secondary school students in non-English speaking countries the English language skills required for post secondary education at the University of Windsor.  The initiative has been tentatively named “Mentored Academic Program for Learning English.  The acronym “MAPLE” provides a Canadian connection to the program and the reference to mentoring reflects the pedagogical emphasis of the curriculum.

The key marketing question to be answered in the process of developing this plan was whether there are enough students in non-English speaking countries whose parents would purchase online ESL training early in their child’s high school years as a strategy for preparing them for post-secondary education in North America and whether high-school administrators in those countries would be willing to partner with the University of Windsor to offer such a program to their students.

This question and others relating to program design and methods of operation are being considered.  The business plan will recommend funding for development of the first two of six courses during the period from May, 2004 to May, 2005.  A pilot implementation is being planned for September, 2005.  Recommendation for funding development of the remaining four courses will be made in the 2005/2006 fiscal year.