Wednesday 4 August 2010
We have moved
The London School of English World Blog has a new home:
http://www.londonschool.com/language-talk/language-blog/
The new blog promises to be bigger, better and faster! Thank you all for your support and readership over the past year as we have developed and established the blog.
We look forward to hearing from you on the new site in the future.
Many thanks,
Andy, Luke, Ben, Heather and Sophie
(The Blog Team)
Wednesday 28 July 2010
Culture Shock
It’s generally accepted that there are four common stages of homesickness:
- Exaltation – when you first arrive in a new country everything is so new, fresh and exciting. You feel a sense of wonder as each day is like an adventure. This can last for a few days or a few weeks. But it won’t last forever.
- Frustration – after you’ve been in a new environment for some time, you begin to ask yourself why you’re there – or more specifically, what are you doing here when you could be back home with your friends and family where you belong. You begin to miss the things you took for granted at home, like watching familiar programmes on TV or reading the paper.
- Depression – this is the next, and the hardest, stage of homesickness. You often feel isolated or reluctant to go out. You may find that you sleep a lot more than you usually do, and that you are generally unhappy.
- Acceptance – at this point you come to the realisation that although your new home isn’t perfect, neither is anywhere else. You start to adapt to the culture and begin to feel that you fit in more. You develop routines, learn a bit of the lingo and even make some friends among the locals.
In my case, I experienced all of these stages bar the last one. I was only away from home for a few weeks, though had it been longer I’m sure I would’ve got to stage four. We see a lot of students here at the school that go through some, if not all of these phases. The main thing to remember, and I have experienced this first hand, is that they are only temporary, and there are always things you can do to speed up the process.
Have you ever experienced culture shock or homesickness? If so, how did you get through the darker days? Please let me know, and I’ll write again soon with some ideas of my own to help speed up the process.
If you'd like to read my original post on homesickness, you can do here.
water under the bridge - (idiom.) an expression meaning that a lot of time has gone by
to look back fondly - (phr.v + adv.) to remember something in a positive way
vividly - (adv.) clearly
exaltation - (n.) a feeling of excitement and happiness
a sense of wonder - (fixed expression) a feeling that everything experience is exciting and new
more specifically - (adv.) more importantly
take sth for granted - (fixed expression) to get used to having something which you would perhaps miss if it was taken away
to adapt - (v.) to change in order to suit certain conditions
lingo - (n.) language (slang)
bar - (v.) apart from
phase - (n.) stage/period
to experience sth first hand - (idiom) to have personal experience of something
darker days - (adj. + n.) difficult times
Tuesday 20 July 2010
Top 5 Things to Do in London in the Summer
Monday 19 July 2010
Practising Language Skills
I was really excited when I arrived in Spain and was really keen to practice my Spanish. However, I soon became really disappointed and frustrated when the people I talked to, spoke really fast and I couldn’t understand them apart from the odd word. It was also annoying to see their puzzled faces as they tried to work out what I was saying. I felt a bit useless but I realised that this is a normal feeling to have. It’s impossible to learn a language over night and I understand that I now need to work harder and practice more with native speakers if I’m going to improve.
While I was in Spain I found the opportunity to practice helped my Spanish mainly by making me aware of what I can and can’t do and what areas I need to improve. The most obvious area that I need to work on is my listening. It’s fine being able to understand a teacher or class mates but speaking outside the classroom is a lot faster and less structured than I’m used to.
Since I’ve been back I’ve started listening to 5-10 minutes of Spanish every day and I feel I’m getting better. I focus on key words and try to get the main ideas of what I’m listening to rather than worry about trying to catch everything, as I know real life won’t give me time to stop and try and understand every word. I’m making progress slowly and the main reason is that I know my weaknesses and these are the areas I’m trying to improve. Let me know what you think of my experience and how you feel when trying to improve your English.
various – n different
to pick up - phr. v [t] to learn some thing from experience
cohesion – n uniting different phrases, sentences or text
disappointed – adj. saddened or depressed by the failure of hope or expectations
frustrated – adj. not satisfied because of being unable to do something
puzzled – adj. feeling confused
to be aware of – adj. phr. having the knowledge of
obvious – adj. easily seen or understood
Sunday 4 July 2010
Answers to Wordforming
1. She was delighted when she heard that she had been successful in her interview.
2. He always waited for her to choose the film, he was so indecisive.
3. Due to the recession a lot of people don’t have jobs and therefore unemployment is high.
4. When selecting our new suppliers, reliability is the most important benefit to us.
5. The sales forecast was promising but the results were dramatically better.