More Every Day English Lessons Online

For related vocabulary click here 

We have published a couple more of our 'Every day English Online Tutorials, that reach the English other places don't ;-)
We now also have 'How to Tie a Tie' with one of our best dressed men - the Vice Principal  and How to Replace an Inner Tube with Dave one of the most practical teachers on our staff.

If you haven't already seen 'How to Make a Cup of Coffee', 'How to Do a Smokey Eye' make sure you go and have a look here

St Patrick's Day with LSI Portsmouth.

It’s St. Patrick’s Day!!

Today is the 17^th March, otherwise know as St. Patrick’s Day, named after the patron saint of Ireland. People here in the United Kingdom, often celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, by attending festivals, parties and parades all over the country, or simply by going to their local pub and enjoying a 'pint of the black stuff', otherwise known as Guinness.

St. Patrick was the man responsible for bringing Christianity to Ireland, and was believed to have died on 17^th March sometime during the 5^th Century. However, the modern origin of St. Patrick’s Day only dates back to 1631, where the Vatican officially recognised the date, and St. Patrick’s Day became celebrated as a religious day of feasting.

Considering its religious roots, St. Patrick’s Day is often celebrated by drinking Guinness, an Irish dry stout with a particular taste that some people love, and some people hate! In fact, it is so popular, that it is estimated that over 13 million pints of Guinness are drunk every St. Patrick’s Day! That’s a lot of stout!! In recent years, St. Patrick’s Day has become a great excuse to have a fun, and has officially been named ‘the friendliest day of the year’. 

So if you want to experience ‘the friendliest day of the year’ by having a sip on your first pint of Guinness, head out in Portsmouth tonight, and you will be greeted by a lot of smiling faces, and people dressed in green! As part of our Social Programme, we will be celebrating at one of our favourite local pubs, playing games, dancing along to some traditional Irish tunes, and maybe enjoying a pint of the black stuff.  If you are busy tonight but would like to join in the fun at the weekend, there will be a fantastic night of Irish music from our very own Vice Principal Lea Brophy. See the poster above.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day everybody! 

Twenty Five Years On - Fahad Almalik

We recently got a lovely surprise, with an old friend returning to us to study after…25 years!

Fahad Almalik studied here in Portsmouth back in 1989 when things were very different.  So we asked him if he would tell us a little about that time,  and what brought him back here. 

 Lea and Fahad 2015

“My name is Fahad Almalik, and I am from Saudi Arabia.  I work in the Central Bank in the Saudi Arabia Monetary Agency (SAMA).  I work in the currency department, and I am responsible for the issue of currency, which means I supervise the printing and minting of the project, which is outsourced.  I have worked there for 23 years.  Before that I was the Marketing Officer for four years at the Savola Co (The Saudi Vegetable Oil and Ghee Co).

Lea, Fahad, Peter, Allan 1989

When I worked at Savola, they used to send some employees to England to study English.  In 1989 I came here for six months.  When I first arrived, I was at level one.

I actually came with a friend because in the beginning I couldn’t speak at all and he used to translate for me, but by the time I left I spoke very good English.

Recently the Central Bank asked me to get some training. My biggest difficulties in English are meetings, presentations, negotiations and business letters, and because I had such a good experience at LSI (back in 1989) I started looking to see if I could find my old school.  Of course none of the old phone numbers or contacts still worked, but eventually I found LSI again, and I told them I was here 25 years ago, that I knew Peter (Gray) and Allan (Gray) and my teacher was Lea.  They said ‘Yes this is the same school’, but they didn’t tell me whether any of these people were still there, so I was very happy to see Lea, who is now the Vice Principal.

Lea, Fahad, Sara, Marilyn, Sarah, Peter, Julie 1989

I chose to come at this time because it is the school holidays in Saudi at the moment. I have one month in total, so I will come back again later for another two weeks.

Fahad and Lea top right and lads from Omani Navy 1989

I think I was one of the first students to come here the last time. There were four classes and seven teachers.  The school then was a converted house down by the seafront.  Now there are seven floors, about 60 teachers and over 250 students.  The facilities are so different today, with all the IT equipment and smart boards and technology.  I was very surprised by all the changes.  Also there are such a lot of teachers now.  Twenty five years ago we used to do our own social activities, we used to all sit together and decide, a little like a family, but now everything is organised.  All you need to do is take care of your education.”

LSI Student lounge, Whitwell Road, 1989 

Thank you Fahad for talking to us, and for bringing these photos back to show us.  It has been so lovely to see you again, and we really look forward to the next time you come back.

Going to New Heights (with a monkey) - The DELTM Course

As LSI continues to grow, so has the importance it places on personal development.  We recently wrote about five of our teachers who are following an inhouse DELTA course.  As well as this, LSI is sending three of its staff to London once a month to follow the DELTM course run by English UK.
Lea Brophy (Vice Principal) Lewis Richards (Exams Director of Studies) and Sue Hodgson (Assistant Director of studies - Executive).  Below is a brief outline of the course from the English UK website;

"This course provides excellent professional development for managers and aspiring managers of language centres, and is run by English UK and validated by Trinity College London.

The course focuses on management at three levels: routine, tactical and strategic, and is run by George Pickering, Terry Phillips and Keith Harding.

It runs in London from September to June, with ten monthly face-to face sessions, and a requirement to complete five 3,500-word assignments and a 5,000-word project. These are practical, with a theoretical underpinning".

The guys below have just completed their third assignment, and as the photo shows are having a great time in London with the other participants (plus a monkey - used during the course to visually explain a point).

From left: Lea, Lewis, Sue, (Monkey), George (Pickering)

English UK Visit website

LSI Portsmouth Comes in at the Top!

We are exceptionally proud to see that we have come in at THE TOP for executive teaching in the whole of the United Kingdom, along with the London School of English, as reported in the November edition of the
EL Gazette 'based on an analysis of every single language centre listed in British Council reports as offering business or professional English' for schools with separate facilities for the executive student.

LSI Portsmouth has been running executive courses for 28 years, under the direction of Lea Brophy the Vice Principal / Director of Studies for Executives.  It looks like practice makes perfect!  
Well done Lea and all the exec team, and of course all the supporting staff, a real team effort.

(Click the picture to read full size)

A Change is as Good as a Rest

English UK regularly gives great training opportunities to its members, and recently a group from LSI Portsmouth went to participate in discussions about Change Management. As you can see from the photo not only did they learn a lot but they also appeared to have a very good time!

From left: Andrew Edwards, Angel Ma, George Pickering,
Nawaz (from Liverpool), Rosie Ford, Lea Brophy

EnglishUK in Bristol Management Conference 2014 - what a great time we had!

Once a year EnglishUK hold a management conference, the destination changes each year. This year it was held in Bristol, and five of the managers at LSI Portsmouth attended. The programme that was organised was stimulating and thought provoking.  The refreshments were delicious and the venue, The Bristol Marriott Royal Hotel, was superb, an added bonus was that we were able to catch up with some old friends.

From left: Lewis Richards (DOS) Lea Brophy (DOS) Leanne Prescott (ADOS) Sue Hodgson (ADOS) and Robyn Brooks (Course Manager)

We met up with some old friends:

colleagues from the TEN group

(From left: Viv - Sue - Nigel) 
Viv Canal the Academic Manager at Excel English Language School in London
 Nigel Paramor the Principal at English in Chester

It was lovely to finally meet Mel from Keltic who we have only ever spoken to on the phone  before and for Lea to see his old friend from Keltic Hugh Butland.

From left: Lea and Hugh

It's always good to see the new books that are available - here are a few Keltic had on show.

And we were so happy to meet up with Russell Hall, who used to work with us here at LSI Portsmouth before moving to Manchester.

From Left: Lea, Robyn, Russell, Leanne and Lewis

The hotel was placed in a perfect spot right next to this green.

And look who we found... We have the same Queen Victoria statue in Portsmouth!

Summer Snow in Russia

Having returned from yet another successful business trip to Moscow with my colleagues I couldn’t miss the opportunity to share my experiences with the readers of the LSI Blog.

Sunny Moscow in June welcomed us with what’s known locally as ‘summer snow’ – pollen being spread by the wind all across the streets of Moscow. This beautiful natural phenomenon takes place during 2 weeks of summer and we were lucky enough to visit Moscow at the right time! If you’re a hay fever sufferer, I suggest you postpone your visit to Moscow to July or August J

This time around we had the opportunity to set up meetings and hold talks with some of Moscow’s most renowned Universities – Lomonosov Moscow State University and Moscow State University of Economics, Statistics, and Informatics. The beautiful architecture of these Universities, the history and most importantly the hospitality of the people who work there is indescribable.

Having successfully completed the business part of the trip, we were very much looking forward to enjoying Moscow’s cultural landscape. Strolling through some of the historic streets of Moscow we ended up at Mari Vanna – the restaurant next to Patriarch's Pond with no sign (that’s right!) that serves the best Russian homemade food in Moscow. The 60’s interior makes you feel like you’re visiting someone’s flat as you sit underneath an old fashioned chandelier surrounded by mismatched plates and vintage furniture. It was wonderful to feel this cosy and ‘at home’ and a wonderful time was had by all, but alas it was time for us to return to our own homes.

A big thank you to Dmitry Mikheev for organising our visit and we look forward to returning soon. You can never have enough of the famous and enigmatic Russian 'dusha' or 'soul' J

Yet again, from Russia with love,

Margarita

Margarita Atlasova

Sales and Marketing



MESI University




Lea, Dmitry, Andrew.

 

Margarita





Ministry of Foreign Affairs



Kalina Bar

Lomonosov Moscow State University

Red Square and Moscow River

Summer Snow

Napoleon Cake at the Kalina Bar

Sturgeon at Mari Vanna

Peter Gray - Hands Over the Reins of LSI

Thursday 13th December, 2012 was a monumental day in the history or LSI - with our great leader, mentor, friend and the founder of LSI, Peter Gray and his wife Najat, handing over the reins of the school to our new principle Andrew Edwards and the new owners of the school  NPTC (Neath Port Talbot College).

Earlier in the year we asked Peter to tell the story of how the school started; “I was 21, had finished University and wasn’t sure what to do.  My brother was in Abu Dhabi at the time and sent me a one-way ticket for a holiday.  I had a great time but they’d only sent me a one-way ticket, so I had to get a job in order to get back again!

“Of course the only job I could get there with a History and Economics degree was teaching English.  So I started to work for a complete cowboy outfit.  I had no experience, I worked there for about a year, and what I learnt was how not to run a school.

 


Very early pic - Entertaining at home - look carefully you can see
a very young Peter and Lea (our Director of Studies)!

“My brother Allan then moved to Sharjah in the Emirates.  Somehow I found myself there and set up a tiny school.  At that stage I was literally living under the classroom furniture.  The Queen had just visited and we ended up naming ourselves the ‘Queens Language Institute’.  Unfortunately our Indian office manager couldn’t pronounce ‘Qu’ and it came out as ‘Coons Ingleesh Langwidjee Institutie’ but it didn’t hold us back!

A few years passed and Peter returned to England.



Peter with an Executive student at Whitwell Road

“I asked Allan if he wanted to join me in starting a school in England, and we found a lovely place in a rural setting, which turned out to be a huge mistake, being in the wrong place.  The students who came over wanted to be in the town with all the facilities a town has to offer, and we were out in the sticks.  Anyway, after two and a half years we were effectively bankrupt.  So we moved to a much smaller, cheaper place in Portsmouth, and found a nice bank manager who helped us with a loan.  Bit by bit it started developing again.  We had about three students and six staff!”

 As time went by they realised they had to either close or expand. They made the decision to move into new premises and then after a couple of years decided to move again.

Peter with some of our lovely Arab students
at Whitwell Road

 “We were very lucky and found a much bigger place, and relatively cheaply.  Slowly we grew into it.  And then we had a brilliant piece of luck: a property developer wanted the premises and offered us a stupid offer for the building to turn it into a theme pub.  The choice then was to either get out while we were ahead or to take the next leap.  Once again we found an incredibly cheap, very large building.  I think our success has been partly luck and partly instinct.  We moved into our new building and today we have an eight floor school which is actually now one of the top schools in England.  At our busy times we have over 50 teachers.”  



Entertaining students with one of our
favourite host families from the past; Ron and Rosie

So what makes a good and successful language school? Peter continues: “The actual key point for a successful language school is to be able to keep quality staff together.  You’ve got to not be seasonal and not be too specific, as there are always problems at some time, like SARS or the Gulf war, which can stop certain nationalities coming.  Because you have good teachers you have good results and then the students tell friends, they come back or send others, and on it goes.  Our facilities are second to none.  I would say good marketing and PR is a good recipe for success.

“The best and the worst thing about owning a school is the same thing; it’s the people: it’s the students and the teachers.  It’s the biggest pain and is also the thing I’ve enjoyed the most”.


Peter and Najat are taking a very well deserved holiday for a few months.  When asked what Peter and Alan intend to do in the future?

“Both of us have a lot of projects in the pipeline, but at the same time we don’t want to cut ties totally with LSI, after all these years, we have invested so much of our lives to making this the successful place it is, so I would have to say just watch this space!”

So, Thursday 13th came, and there were speeches, presents and a lot of reflecting, particularly from the staff who have been with the school a long time.  Tears were shed, but at the same time, as Lea (the Director of Studies said in his speech) when is a good time to leave a business like this? 'When it is running very successfully and you still have your health' so although we are all sad at Peter's leaving, he is wished only wonderful things for his future, and we know we will see him again in some capacity or another (or maybe just in the pub!).



Allan - Peter - Lea
Three friends - together for 28 years
Peter at his farewell party

On the Saturday (15th), we had our annual Christmas party. which was more of a celebration of Peter's time at LSI (as opposed to the sadness of the Thursday), and Lea gave a lovely speech telling of the history of the school.  The following video shows the presentation in a pictorial form.