Looking Back Over 2015

2015

What a fantastic year we have had this year. Happy, sad, funny and interesting. Here is a round up of all the fabulous things we have been involved in this year.

January:

We started off the year discovering how many languages in total our teachers speak, with a great little info graphic. Then came the sad part where we said goodbye to our lovely Bill Phillips, a hugely popular teacher who has been with the school for 20 years. He decided it was time to stop, but he is now a host family. We also had some of our staff start on a management course. Probably one of the most fun things to happen in the school this month was some of our teachers started learning Arabic with Arif.  See stories here

February:

In February, we welcomed back an old friend, a student who attended the school over 25 years ago. And we said a temporary goodbye to Hannah who started her maternity leave to have her and Adam’s baby. We were delighted to hear that Allan Gray’s (who used to be the marketing director here) G Boutique hotel had won yet another award.  See stories here

March:

We launched our first quiz, ‘What type of student are you?’ which proved very popular, and we finally launched our new study centre, with Becky telling us on video what was available. We also had another rooftop interview this time with Belle telling us about the LSI Social Programme. As always, the generous side came out for Comic Relief day and there was a charity cake bake. See stories here

April:

In April we had a celebrity visit us in the executive centre and gave us a lovely interview. Paul Rosenmöller is a well know TV face in Holland, dealing with hot political topics. There was also a great little story about LSI’s involvement with Karaoke.  See stories here

May:

Once again the LSI team were out supporting charity, this time with a fun run in Oxford along with a lot of other language school’s teachers and students. However mostly May was dominated by the General Election. One of our teachers Jeremy made a lovely presentation which explained how are elections are carried out in the UK.  See stories here

June:

In June we finally revealed the long awaited reveal of LSI’s fantastic facelift. For months we lived in a building covered by netting and scaffolding, but it was most definitely worth it to finally see the fantastic new face. Once again we focussed back on the many language skills our teachers have by showing an interview with two of our bilingual teachers.  See stories here

July:

Quite a few events of note happened this month. Firstly our sweet little Ellis I Bear arrived at the school, hoping to go travelling with as many people as he can. Lovely Hannah (teacher and marketing lady) had her baby, and then the incredible Americas Cup race event happened in Portsmouth.See stories here

August:

Yet another charity event happened in August, this time football. A wonderful video interview with Amelia and two lovely Arabic students and another big event in Portsmouth; Victorious Festival.  See stories here

September:

England was agog with Rugby mania but closer to home was a milestone in LSI’s history. This year we reached the grand old age of 30 years! We decided to celebrate it this year with two parties and a video showing the journey from where we started to where we are today.  See stories here

October:

The Halloween theme seemed to dominate most things in October. So to continue with the fun theme we made a quiz for people to find out how well they knew Portsmouth. This proved incredibly popular and was taken a few thousand times. Amelia interviewed two wonderful Chinese students and our Vice Principal and his band headlined a refugee charity gig.  See stories here

November:

Joel rounded up a very successful year for him by being promoted to GE/Exam ADOS. One of our teachers had a surprise (to us) wedding. We had not one but two charity events, one was a bake off in aid of the most wonderful charity in this area – the Rowans Hospice, the other was the Great South Run which not only included teacher Jenni (running for DEBRA), but also two Swiss students, who talked with Jenni in an interview about their experience. Finally, being November, it couldn’t pass without a visit to the traditional fireworks display held every year in Cosham.  See stories here

Kicking Off for a Good Cause

Last month, as part of the LSI Social Programme, we entered our very own football team into an 'all day' football tournament, to raise money for the Feel Yourself Campaign, which aims to promote awareness in younger men and women about the importance of checking for breast and testicular cancer. To say we were going in as the underdogs was certainly an understatement having never really played together before. However, the players were focused, ambitious, and ready to work hard. Our team comprised of:
Sercan (Turkey)
Thomas (Swiss German)
Patrick (Swiss German)
Basim (Saudi Arabia)
Abdullah (Saudi Arabia)
Oscar (Colombia)
Abdulrahman Kicking Off for a Goo(Saudi Arabia)
Kazuki (Japan)

The group also included one of our teachers, John Hick, who was the team manager, with Belle as photographer, and a whole group of fans. The team looked absolutely fantastic wearing our specially printed LSI Portsmouth t-shirts, in the school colour of royal blue, and after a 30 minute warm-up, the team were ready to play their first game.

For their first game, the team was quick-paced and eager, but their formation lacked structure and they required a stronger tactical approach. Under the shrewd coaching of the team manager, John, the team quickly found their footing, and managed to narrowly beat Rocker Soccer FC with a 2-1 result.

The team then went from strength to strength, with another win, an unfortunate narrow defeat, and finally a complete victory over Strong Island Records, defeating them 10-3!!! The huge goal difference from the last game meant that LSI Portsmouth came top of their league, and qualified for the semi-finals.

For our semi-final game, we faced ILDFC, and really put on an impressive performance. When the final whistle blew, it was a 3-3 draw, and the game went to a penalty shoot out. Our goalkeeper Sercan was incredible and managed to save a few shots, before going on to win the final penalty!!! (6-5 pens)

During the final game, the team were incredible, but again the game finished on a draw, and the team had to once again face a penalty shoot out. Although the team were so close to claiming victory, we had to settle for second place, being defeated by Tobacco Dock, 2-3 on penalties.

After the tournament, the crew headed to a local pub for a buffet, some drinks and to receive their 'runners up' medals. John even scooped the Manager of the Tournament award, which was thoroughly deserved. It was such a wonderful day out, a great opportunity for our students to meet local friends, and to raise money for a brilliant cause. To the LSI Portsmouth football team, well done for your amazing efforts, and for helping raise money for the Feel Yourself Campaign. Also, a huge well done to Sercan Temel, our goalkeeper, and Man of the Tournament!

To find out more about the charity, please visit http://www.feelyourselfcampaign.org/

Definitions:
underdogs - A person / team expected to lose
understatement - saying something less than it is.
quick-paced - fast
formation - the assembly / arranging a group
structure - something built or constructed
shrewd - astute / perceptive
footing - established position / stability
impressive - admirable
claiming - to say it is a fact / to take it as a right
to settle - to agree / to accept
headed - a direction
runners up - to come in second place

A sad day as we say goodbye

Friday was a very sad day for us as we said goodbye to Roy who has been here for 9 months now.  Roy was the captain of the football team and led them to many victories with his passion for the sport.  He was also house manager for one of our student houses. As well as that he was just an all round great student, positive, happy, motivated, hardworking and always laughing.

If you haven't seen Roy and John's video here is the video again!

We wish Roy and of course all the other lovely students the very best for the future.

LSI Portsmouth - Top of the League!

LSI Portsmouth is very proud of its football team, and all those involved with making it the success that it is.  Every week a group of students and teachers meet up and play their hearts out.  The Captain of the team - Roy (from Korea) is not only an excellent and very popular student he is also completely passionate about his football.  In this Rooftop Interview, John talks to Roy about his passion and also hears why Roy thinks learning to play football is like learning a language, as well as which team Roy thinks LSI would be if it was a football team.
This is a fabulous interview - don't miss it!

To keep up to date with the latest videos from LSI Portsmouth - subscribe to our channel.

We Should Have Won! - LSI Plays Football

Alert: Football language used in the following:

LSI’s team played a blinder!

We spoke to their manager John Hicks for the low down of the match.

John is in the middle with a red top

“The current group of players haven’t really been training long, they play football on Mondays and Wednesdays, but Friday was the first time they’d all played on the same team together. They were thrown together and coped really well. The team was made up of loads of different nationalities. Normally with the school we train twice a week and then the nearer we get to the Summer the more popular it gets, and yeah some of the students play down on the common (Southsea Common) as well.

So on Friday we played in The Portsmouth University tournament, which involved 15 games with teams from the university, a bit like a mini World Cup. They had some first team players who were really good and then some others ;-)

Was it fair? Well we were robbed a little bit, to be honest we had a very very difficult group, some of the teams in our group were really strong, physically and in terms of ability. We won the group then the quarter and semi finals.  We did extremely well to get to the final but I think by then they were quite drained and tired. They were also tired from the physical nature of English football, they got kicked in the air a little bit, and were a little bruised and battered.  If we had played the team from the final at the start we would have killed them!  

In total they played 6 or 7 games, each one lasts about 20 minutes to half an hour, and yes they were exhausted by the end of it.  We were unlucky not to win it, we were definitely the best footballing side, but the physical nature of English football came as a bit of a surprise to a lot of them, they were quite shocked that the ref wasn’t giving them a bit more protection, but welcome to English football ;-)

This is how everyone felt!

What’s next for us? Well there’s a language schools’ competition, where all of the local language schools will get together and have a tournament – and we will win that one!”

LSI Trip to Wembley - England vs Germany

LSI Trip to Wembley – England vs Germany

"A student group including me went to the football game between England and Germany on 19^th November at Wembley Stadium.

The bus left at 3:30 pm from LSI, and on the way we had a break for coffee.  We arrived at 6.30 pm at the stadium.  To practise my English I talked to the other students who came from different countries.  After arriving we took photographs of the group and stadium.  After that we went to our seats and watched the game.  The crowd were very quiet because Germany won, but you could say that England was the better team,  After the game we went to the bus together, and arrived back in Portsmouth at 1:15 am.  We had a lot of fun on the trip and enjoyed the day."

Zülküf Öztürk  

from Germany

Off to Wembley

Last week John (Hicks) one of our teachers, went to Wembley with some of our footy loving students to watch England play a friendly game against Brazil.  If you'd like to read more about the game (by someone who really knows how to write up a football game) have a look at the official Wembley site link here.

What can be said is; the students had a fabulous time, made even better by the fact that the home team won (that certainly pleased the teacher ;-).  The students took lots and lots of photos of the match at the world renowned stadium which can be seen below.