Hanseo opens in Seoul, registered at the Gangnam Finance Centre, with twenty-eight trainees, five faculty, and a single taught qualification — the ancestor of our current Level 2 Intermediate. The founding directors are Dr. Hye-jin Cho (formerly of Korea University) and James Holland (formerly of the International Language Institute, Bangkok).
After two years of internal review, the Institute adopts its signature five-level structure. The Foundation course is introduced for trainees with no prior teaching experience. The Diploma — then titled "Senior Practitioner Certificate" — is offered for the first time to a cohort of eleven.
The Institute secures formal mapping of its qualifications to the TICA International Qualifications Framework of Asia-Pacific. The Diploma is benchmarked at Level 5. This is the year our graduates first find the Hanseo name recognised, without further explanation, by employers overseas.
The first edition of the Hanseo Faculty Handbook is distributed internally. What began as a set of working notes becomes, over the following decade, the document most closely associated with how the Institute teaches. A revised third edition is in use today.
After a considered two-year design process, the Institute begins delivering Levels 1 through 3 in a fully online format with synchronous and asynchronous components. The Diploma is delivered online via synchronous video, with asynchronous research supervision. It will remain so.
Today the Institute operates with a faculty of fourteen, admits roughly 380 trainees each year, and has 2,840 graduates working in schools, universities, corporate programmes and private tuition across seventy countries. We remain registered at the Gangnam Finance Centre in Seoul — but our cohorts now span every inhabited continent.
Enrolment at Hanseo is handled by written correspondence. Please send an email exactly as formatted below — the structured format allows our admissions office to process your application quickly.
◆ In your email, please include:
Our admissions office replies within two working days. Every applicant is scheduled for a 20–30 minute online admissions interview before final enrolment is confirmed.
Please include in your email:
Our admissions office replies to every message within two working days. Applicants are scheduled for a short admissions interview before final enrolment.