How it all started
LIA (Lembaga Persahabatan Indonesia Amerika) was established in 1959, as a binational organization, to foster friendship between Indonesia and the United States of America. One of the activities was the teaching of English to Indonesians and Bahasa Indonesia to Americans. Over the years, LIA has evolved into a foundation specializing in the teaching of English to Indonesians. From its start of just one center, LIA is today serving around 60,000 students per quarterly, not only in its 60 centers in 18 provinces of Indonesia, but also in a number of private primary and secondary schools, universities, public and private institutions.
A self-sufficient language center
The growth of LI A and its role in English language teaching (ELT) makes it unique in Indonesia. The size of its student population easily identifies LIA as one of the largest non-franchised ELT centers. In the course of time, LIA has brought into focus standardizations of quality through continuous improvements in its academic operations and student administration. LIA is one of the few operators in Indon
esia that has its own pre- and in-service training programs, designs its own curriculum and assessments, publishes and prints its own textbooks. Pre- and in-service training programs aim at developing and nurturing LIA teachers’ profile, FIESTA:
Fun & friendly
Interactive
Explorative
Systematic
Technology savvy
Autonomous & independent
Those qualities of the FIESTA teachers support LIA’s principles and features of language teaching and learning:
- Learning English is FUN
- Learning more than just English
- Learning how to learn
A magazine publisher as well
To encourage extensive reading habits in English, LIA publishes two magazines – Cool ‘n Smart (C’nS) for high school and college students, and C’nS Junior for primary school students. These magazines are part of materials used in LIA’s General English Programs:
- English for Adults
- English for Teens
- English for Adults
The English Proficiency Test (EPT™) & Business English Test (BET™)
Aside from the English language programs, LIA has developed EPT™ LIA’s which provides score prediction for the 
paper-based TOEFL. EPT™ has been used and accepted widely in Indonesia. Public and private institutions have set the EPT™ scores required for placements, promotions, scholarships, and admissions to Master’s degree programs. BET™ is the most recently developed proficiency test for business/workplace English. BET™ scores are LIA’s predictions for TOEIC.
The driving forces behind LIA
LIA owes its existence to the vision of its board of advisors who has steered LIA through all weathers, and a dedicated task force of more than 1,000 academic staff and teachers, 900 support staff who serve over 60,000 students per quarterly. LIA, in short, has come a long way from its inception 50 years ago.
A Commitment to quality learning
With its longstanding experience in language teaching and in its “golden” experience, LIA reaffirms its commitment to be the best and most widespread learning center in Indonesia through its educational services, especially language and other programs supported by state-of-the-art facilities.