Staff at Embassy

A trip to Muriwai

Raymond Butler, our Auckland Activities Manager, writes:

Last Friday a group of around 16 Taiwanese students boarded a bus and travelled to Muriwai (a wonderful beach about 30 minutes from Auckland) to experience a little of what this country is all about: fresh air, wide open spaces and animals.

Most of the students had never seen a horse up close before, let alone ridden one, but they weren't going to let this put them off. They were equally brave when the weather did its best to spoil what was otherwise a great day out!

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Half the party set off on a two-hour horse trek while the remainder went to the look-out above Muriwai Beach.

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You can see some of the tremendous power of the water in some of these photos and the groups of umbrellas to ward off the rain!

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This is a fantastic place in summer, but even in winter there is a lot to experience and just look at the coastline with no houses or shopping malls to ruin the view!

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Plans for the rest of the group to follow the first one were wisely cancelled and we met up at the Muriwai Golf Club whose members more than lived up to the Kiwi reputation for hospitality by providing free coffee and really inexpensive snacks and gas heaters.

Teacher Ray also managed to meet the Muriwai Golf Club cat called "Girlie", a female brown tabby adopted by the Club. What other cat has her own cat door and is fed every day by the manager, Sandy Andrews?  I wonder what Girlie's handicap is?  18 over "paw"?

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So even on a bad day, New Zealand is good.....

Embassy CES students and staff - stars of the TEFL world!

The Embassy CES schools in London and Hastings were recently the scene of some professional filming - and our staff and students were the stars!

Renowned publishers Longman Pearson sent cameras into the classrooms to film examples of real-life English lessons. They were keen to show the use of our modern and recently-installed interactive whiteboards, as well as more traditional methods based on course books.

The resulting DVD is to accompany the new edition of 'The Practice of English Language Teaching' by Jeremy Harmer - one of the best-selling books on TEFL methodology. It shows some of the best practices in teaching, discusses common issues in the classroom, and hopes to instruct new teachers.

Each teacher was interviewed about his or her lesson, and the interviews appear on the DVD, along with full-length footage of the classes. Watching the DVD gives a very good impression of what it is like to study at Embassy CES. It is also a fine tribute to our staff that we were selected to stand as an example to teachers entering the TEFL profession.

If you are interested in seeing the results, the DVD is included as an insert with the new edition of 'The Practice of English Language Teaching' . All Embassy CES schools also have a copy available for students and staff to borrow.

Our student in the news

(Click to see image full size) It seems we are starting a trend for photos of students standing next to British Bobbies (see also A Close Encounter with the Queen of England).

The main Sao Paolo newspaper Folhas has published an article about blind Brazilian student Marcos Rodrigues, who studied at Embassy CES London in March and April 2007. He had a fantastic time in London, it seems. We admire his dynamism in visiting a foreign country, and are proud that he chose Embassy CES. See the newspaper article (in Portuguese) on the London news page >>>

A close encounter with the Queen of England

Most of us living in England have never met the Queen, so here at Embassy CES head office we were astonished when our intern, Laura Star, came in and showed us some photos from a recent day out in London. Not only had she seen Queen Elizabeth, but she had this close-up image to prove it!

Laura was in London during the annual Trooping the Colour celebrations when the Queen and her faithful horseguards parade through the Mall. Not everyone manages to get so near. It looks to us almost as though the Queen is looking straight at Laura, rather sternly, we have to say! And isn't it interesting to see that she uses a car blanket to stave off the cold, just like other ladies of her generation all across England?

You can read all about Laura's experiences of this, her first trip to England, on Student Club (free registration required). She really used her time here to full effect, taking in many of London's most famous sights. But we have a feeling that the one she will remember the best is that of the Queen fixing her with a beady-eyed stare.

Does Laura's new friend explain how she was able to get so close to the Queen?!

Find out more about Internships with Embassy CES here.

New faces, and old leavers

Goodness me, but it's been a serious rush here in Oxford. Like Julia has said before me, we're getting ready for the 100 new students to start on Monday morning - I don't pity the poor staff member with the emergency phone this weekend! However, we also have to say goodbye to some older students.

This week has been a sad one, actually. While it's been kicking into overdrive getting things ready, in the background several students have been finishing their courses. I've been with Studygroup since December, so this is still a new experience to me. One of my favourite students (not that I pick favourites, but I can't help it - some students just beg to be chatted to) whom I remember starting with almost no English, frightened and alone, came to me yesterday to say goodbye, and thank you. She was thrilled to be going home to see her three sons whom she missed very dearly, but was sad to be leaving at the same time. She gave me a big hug, and wandered away back to her class, and after she left, I had a tear in my eye - watching her grow in confidence and improving her English has been one of the things that in the last few weeks, even when it all becomes an enormous amount of administration, makes you remember exactly what we do here. The best of luck to you in the future, Laura!

Yesterday our ELD asked me how I was in passing, and I answered "stressed" - to which he laughed and said "good! You SHOULD be stressed the week before an Embassy Summer, if not, you're not doing your job properly!" I had to grin - I'm really looking forward to seeing them arrive. We've taken on two new activity leaders in the last week, and seeing the Social Programme kick into its fullest and best has been fantastic. Wish it were me taking the courses!

Busy few days ahead, wish us luck!

Jenny Moore, Student Services Officer, Oxford

Motat and cats

Raymond Butler, our Auckland Activities Manager, writes:

Last Friday, teachers Elena and Ray (sometimes called the Mum and Dad of GE) took 23 members of their multi-cultural, multi-lingual, pleasantly rowdy "family" to MOTAT. This Museum is well-known to most Aucklanders but was new to most of the students.

MOTAT stands for Museum Of Transport and Technology and is a varied collection of transport, buildings and history reflecting the vibrant past that is both Auckland and New Zealand.

A feature of several of these trips has become the wearing of hats supplied by teacher Ray (where does he get them from?) so you can see a group photo of Rudinei, Jeferson, Mariana and Ray before they went in through the gates (click to see the pictures bigger).

Once inside they were able to see old trains, planes, cars and the technology of yesteryear.  No, we don't make you print your own English text books but it looks as if Mariana would like to try!

Augusto finds that the penalities for not doing his homework are much tougher than in Brasil,

and Elena demonstrates an old-fashioned approach to teaching English.  Embassy CES classrooms are much more modern now as we do not use chalk or blackboards.....

Teacher Ray is talking to two men who really need help with their English particularly if they want to fly that big plane behind them.

Finally, a ride on a tram back to the main gate of MOTAT passing by Auckland's wonderful zoo (with real live Kiwis!), but a visit there will have to wait for another time.

Even the weather (wet, wet and wetter) could not dampen our enthusiasm or determination to enjoy ourselves, speak a lot of English and wear some silly hats....

And in cat news... Raymond introduces Tiggi. You might meet this beautiful tabby too, if you study at Embassy CES Auckland.

Tiggi is one of my teaching aids and appears with regularity in lessons on definite and indefinite articles ("I like cats" "I have a cat. The cat I have is very clever") and a lot of other stuff. I am also without equal in cat cartoon-drawing.

My students get to know a bit about me and end up learning that I love
military history , speak French and love all cats.

My ideal must therefore be a French-speaking army cat...