How to Choose the Best Language School

Today, there are numerous kinds of programs available to learn language. Many of them are offered by reputable educational institutions. Even though it means there are more options for students who want to enroll the language program, finding the best school for the purpose becomes trickier than before. If you are interested to study language and need help in finding the best language school, this article will be very helpful for you.

When it comes to the language teaching method to choose, not only you can think of the regular school, but also you can consider the long distance or online one. However, before anything else, when you think about language school to look into, you have to check first about the school's accreditation. Accreditation means a lot in telling whether a school is worth your time and money to join or not. If you have difficulties in finding information about accreditation status of a school you can always get help from local government offices dealing with education.

The next considerations in finding the best language school are related with study duration, expenses, certificate values, safety and the syllabus. Some language schools have a little bit more complicated bureaucracy. However, that is common because the schools want to secure the school fees and to make all of the students comfortable. It is a great bonus if a language school can offer combined language courses with other courses that may involve commerce, hospitality or cultural related activity in addition to the core lessons.

There are language schools offering single language programs while the rest offer multiple language programs with a wide range of variety languages to teach like English, French, German, Mandarin and Japanese. Usually, a language school with single language program is more focused in curriculum development and has more dates to begin the class. Therefore, usually such school is more recommended to study language than that with multiple language programs.

In short, the best language school to choose will depend on what you really need and how much resource you have in terms of time and money. It should not depend on the mainstream because the choice can be very personal. Every person has different need and starting point in terms of education. By knowing what you really want, the length of study that you expect and the affordability that you have to pay the fees, you will be able to find a school fitting most of your requirements.

Stalis Ethica is an experienced article writer and a writer manager with science background. She specializes in writing informative articles in different niches.

View the original article here

[Read More...]

Italian Universities Choose English

English is a language that is spoken around the world. It is used as a business language as well as an everyday communication language.

It is commonly spoken in a lot of European countries including France, Spain and Italy. In fact it is so popular in Italy that Milan University has decided to switch to English to teach its degree courses.

Milan University is a leading institution for science, engineering and architecture. From 2014, most of its degree courses will be taught in the English language.

Milan is a truly cosmopolitan city and is known for its culture and being the centre of the Italian fashion world. No wonder then that they have decided to switch to English because it is a truly international language.

Milan University wanted to make sure that they are a truly global university and so they thought that using English would encourage communication across the world and increase the job prospects of their graduates.

They university's rector, Giovanni Azzone, said, "we strongly believe our classes should be international classes - and the only way to have international classes is to use the English language."

Other Italian universities are expected to follow suit in the next few years, as they compete with other international universities to attract students and produce rounded graduates with an ability to work worldwide.

In these tough economic times it is particularly important that students are given skills whilst at university that will enable them to find work. By taking a course that is taught in English they will be more employable when they leave university.

This increasing switch to using the English language in European universities means that many young people will want to brush up on their English skills if they are going to get a place on one of these university courses.

This is where English language schools can help young people to learn or improve their English so that they are at a good enough standard for university courses taught in the English language.

English language courses can be intensively taught and students can attend outside of normal study times, for instance in the summer holidays. They can even combine their English studies with enjoying a holiday and making friends.

The UK has a lot of English language schools that help foreign students to learn or improve their English skills. These language schools also offer fun excursions and time out from study to help students gain confidence and learn about English culture - which will help them to absorb the language quicker and be ready to take up a place at their chosen university.

Concorde International offer English courses for young people at all levels. From beginners right through to more advanced English language courses, there is something for everyone who wants to improve their English skills. For more information and to browse Concorde International's range of excellent English language courses explore the website at http://www.concorde-int.com/

View the original article here

[Read More...]

How to Choose a Good Textbook for Your Self-Study of a Foreign Language?

A good textbook is a self-taught language learner's best friend!

What makes a particular textbook a good source of reference for a self-taught language learner? Today I would like to present the features of a good self-study reference book, and thus possibly answer this question. There are many books on the market to choose from. As the bookstores are full of different books how can we then choose the right one for us? The thumb rule here is to pay attention to some key-features that the textbook should have. I will try to give a brief outline of those for you. Obviously, not every book that we come across in a bookstore will be just a good fit for a number of reasons. For this instance, the textbooks commonly used in language schools did not really work for me as they did not have an answer key. Moreover, it was hard to follow them without a teacher.

Well, it is believed that books are man's best friends, right? And so they are also in the context of foreign language learning. It is crucial for you to have a good source of reference packed with texts, grammar rules and vocabulary sections even if you are not a keen book lover. To cut a long story short, the book itself needs to be learner-friendly as you will refer to it quite often. So let us have a closer look at what our textbook needs to have to meet this requirement:

1. TEXTBOOK OVERALL ORGANIZATION - What I mean here is if the textbook is divided into single units / lessons. Then you can plan accordingly, and it will be a whole lot easier for you to organize your learning time - i.e. focus on one unit in a week, etc.

2. PRONUNCIATION INTRODUCTORY UNITS - Usually I like the book to have a separate section on pronunciation itself. Why? The reason is the following one: once you go through those units you can familiarize yourself with pronunciation rules (by following examples included in that section and at the same time listening to the recordings). As those sections are separate, you can come back to them any time you like without having resort to flicking through the whole book.

3. Lessons are presented in accordance with the PPP approach, i.e. presentation, practice and production:

PRESENTATION - The lesson unit needs to have a dialogue (or a short text) in which new words and grammar structures will be presented. Also, it will be useful for you if this section will have a vocabulary list (with translations into your mother tongue). This way you will not lose time for finding the meanings of new words, and then you can focus on remembering those new vocabulary units.
PRACTICE - Usually, the text/dialogue will be accompanied by reading or listening comprehension exercises, etc. that will allow you to practice and use the newly learnt grammar and vocabulary chunks.
PRODUCTION - At the end of every lesson there may be a writing practice section for you. At first, especially if you study on your own, it may be difficult to estimate if the texts that you wrote are correct or not. You may ask native speakers for help or a friend of yours who learns this language to help you out. Don't give up and remember that practice makes perfect! / ¡Practicar es mejorar! /Cwiczenie czyni mistrza!

4. GRAMMAR RULES are presented neatly by means of sentence examples with translations into your mother tongue, e.g. verbs conjugations, and their patterns in a new grammar tense. (Also, I liked when the textbook outlined the usage of a particular tense or grammar structure so I knew when and how I should use it).

5. A CD with recordings and TRANSCRIPTS of (all) the recordings included in the textbook: It is also important if you intend to study on your own, and will not have the chance to listen to the teacher who would read the texts at loud. The transcripts will help you if you do not understand or find it hard to follow the recordings; you can then consult your dictionary, find the meaning of unknown words, attempt to listen to the recording once again, and hopefully understand more.

6. WORDLISTS AND GRAMMAR PAGES. Those sections usually can be found at the very end of the textbook. Wordlists will be useful when you wish to revise the vocabulary from a given lesson unit. Quite frequently the words will also have an international phonetic alphabet transcription (IPA).

EXAMPLE: a box (IPA transcription) - /'boks/ (Please mind you that this transcription is somewhat simplified as I could not use IPA characters in the body of this article).

At first glance, the IPA characters may scare you, but once you master the pronunciation of those 'weird characters' you will find it irreplaceable when learning new words, and their pronunciation. Grammar pages contain a short summary of tenses (their patterns and usage), or verbs conjugations and other useful information concerning grammar of the language.

7. And last but not least, an ANSWER KEY - (For me this is the basis - it is particularly useful when we want to check the answers, and see how many mistakes we made. In my case, a book without a detailed answer key was just useless, and simply did not work out... No matter how great the contents, or style could be as I was frustrated when not being able to check my exercises.

A perfect example of such a textbook is 'Espanol de Pe a Pa', part 1, by Anna Wawrykowicz. (A free sample chapter of this book can be found on the Internet so that you could see how it is organized).

I learnt the basics of Spanish with this book, and I really enjoyed it. The book has all the previously mentioned features. Moreover, it is full of funny and colorful pictures as well as photos that helped me memorize new words and have fun while learning. I did not feel 'lost' as all the new texts had vocabulary lists, and answers were provided to all the exercises in the book.

NOTES:

The concept of PPP approach is used in foreign language methodology. If interested, you can easily find more information on the Internet.

You are invited to visit my blog for all foreign language geeks!

http://myforeignlanguagecraze.blogspot.com/

Hopefully, everybody will find something useful on language learning strategies, resources, and other tips.

View the original article here

[Read More...]