10 terrific things to look forward to in Portsmouth in 2016

At Wow 24/7 there is a brilliant post on what is happening in Portsmouth in 2016

Click Here

The Two Best Events This Weekend

Although the nights are dark and the holidays are finished January has some great events happening.  

The first is local and is in Southsea at the Kings Theatre.
This Saturday the 16th January sees a day of tours, activities and workshops all for just £5. Don't miss the opportunity to visit this beautiful old building and see what most people never get to experience.

For more details click the link here.

The second is in London, so get out of the house, put a warm coat on and visit the capital to see Lumiere London.  You can see from the short little video below that it makes no difference if it rains or is fine it is a truly spectacular treat not to miss.

It is on from the 14th to the 17th January from 6.30pm to 10.30pm each night.  For more details click the link here

If you get to see either of these events, do let u sknow what it was like, photos would be even better ;-)

LSI Portsmouth is now a BULATS Testing Centre!

LSI are delighted to announce that from January 2016, we are now an official BULATS (Business Language Testing Service) testing centre.

There are so many good reasons why BULATS could be useful for you:

• A flexible and fast way of getting certification for your language level: you only need to give us 7 days notice to book the test

• Validation of your English courses for employers. For example, in France, you can use your CPF (Compte Personnel de Formation) to come and study with us – but only if the course is  validated ; and  BULATS is one of the approved tests.

•  Impress new and potential employers with BULATS on your CV: It’s an exam specifically focused on business or professional English

• Worldwide recognition as a University of Cambridge exam

The addition of BULATS to the existinging exam options of IELTS, Cambridge FCE, CAE and CPE really does cement our reputation as THE school to prepare for and take an English language exam in the UK.

For more information click cross (far right) below picture for full screen or get in touch with us.

We're Back and Raring to Go!

Happy New Year

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

Class Charity Week!

Recently a class of students did an amazing thing, here they explain what they did.

"Two weeks ago our class organised a charity week for collecting some money for the Rowans Hospice in Portsmouth.  Over a whole week long we offered to other students some activities.  On the first day there was an amazing auction, where we purchased a lot of lovely things.  The day after we made a quiz for all the students who were interested in it, and for all sport fans we prepared a table tennis tournament and a pool tournament, each activity cost £1.

On Friday finally there was the ceremony of all winners of the activities during the week and we declared how much money we collected. With this charity week over £200! To organise these activities and to practise them was always a lot of fun and we all had a good experience."

Luis
Victor
Omar
Lama
Valeria
Veronika
Eva

The Great South Run with Jenni, Lara and Annabelle.

At the end of October, thousands and thousands of people joined together to run ten miles for fun and for charity. The seafront was filled with runners, supporters, charities and volunteers. 

One of our teachers Jenni trained hard for months before to run for a charity very close to her heart DEBRA and with such determination managed to raise over £750 for her cause. Her passion for the event persuaded two students in her class to also join in on the run.  Here is their story:

To see more details about the run click here to go to the official website

What a Fantastic Year So Far - Joel

2015 has proven to be a pretty good year so far for Joel.

He has just been promoted to be the GE / Exams Assistant Director of Studies.

Joel joined LSI back in 2007, since then he has taught General English as well as IELTS and the Cambridge exams. He has taught in Mexico, Spain and here in Portsmouth, and so has a really broad experience of cultures.

With his new position Joel is excited to be part of helping others develop and make the best of their teaching, and also keen to develop his own skills as much as possible.

This year he studied for the Delta (Diploma in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages), passing it in the summer.  Not only that but he is also studying for an MA in Philosophy, and... earlier in the year moved into a new house that "needs loads of work". This is one industrious individual!

As well as all the other things Joel has achieved recently, he is also a very keen musician who plays the guitar and sings.  For some reason (;-) this has been put on hold for a little while but he is now restarting and ready to go.  On top of all that Joel is a keen outdoors man who enjoys cycling, running and swimming.

Congratulations Andy!

The Irish Devil Cleans Up.

At LSI, we are really passionate about fundraising, and have held many charity events over the years to help raise money for some wonderful causes. From fun runs to parties, we have organised many events, and on Friday 30th October, we decided to hold the ‘Great LSI Bake Off’ to raise money for a local charity called The Rowan’s Hospice.
Elly, our fantastic Reception Manager, thought holding a bake sale would be a wonderful way to get all the staff involved. Considering the colder and wetter weather we are currently experiencing, it’s the perfect time to sell delicious home-cooked food! We were completely overwhelmed with the effort that was put into the cakes and pies! There were Halloween-inspired cupcakes, savoury chicken and bacon pies, chocolate cakes baked inside ice cream cones and even a traditional Venezuelan three milk cake (to name a few)!!! Three members of staff were lucky enough to be the judges of the baking competition, and got to try a piece of every single one! They certainly weren’t disappointed! The entries were judged on both taste and appearance.

After the judging took place, all the staff and students were invited to buy all the cakes and pies! Everyone was so excited to grab a piece of their favourite cake before they were all sold. It was so crazy, but a really fun and exciting experience. Some students even bought 5 different things to eat!
The winners were announced during the weekly leavers’ ceremony. The winners deserve a special mention:

Appearance
1st place – Jenni (teacher) - ‘Bollywood Beauty’
2nd place – Belle (Social Programme Organiser) - ‘Ice Cream, You Scream, we all scream for Cupcakes!’
3rd place – Amelia (Administration Officer) – ‘Irish Devil’

Bollywood Beauty from Jenni

Taste
1st place – Amelia (Administration Officer) – ‘Irish Devil’

2nd place – Meriana (Reception intern) – ‘Tres Leches’

3rd place – Robyn (Pre-Sessional Course Manager) – ‘The Quiche of Champignons’

Irish Devil from Amelia

Amelia’s ‘Irish Devil’ cake was absolutely incredible and certainly deserved to win across both categories. We are so impressed with all our staff for baking such wonderful cakes, and we are also extremely grateful to our students for helping us raise so much money! By lunchtime, there wasn’t anything left to buy!

Most importantly of all, we managed to raise an extremely nearly £200 for the Rowan’s Hospice. The Rowan’s Hospice is a local charity which is dedicated to improving the lives of people with life-limiting illnesses in Portsmouth and South East Hampshire. If you want to find out more about the work they do, please visit their website


http://www.rowanshospice.co.uk/

Remember Remember the 5th November!

Our students are in the Portsmouth Evening News having fun watching the annual firework display at Cosham.

 http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/news/picture-slideshow-cosham-fireworks-1-7049324

Click the link above to see more of the slideshow.

Welcoming Adam to LSI Portsmouth

In the Summer, a lot of new staff joined LSI, one of our new members was kind enough to introduce himself in a blog piece, which although now is a little belated, is still lovely!

My name is Adam, I am one of the newest members of the LSI teaching team, and I am an IELTS teacher. I have only been teaching at LSI for 1 month (6 months now), so I am still adjusting to the new work environment, still learning names, and still haven't eaten in the cafeteria.

LSI isn't the only 'new' in my life, I am new to Portsmouth, having just returned to the UK from Russia, where I taught English for 7 years, Japan for 2 years before that. So, I totally understand the frustrations and joys of learning a new language and living in a new culture.
I am also a new father, my daughter was born just a few days before I joined LSI, and I don't think I've slept since.

Before teaching at LSI or changing nappies, I was teaching IELTS online. My good friend Matt, the founder of theieltsteacher.com, invited me to join him teaching on his website. It is a website aimed at students who want one-to-one lessons to learn IELTS test strategy and improve their English within an IELTS context. Before joining Matt I had been teaching independently online and I had worked as part of a team designing and teaching online academic writing courses for two Russian universities, MIPT and ITMO.

For me as a teacher, I didn’t have to travel to a school, I could sit in my office, with a wall covered in clocks for different time zones, and work from there. Or, I could sit in my pajamas planning lessons and developing material. 

I remember when I first moved to the Portsmouth area, I had scheduled one final lesson with a student called Zhenya. On the day I moved to Portsmouth, we were going to have a speaking lesson just before she went in to do her IELTS speaking test, in Moscow. I arrived at my new flat one hour before the lesson was due to begin, two hours before her test. Imagine my surprise when my landlord told me that unfortunately we wouldn’t have internet access until the next day.

However, I quickly found a solution and I made sure that I was there to give Zhenya the IELTS speaking coaching she wanted… I also gave a bar full of people the same speaking coaching. 

Thank you Adam for this - we'll persuade one of the other new teachers to do a piece soon!

Halloween in Portsmouth - Spooky!

Try our Halloween reading quiz.  Using the vocabulary below, try and complete the gaps.

On Saturday 31^st October, many people all across the UK will be celebrating Halloween! But what are the origins of this s__________­­­­­­­­­­­   fes__________, and how will we be celebrating it here at LSI Portsmouth?

Halloween has its origins in p__________ festivals that were held at the end of October in Britain and other parts of Europe. The Celtic people though that the barrier between our world and the world of g__________ became really thin. This meant that the s__________ of d__________ people would come alive and walk among the living, and weird creatures with dark powers could wander about on Earth. In order to avoid being harmed by the spirits and c__________, people would dress up in f__________ costumes, to try and protect themselves. The Celts would have a big p__________ to try and scare away the ghosts and spirits!

Nowadays, people continue the t__________ of wearing s__________ costumes, such as dressing up as v__________, w__________, w__________ and ghosts. People often have parties, and decorate their houses to look cr__________ and ha__________. You may see lots of pumpkins in the shops at the moment. These are h__________ o      , and then have s__________ faces c__________ into them. Carving faces into pumpkins is also a tradition that originated long ago.

Click here for the answers

Last year, LSI Portsmouth had a huge party, with DJs, lots of Halloween candy, and prizes for the best scary costumes. Check out some photos from the party:

http://blog.lsi-portsmouth.co.uk/2014/11/how-to-have-scary-party-just-ask-us.html

This year, we will be selling tickets to the infamous international party on Guildhall Walk!! The party will be on the 29^th October at Popworld. If you need a ticket, go and see Belle in room 305. There will be HUGE cash prizes for the scariest costumes, as well as the most innovative costume. It’s time to get creative! On Friday 30^th, we will be hosting a halloween film club, with a choice of terrifying horror films to choose from, as well as free drinks and warm popcorn! There is also loads of halloween parties happening across the city on October 31^st, so if you’d like to find out more about what’s going on, pop into Belle’s office for a chat!

How Well Do You Know Portsmouth - Try Our Quiz (we dare you!)

You think you know Portsmouth well?  Try this quiz and see how well you this city ;-)

China versus England and how they compare - Amelia talks to Flora and Alex

We have another video in the series of interviews showing the differences that students notice when living here in England.

This video is with two of our lovely and very popular Chinese students.  Amelia talking to Flora and Alex from China.  It is so interesting hearing students point out the strange differences in English culture, when comparing it to their own.

LSI Portsmouth is 30 Years Old this Year

This year LSI celebrates its 30th birthday.  Here is the story of how we started and where we come from.  We are very grateful to Peter Gray and Allan Gray for all their hard work, along with Lea Brophy who now joins Andrew Edwards in helping to keep LSI Portsmouth the wonderful place it is today.  Thank you to all our amazing students and thank you to all our amazing teachers and staff, without all of you there would be no us.

The Rugby World Cup

We asked Leanne to write a piece about the Rugby for anyone who doesn't understand.  

THE RUGBY WORLD CUP IS HERE

I first got into rugby back in 2001 on my gap year in New Zealand. Rugby to the New Zealanders is like football to us.  It’s a part of their lives, they live and breathe it. While I was there I totally got swept up in the thrill of it.

In the beginning I remember annoying my Kiwi friends with endless questions like ‘what’s a scrum?’ ‘What’s a ruck?’ ‘What’s a try?’ ‘Why is he kicking the ball and not passing it?’ and so on. Pretty much like the typical football question of ‘What’s the offside rule?’

Once you get it, or nearly get it, it’s fast, furious and truly exciting. Men charge at each other like bulls, there’s mud (and sometimes a bit of blood!) flying here and there just to get the ball over the line to score a try. It sounds barbaric but trust me it’s thrilling.

If you are lucky enough to watch the All Blacks (the New Zealand team) live, it sends shivers down your spine when they perform the haka. The haka is a long line of powerful rugby players chanting and performing their warrior dance daring the opposition to take them on.

So if I were you, I’d grab some mates, head to the pub with a big screen and soak up the fun and atmosphere! Go the All Blacks.... or Go England!!!!!! 

Many thanks Leanne.

Victorious was AMAZING!

(A little belated ;-)

If you were in Portsmouth last weekend, we hope you managed to make it down to Victorious Festival located at Southsea common and seaside. Loads of staff and students headed down to the event to be entertained by acts including Tinie Tempah, The Flaming Lips, Ray Davies and Basement Jaxx.

In true British festival style, it didn’t just rain on Saturday, it poured! Although it was a miserable and wet day, with lots of dark clouds in the sky, the atmosphere was amazing!!! Lots of students hid from the rain by sheltering in the silent disco tent- a truly unique way of experience DJ music. Rather than listening to music over a large speaker system, music was transmitted wirelessly into headphones! It was so much fun, and a great way to stay dry!

On Sunday, the weather was much nicer, and there was no rain throughout the event! There were so many amazing famous acts, as well as lots of up and coming local bands for everyone to enjoy. The organisers have said that 100,000 people attended the event of the two day period, and we were really excited to be able to get tickets for our students to enjoy Portsmouth at its best. It was amazing to be able to listen to great live music, watch the amazing pyrotechnics, and see the beautiful Portsmouth seaside all at the same time.

The event is held annually, and hopefully next year will be even bigger and better than this year! If you were at Victorious festival this year, please send us your photos- we would love to see them!

Belle.

September Vocabulary Calendar

Each month we print a vocabulary calendar to help our students add to their vocabulary base.  We suggest they print it out and stick it up somewhere they will see it everyday!