ESL - English as a Second Language
Posted on May 16th, 2007 by InternationalStudentGuruFor many students, learning English is the first step in studying abroad. All schools require students to have a certain level of English if you are to be taken as an international student - some schools require the TOEFL, others require the TOEIC. But, whatever your school requires you need to make sure you English is the best it can be!
To help you, there are a number of resources available that offer some great help and advice:
ESL Directory
The ESL Directory provides you with over 1,000 listings of schools from all around the world that provide ESL/ English as a Second Language programs. It costs nothing to use the directory and you can contact schools directly online through the site. This is a great tool if you need to find a school or teacher to help you with your English!
ESL Forum
The ESL Forum provides you with an interactive online forum to ask questions, answer questions and generally meet up with other students who are learning English. What is even better is that ESL Teachers also use the board, so you can ask them questions and get information directly from a teacher if you need assistance!
ESL Podcast
If you have an iPod or mp3 player, then you should also check out the ESL podcast - its packed full of great English Language episodes that you can download onto your iPod and listen and learn. Great if you travel a lot on trains or just to sit back and relax and learn at the same time!
I hope you found this useful - please post any other resources you use to learn English!
Technorati Tags: english as a second language, esl, esl schools
3 Responses to “ESL - English as a Second Language”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
May 19th, 2007 at 12:15 pm
Great post, I am sure going to subscribe to this blog right away :)! (I run a blog dedicated to education also, well not really like yours since I focus on study skills instead of news…)
Anyway, to answer your question; I don’t really think you can learn English (or any other language for that matter) from websites without actually contributing to the content.
I live in and study in Sweden by the way so English is not my first language. In my opinion, the best way to learn English (from my experience) is by simply engaging in discussion with people who can articulate and speak the language much more fluently than oneself (like you for instance ;)).
In short, I learn English when I blog! Good post, thank you!
May 23rd, 2007 at 3:18 am
A team of two students from International Islamic University in Malaysia have won the ESL category at the 27th World Universities Debating Championship in Vancouver, Canada, seeing off a challenge from university teams from India, Sweden and Israel.
A member of the winning team, Suhaib Hassan, is quoted as saying that the university “understands the importance of debate in sharpening a student’s skills in critical thinking and communication”.
Maybe non-native speakers can follow their footsteps.
March 6th, 2008 at 1:18 am
I run an online English language school. People are slow to trust the technology, whereby you can learn another language in real time with English language teachers just like you’re in a real classroom.
You can see your teacher and classmates and exprience all the interaction that is available to you in a real classroom - virtually. Of course the body language is missing, but the facial expression is there. So learning English online is becoming a reality - where you can converse naturally and also learn more formally.