As the most widely spoken language throughout the world, there is a huge demand for English language courses. Both on a social and business level, English is very widely accepted and understood.
As a requirement for immigration purposes, a necessity for many jobs, and being ideal for day-to-day living, it´s easy to see why a knowledge of English is necessary in many countries. On the other side of the coin, native English speakers are in the lucky position to be able to teach their language to others, with little restriction.
A Place in the Sun
Instead of watching those daytime TV programmes that follow people moving from home to abroad and eagerly watching their progress, have you ever considered taking the plunge and living abroad yourself? Speaking fluent English, you already have a head start over other expats living abroad as a way to earn yourself some money and maybe start a new career. The TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) certification is handy to have whether you´re living in a foreign speaking country or a predominantly English speaking country. Either way, there´s always a high demand for English lessons.
Locals Learning the Language
In foreign countries, learning English is still in demand thanks to the progressive nature of social media, the requirements within the business communities, and the opportunities that a lack of restrictions between countries has afforded us. In English speaking countries, lessons are in demand from foreigners who have taken up residence and need to learn the lingo, those wishing to learn the business side of the English language, and those that have an interest in learning it to suit their personal requirements.
Get Certified
Would a home away from home appeal to you? Would the love of your own language be enough to help you settle in your new surroundings? By grabbing the obvious opportunity you have head on, you won´t be restricted with your relocation. All you need to do is take the steps to gain your TEFL certification and you’ll be on your way to your own place in the sun!
Body language is a great way to express yourself. The tilt of your head, position of your shoulders and hand gestures are just some of the ways you can use your body to convey your feelings to others. Whether you´re happy, irritable, confused or curious, it´s easy to make people understand your mood by looking at your body language.
To really make yourself understood though, there´s nothing quite like actually speaking with each other! Say exactly what you mean to quench their curiosity while ending their confusion and irritability and everyone will be happy…or will they? Not if you´re speaking in another language. You might think you´re pronouncing the words correctly, using them in the right situation and in the correct tense, but you might unknowingly be making a bit of a blunder with your conversation.
How many tourists have unwittingly asked for ‘polla’ instead of ‘pollo’ for some chicken in Spain? (I´ll let you look that one up!) When dining in a restaurant in Sweden, don´t tell the waiter you´re ‘ful’ as he´ll think you´re calling him ugly. Conversely, don´t be offended when the waiter answers ‘slut’ as he´s merely pointing out that that´s the end of your meal or conversation.
Have you ever found yourself in an embarrassing situation when you´ve innocently tried to make an effort at speaking a language? Share your foreign faux pas with everyone so that others don´t end up speaking themselves into sticky situations!
What helps you to remember things? When I say ‘things’, I´m referring to what helps you remember words and phrases from another language. Leaving notes around the house, putting words to a favourite or familiar song, or maybe forming mnemonics; these are all popular ways to commit information to your memory.
Notes
When my friend´s kids first started to learn a new language, she stuck Post-it notes all around the house on everyday objects. Each time they needed to use an object, she´d ask them to say the word for it in the foreign language first. As they saw the notes every day, they also became familiar with the spelling of the new words very quickly.
Songs
It´s a common idea, and a very successful one at that, to put sentences of the new language you´re learning towards the verses of a favourite song. The more you sing the verses, the more the foreign sentences stick in your mind as would the original sentences, without you even realising it. And as you enjoy the song, it doesn´t feel like such an effort to learn the foreign language.
Mnemonics
Using a mnemonic device is a memory aid used by most people. One way to create a mnemonic is by taking the first letter of each word you are trying to remember and construct a memorable phrase. The most common example of this is the mnemonic used to remember the colours of the rainbow, ‘Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain’. Each of the initial letters corresponds with a colour: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet. Well, that one´s always worked for me, at least.
Memory aids
So what method do you prefer to use when you´re trying to remember something? Do you enjoy word association or maybe reciting the foreign sentences as though they were lines in a play? Share your favourite memory aids with your fellow students!
Maarit’s year as an au pair in the US had finally come to an end…and what a year it had been! She had watched the two young children she had been looking after blossom as they learned new experiences and had enjoyed teaching them many new things. The little brother and sister had been a delight to look after and she knew she´d been lucky with her chosen host family in the US. Made to genuinely feel as part of their family, Maarit was sad to be leaving and knew she´d miss them terribly. She was glad to have so many memories to cherish and take away with her.
The end of the year wasn’t all sad news though, for Maarit. At the end of her contract with the au pair association, she was given an additional month, known as the ‘travel month’, within which she was free to travel around the US and do some sightseeing. During her year there, she’d continued with her English studies as per her visa regulations, and a number of other au pairs attended the same classes. They’d become friends over the last year and some of them had decided to travel together in a group rather than each heading their own separate way. They each had different places they wanted to visit and sights they had to see before going home, and with their different experiences so far in the US and their combined knowledge of the English language, they were confident it was going be an extremely memorable month.
The time had come to say goodbye and with tears and big hugs all around, Maarit waved sadly to the family she had become so fond of as she walked down their driveway for the last time. Leaving the children was awful but Maarit knew they´d had a good year and was confident that she´d put everything into being the best au pair to them that she could.
The time for tears was to be over as the excitement of the trip ahead took hold. A month of adventure lay ahead of her and Maarit intended to enjoy every bit of it. These final days would be the perfect end to a very special year!
English is said to be a hard language to learn yet it’s one of the most widely spoken languages in the world. Many people speak English as their second language while others can speak enough of it to get by for their own needs.
When living in a predominantly English speaking country, such as the United States, a certain level of English is required for many things, such as citizenship rights and employment opportunities. Even for people already fluent in English, speaking in everyday terms can be quite different to its business terminology and usage in the workplace. Language schools can help break that business barrier by specifically teaching you the business language you will need in your field. From the basics of writing emails and letters, to conducting meetings and preparing presentations in English, your tutor will cover every aspect of business English so that you are equipped with every skill necessary to get ahead in the workplace.
Business jargon can be a minefield if you´re not prepared for it, which is why native English teachers will be on hand to teach you the correct terminology and usage. Preparing yourself now will hold you in good stead for the future and get you one step nearer to that promotion! Learning the English business language will introduce a world of possibilities to you, enabling you to further your career and ensure your success. Don´t be baffled by the business world; invest in some lessons to give your career a boost!
Travelling everyday was the best part of Roberto’s job and the main reason he applied to the logistics firm in the first place. His job consisted of collecting packages from the distribution warehouse and delivering them across the United States in his truck. He´d start his journey at the warehouse near his home to collect the packages that were ready for transportation, then he´d enjoy a long drive to the first delivery address where he would ensure the customer was happy with the condition of their package, the timely delivery and general service before asking them to sign for their goods. Then, off he´d go again on the next leg of his journey to drop off the next package. The trips took him all over the States so he constantly saw fresh scenery and met new people.
Before being considered for an interview at the logistics firm, Roberto had had to confirm that he could speak and understand a certain level of English. Although most of his time was spent in his truck, he also had to help with the co-ordination process of the packages at the warehouse, he had to be able to interpret any special instructions left by the customers for delivery of their items, and had to be able to communicate effectively with the customers upon delivery. As English is the common language spoken across the US, it was essential that had a sufficient grasp of the language.
Having passed the interview stage, Roberto had enjoyed many trips in his truck and had settled easily into his job. He did, however, struggle slightly with the different dialects and colloquialisms from state to state. Some customers also had a tendency to be more technical in the way they conversed with him about their goods, and occasionally he found some of the words or phrases to be unfamiliar. So, to ensure he kept his employers happy and his good reputation with the customers intact, he enrolled in some private English language lessons to help iron out the slight difficulties he had come across.
Roberto wanted to ensure he could deliver an all-round good service with timely transportation and good communication, not just the delivery of packages.
Maarit was most definitely living the dream. For her, that meant being an au pair in the USA. She’d been living with a lovely family looking after their two young children for six months now and was enjoying every minute of it!
Each weekday, she took the kids to school then ran a few errands such as food shopping, collecting the dry cleaning and taking their dog for a long walk, followed by some free time for herself. Some of this free time was actually spent studying as one of her visa requirements was that she had to continue her studies whilst living in the US, so she had enrolled in a course of English lessons to ensure she kept the language updated and fresh in her mind. Other au pairs from the local areas attended the same classes so it was a good way to socialise and make friends. She also learned more about the area and what there was to do, both with the kids and in her own free time. As well as that, it was good to compare her experiences as an au pair with theirs, and there were certainly some amusing stories.
After doing the school run in the afternoons, she’d help the kids with their homework and then they’d have some fun! They’d usually go to the nearby park to play on the swings and the slide, and sometimes they´d take their bikes or their skates with them. Every now and again, she´d treat them to an outing at the local petting zoo; it was their favourite place to go and they loved stroking the animals. Afterwards, Maarit would get some dinner ready and then it would be time to let their parents spend some time with them after they´d arrived home from work. A bedtime story never went amiss though at the end of the evening!
Maarit was halfway through her stay in the US and had had some amazing experiences as an au pair. She already had many happy memories to cherish, but had a feeling that the next six months were going to be even better!
Maripaz had landed a job as a customer service representative in a hotel. She’d completed her training for the new position and had been helping out at the front desk and concierge for a couple of weeks now. She really enjoyed working with the public and being able to help the guests with their enquiries.
One of the requirements of employment by the hotel chain was that she had to be bilingual in Spanish and English which was no problem for her as she was Hispanic and had always learned English as a second language. However, she found speaking to so many different people about such diverse topics a little more hard work than she thought she would. It was one thing speaking English in classes with familiar subject matters and knowing you’d be corrected if you made a mistake, but a very different matter altogether dealing with the public, especially when there were so many different accents and unfamiliar questions. She knew that the more time she spent speaking to people and the more she learned her job, she would gradually become accustomed to it, but for the initial stages of her new job she needed a bit of extra help!
She enrolled in an intensive one-to-one language course with a native English teacher to help her get used to the accent and learn colloquialisms as well as more formal terminology. The teacher geared her lessons around the hotel environment and the things that Maripaz could expect to come across in her job. These lessons improved her confidence no end, and the worry of being on unfamiliar territory when she was helping English speaking guests soon abated.
With good feedback from the guests and recommendations from satisfied customers, Maripaz’s bosses were happy with her conduct and Maripaz was able to look forward to a promising career in the hospitality industry!
Keen to improve his English language skills by learning direct from native English speakers, the first thing Cai did when he arrived in the United States was to enrol in an intensive language course. His cousins, who had previously lived in Pittsburgh, had recommended a language school to him so he had wasted no time in contacting their Washington DC branch, which is where he’d chosen to move to.
Washington DC was an amazing place. It was so different from his home in Beijing yet it was exactly as he’d imagined it to be. It was springtime and the scenery surrounding him was full of cherry blossoms which reminded him of the peonies that bloomed each year back home. The many monuments and memorials were breathtaking and Cai spent an afternoon wandering down National Mall taking in as many of the sights as he could.
Although being in the US was predominantly to enhance his English speaking skills in order to become a better teacher back in China, he also wanted to learn as much as he could about American culture while he was there. This was so that he could enthuse his pupils with some excitement by helping them to associate words and phrases in the English language with interesting stories of what he had seen and done on his travels.
The variety of food was certainly different to what he was used to but he grew to love it and often enjoyed trying tasty new snacks whilst sightseeing in his free time. He visited the Smithsonian National Zoological Park and spent hours wandering around it gazing at all of the animals. He even took in an ice hockey game while he was there; it was different to the kind of sports he was used to watching but nonetheless he enjoyed it and felt he´d truly tried something typically American.
With so much to see and do, Cai also had to remember his studies and the serious business of his impending teaching career. So, with his stories stored in his head, he knuckled down to his lessons so that, in the not too distant future, he could impart his knowledge to his own eager students.
Cai knew what he wanted to do and exactly how he was going to go about doing it! Having graduated from university with an English degree, he was one step closer to becoming an English teacher. The demand for English teachers in his country was high as it was becoming more and more Westernized, and it was increasingly more common for Westerners to take placements in Chinese universities and language institutions in order to teach the language.
Cai had always had a love of the English language and felt he could pass on his enthusiasm and knowledge to others, even though it was his second language. Before leaping straight into teaching, however, he wanted to further his own education even more and gain essential experience abroad, just like so many of his fellow Chinese graduates.
And where better to learn the language than in the United States of America where he could learn direct from native English speakers while he integrated into the society. He wanted to learn about the American culture and ways, as well as the language, as it was so different from Chinese culture. He felt this was important, not just for himself, but for him to reflect to his future pupils so that they had a fuller understanding of Western society and how the language is used, rather than just reading from books or listening to lessons.
His cousins had previously emigrated to the US after graduating so he was eager to find out what was in store for him. They´d lived in the city of Pittsburgh, and Ming-Lai retold stories of what a wonderful place it was, full of exciting new challenges and never a dull moment. His excitement mounting, Cai was even more determined to achieve his goal, and got ready for the long journey that would take him to the next chapter of his career in English.
