Be a Stamp Collector - for a really good cause

Everyone loves receiving mail - the hard solid kind (as long as it isn't a bill), and as more and more of us buy online, although the letter writing industry has been hugely reduced in recent years, the Post Office is still going strong delivering all those lovely parcels.  So, now, rather than throwing the wrapping away, help us (or help the charity directly) and save those stamps.

Against Breast Cancer is collecting all donated stamps, and as they explain on their site, they can receive money which can then go towards the fight against breast cancer.

So you now know what to do - go shopping online (guilt free) and save the stamps!  If you are in LSI give them over to (Elly or Anna) reception, if you are not, then read below and maybe send them to Against Breast Cancer.

"We're raising money by recycling postage stamps. Whether they're British or overseas, new or used, send them to us and we'll turn your old postage stamps into funds to support breast cancer research.

Stamps are sold by weight. As a general guideline we can expect to receive around £20 for one kilogram of stamps, so do encourage your friends and family, at home and abroad, to save their stamps for us.

How to donate used stamps:

Please cut the stamp off the envelope. When cutting, leave approximately 1cm of envelope bordering each stamp. The rest of the envelope can be discarded (which will make it cheaper to send)."

Click this link to go to the site

English vs Bangladeshi weddings - Money or Gifts?

This week we have a lovely video - Arif and Alan talk about the differences between traditional English and Bangladeshi weddings.  Listen to the video to see who gets money and who gets gifts.

How are weddings different in your country? Leave a comment below.

Aiming for the Top - LSI Teachers following the DELTA

Five of our top teachers (Joel, Jenni, Tom, Anisa and Jon D) have been following the DELTA (Diploma in English Language Teaching to Adults) qualification at LSI since September.  The DELTA is the highest English as a Foreign Language qualification that teachers can get, and focuses on improving teaching skills and developing teachers advanced level knowledge of grammar, linguistics, phonetics and so on.  As part of LSI's commitment to helping our teachers become as good as possible, LSI is helping to finance the DELTA course for these five teachers this year, and five more next year.   

Going round the table from the right: Jenni, Jon D, Tom, Richard (tutor) Joel and Anisa

At present this lovely group are working really hard, and we all appreciate all the effort they are putting in.  We know they will benefit from it in the end.  

How to improve fluency and vocabulary - tip from Matt.

A great new Quick Tip today from the lovely Matt!

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How to Have a Scary Party - Just Ask Us!

We know how to have a party!!  over 100 LSI students came together to celebrate Halloween in typical LSI style- with a huge party! From cute cats and girly witches to zombie brides and terrifying clowns, our students certainly looked scary.  

We are lucky enough to have an amazing DJ among our teaching staff, and he always knows how to get our students up and dancing. There was an amazing atmosphere, with DJ Hugo playing an strange mix of Halloween classics and current chart favourites. 

 Prizes were awarded for the best costumes, including the beautiful zombie bride Ryo (from Japan), and the bizarrely horrifying mad doctor Arthur (from Holland). However, the top prize was rightly awarded to the lovely Saudi Arabian boys, who arrived as a group, dressed as cloaked skeletons and who really made the party a scary success.

The whole event was a great success, and although there were a few tired faces in the morning, everyone agreed that it was certainly worth it. 

We would just like to say thank you to everyone who came, and we look forward to hosting the next big LSI party.  

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!

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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)

Latest Quick Tip from our teachers

Here is the latest quick tip from one of our teachers. Luis explains the benefits of newspapers when you are learning English.

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YouTube channel.

We are very Social!

Over the last few years, LSI has been getting very sociable - online. 

We thought it would be a good idea to share where we are and who we are talking to.

We are on Face Book, Twitter, Blogger, Instagram, YouTube and LinkedIn, and also in a small way on Flickr and Google+.   We would love to see you there!

Facebook:
We use Facebook to connect with students in the school or those who have left. We think it shows the 'fun' side of the school with pictures, videos and updates, and is also used to announce events. 

Twitter:
With Twitter we share small snippets of interesting information either educational, local and school oriented.

Blogger:
Well you're here so you know what we use blogger for. It is like an in-house magazine 
that focusses on the school and the people in it. We hope it shows a more personal side of the school than the website can, so we can convey who we are, the latest changes and updates in the school and focusses on teachers and students alike.

Instagram
We have only recently started using instagram but we love it!  It's our photo album of Portsmouth and we hope to show what an attractive island Portsmouth is.

YouTube
When we have things that are animated we show these on YouTube.  At the moment we are showing tips from the teachers on how students can improve their English, but we also have a few fun videos on there as well.

Linkedin
We are on linkedin where we connect with other professionals in the industry.    

New Rooftop Interview - Raquel's Unique Time Studying at LSI as a Blind Student

Our latest rooftop interview is with Hannah and Raquel.

In this episode of Rooftop Interviews Raquel and Hannah discuss Raquel's experience while studying at LSI; the successes and the challenges that face a student who is visually impaired.  This is Raquel's third time at LSI, she is a complete superstar and has made a real impact on everyone here. 

Alison, Hannah, Eugenio (Raquel's husband) Raquel

Japanese Taxi Drivers Get a Lift in their English

Every year, we welcome a group of taxi drivers from MK Taxi  in Japan.  This year, we were lucky enough to have 6 of them study here at LSI – 4 from Kyoto, 1 from Sapporo and 1 from Kobe.  They are all training to be English-speaking drivers and with a little help from LSI Portsmouth, they’ll be driving people around their cities in English!  They have been a joy to have here – their enthusiasm, smiles and warmth – and so popular with teachers and fellow students alike.  They requested to give a little presentation at our Friday leaving ceremony to say thank you to LSI and to tell us about their wonderful cities in Japan.  Thank you, Satoshi, Tatsuhiro, Shigenori, Mutsuhisa, Hisayoshi, Nobutaka.

MK - Most Kind Hearted! ;-)

Thank you and best wishes Satoshi Ebina, Tatsuhiro Fujii, Shigenori Maki, Mutsuhisa Inoue, Hisayoshi Takamoto, Nobutaka Katsura

Justine and Constanze Leave Today

At LSI Portsmouth we regularly have interns around to help us, and for them to improve their English and gain experience in an English working environment.  We have been so lucky to have had some absolutely delightful interns with us. Two of these, Justine Rehel and Constanze Karl, have been with us for the last few months and leave us today.  Before they leave we asked them some questions about their time here and their thoughts on Portsmouth.

Constanze (left) and Justine

Firstly we talk to Constanze;

Where do you come from?

Germany

How long have you been here at LSI?

Two months

Why did you come to Portsmouth?

Because I had to do an internship in an English speaking country for university.  As I’ve only heard good things about the South of England, I decided to come here.

What do you do back home? (study / work) and do you have any hobbies?

I study English and Spanish at University and work part time at Siemens.  In my free time I like to meet with friends, read good books, play the piano and travel.

What do you like about Portsmouth

Portsmouth is a great place as it is quite small, so it feels like home very quickly.  Also, having a drink next to the sea is great, especially because the weather has been great – way better than I had imagined before I came here.

What have you been doing while you have been here?

I did quite a few weekend trips with school.  Apart from that I liked to go out for dinner (Portsmouth has many great restaurants) with my house-mates or go jogging at the seaside.

What will you do when you leave / go back home?

I will finish my studies and spend as much time with my friends and family as possible.  And I can’t wait to have a German breakfast! ;-)

Goals for the future?

Be an awesome teacher ;-) Maybe do an extra qualification for teaching German.

Constanze.

Next up is Justine;

Where do you come from?

France

How long have you been here at LSI?

Almost 5 months.

Why did you come to Portsmouth?

I had to do an internship for my studies and as I’m studying Foreign Languages at the University I decided to apply for internships in England.  Then I met someone who did her internship at LSI so I decided to apply here.

What do you do back home? (study / work) and do you have any hobbies?

In my free time I like to meet my friends, go out, go to the cinema, travel and spend time with my family.

What do you like about Portsmouth

Portsmouth is a really nice place to live.  The city is big enough to do a lot of things (having a drink, go to the theatre, the sea etc) but it is also small enough to feel like home and get to meet and know a lot of people.

What have you been doing while you have been here?

I have been trying thousands of restaurants ;-) go to the beach, Gunwharf and travelling around Portsmouth (and Bristol, Winchester, London, the New Forest…)

What will you do when you leave / go back home?

I will continue my studies, finish my degree in Germany, then do my Masters, may in England.  But first I will enjoy my small vacation in France with my family, my friends and FRENCH FOOD!

Goals for the future?

Get a job that I will love and settle down in a place that I like but before, travel as much as I can.

Thank you LSI for this amazing experience!

Justine.

Thank you ladies, we really appreciate all your help and wish you all the best in whatever you do.

Great new Quick Tip Using Social Media

Our latest quick tip is from Ed - how using Social Media can help with writing ;-)

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Congratulations to all our Pre-sessional leavers !!!!

On the 5th September 199 students from 17 classes who had been studying on our
Pre-sessional courses finally came to the end of their course.  We took a little video of them and it is quite clear the relief they had at finally finishing.  You may also see the relief on the teachers faces, as they had also worked so hard to help all the students.  Course manager Robyn and Logistics co -ordinator Ed also did a fantastic job of organising everything.
We would like to wish all the students all the very very best in whatever they do, and thank all the teachers for their amazing work.

Wow - Look how much we raised - and what fun we had!

At the start of August we wrote saying we were supporting a wonderful ex student of ours - Max ( Massimilano Fanni Canelles) with his fantastic charity; @uxilia.  

See here: 

Throughout August we have promoted his charity in different ways.  As it is the Summer, we always have a student party and we aimed to raise the profile of the charity at this party as well as making sure everyone had a fantastically good time.  Below are a selection of photos and at the bottom of the page is how much all the lovely students and teachers managed to raise.

I think it is quite obvious from the photos above what a fabulous party it was with everyone enjoying themselves, made even better by the DJ teachers Hugo, Adam and Tom.

We are delighted that we raised £500 for the charity 

On a side note, as mentioned above and in the previous article, Maggie Paton, the lady of the home-stay where Max originally stayed was also swept up in Max's enthusiasm and will be going out to Sri Lanka with Max to help.  Over the Summer she has raised approximately £2500, which means @uxilia will now have £3000 towards building a new school.

I do love to be beside the seaside!

Portsmouth has a lovely coastline - it may not be sandy but it is lively and interesting ;-)  Here are a  few pictures of our lovely shoreline.

Then and Now - What a difference 15 years makes!

Recently we were looking through some old photos of the school, and were struck by how different the school is now from when we moved into this new building. We moved in here in 1997 so the photos on the left are from around 1998 ish and the photos on the right were taken this year (2014). 

Left: Peter Letzer Right: Joanne Mouland, Elly Easey

Left: Allan Gray, Ceri Tipler. Right: Students Iréne and Laurence

Left: Allan Gray, Cliff Sands (by the photocopier Bill Philipps) Right: Nicki Pring, Tara Montgomery, Caroline Gwatkin

Plus another staffroom: Michael Baldwin and Shelton Humpleby

Left: Lisa Marsh and Najat Gray Right: Anna Rita Deriu

Anyone who hadn't been to the building in a long time would really see an enormous change - as you can see!

Rooftop Interviews - with Wesley from Brazil and Matt the teacher

LSI Portsmouth has some of the most stunning viewpoints in Portsmouth.  Our new occasional series  'Rooftop Interviews' this week features Wesley and Matt, discussing Wesley's time in England and in Portsmouth, shown from the top of the building overlooking the beautiful Solent.

Be sure to watch the video above, and here are some more photos and details from Wesley. At the moment we have a lovely student from Brazil, Wesley Reuel, who is really making the most of every minute of his time away from home.  He kindly agreed to answer some questions for our blog:

Wesley, Where do you come from and how long will you stay at LSI?
I´m from Brazil, more specifically from Natal the state capital of “Rio Grande do Norte”, my city is known by “City of Sun”. I will be at LSI until the beginning of September, so I have 4 months.

What made you choose Portsmouth?
Because the University of Portsmouth have exactly the same course I´m doing in Brazil, and the city has a good history. I could mention D.Day , Charles Dickens and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

So, why are you learning English?
I´m learning English to have a second language and because I will study one year of Software Engineering at University of Portsmouth through the SwB Program of Brazilian Government.
I already did the TOEFL, because the SwB requires a minimum level to give the sponsorship

Back in Brazil what do you do?
In Brazil I study Software Engineering at Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte also I work to the government of my state in the Department of Transit.

What do you do for fun?
I divide my free time between watching movies and travelling to take pictures, always I prefer do the second one. Register one moment and keep it for the rest of life is amazing. I really enjoy this.

How do you see your future, what are you hoping to do?
In the future I wish to finish my course in Brazil, and then go back to Europe to work in a software company.

Wesley, thank you so much for telling us all this.

Wesley has a flickr page showing some of his pictures (which are amazing) and a blog where he talks about his travels and has photos showing all the amazing things he has seen. - definitely worth having a look at.

Link to his flickr page
Link to his Blog