"I was told unexpectedly a few days ago that my English classes were going to be cancelled," said Liang while sitting in the corridor on the eighth floor of Building Nine of Jianwai SOHO, Chaoyang district. She has studied for a few months in the classes, run by Dell International English Language Training School.

The Beijing-based Dell School, established in 2001, announced recently that it would close its adult teaching center

at Jianwai SOHO on July 15 and stop all its adult English classes.

Liu Bing, general manager of Dell School, also said that the company stopped its adult English courses to concentrate on children's English courses.

He said the decision affects 10 teachers and hundreds of students. The school will move affected teachers to other posts or compensate them.

Liang told METRO she and her classmates were disappointed by the school's decision, but have no choice but to accept it.

She said the school promised to refund tuition fees, based on the number

of classes cancelled, or transfer adult

students to classes at Wall Street English.

Pearson Education owns both Wall Street English and Dell School.

Wall Street English competes with Dell School for the same customer base. Last year, Wall Street English's revenue in China was $70 million and Dell School's was only $10 million.

Peng, a classmate of Liang, told METRO that the market of English trainingin Beijing is disorderly.

"Many smaller English language schools take students' money and then just disappear," she said, "Dell School was notsobad compared with them."