History

The formation: Back Up Line S.C.P.
After having worked 17 years as an English teacher in Barcelona, Willem Koper founded his own language service company, Back Up Line S.C.P., in 1995. Koper: “I realized I wanted something different after years of working part time for various employers. I decided to set up my own company and serve, together with a team of specialists, as BackUp for distance learning, giving support to companies with language needs.”
This BackUp was provided in several forms: Back Up Line S.C.P. translated documents, offered interpreting services to local administrations, worked as help desk support, administrated the first e-mail addresses for several small companies during the early years of the Internet and developed a new approach to the distance learning and effective real time training of foreign languages.

A new method of distance learning: 25 minutes sessions over the telephone
An innovative method of providing language courses began in the form of telephone courses: intensive lessons over the phone. Koper: ¨I had noticed that people often know the grammatical rules very well, but in a classroom they have difficulty expressing themselves in a foreign language. I wanted to improve the oral skills of my students by creating a more natural context.¨ The telephone classes were initially focused on business communication: this way, businessmen and businesswomen who had to make phone calls in a foreign language achieved a higher level of competence and gained more self-confidence by means of role-playing real situations. Today, the focus still lies on business communications, but there are also non-business students who wish to improve their oral skills in a comfortable way and who appreciate the chance to save time and money on travel.

More information about telephone courses

Written BackUp & Verbal BackUp: translation & interpreting services
Over the years, Back Up Line S.C.P. has provided support to numerous companies. This BackUp has taken the form of both Written BackUp and Verbal BackUp: documents have been translated from and into a very wide range of languages, and Back Up Line S.C.P. has also acted regularly as an interpreter at congresses or presentations.

More information about translation services & interpreting services

Help desk
Seven years ago, publishing house Salvat S.A. entrusted Back Up Line to run their help desk services for all BBC English students. The function of the help desk was to offer support (via e-mail and telephone) for students learning English through home study. In 2009, this help desk service was extended to serving as BackUp for the Global English Academy students of publishing house Océano. Because of the expertise of our tutors, experienced all-round qualified teachers, Backuplines foresees a huge market for this type of outsourcing.

More information about help desk services

January 2009: time for growth
In January 2009, Back Up Line S.C.P. modified the format of the company and at the same time changed their name to Backuplines S.L. The company has moved to a higher floor in the same building, and changed their name, but the specialised services have remained the same. Currently, contacts are being established with governmental institutes in Shanghai with the goal of offering telephone courses in China.