In March, two ISI inspectors came and examined all aspects of SGI in London for two days. Everything was under examination from the quality of the teachers, through to the standards of the toilets. We are proud to announce that SGI passed the test with flying colours.

TEACHERS

Under the heading of THE QUALITY OF CURRICULUM, TEACHING AND LEARNERS’ ACHIEVEMENTS, this is what was written in the official report about the SGI teachers:

Teaching is good or outstanding with high levels of student participation and ownership of learning. Teachers are well qualified and demonstrate outstanding subject knowledge. Planning for learning is particularly good and delivery provides high levels of challenge and encouragement for all students.

All lessons observed by inspectors achieved well-defined outcomes and demonstrated excellent preparation for meeting students’ needs.

Academic managers seek to inspire a culture of learning among teachers.Several members of staff participate as speakers at teacher conferences. Teachers confirm that the school supports them in developing high level professional skills.

With such incredible comments, we thought that we had to boast about our teaching staff. It is definitely reassuring for students wanting to book a course at SGI that there is a guarantee of teaching excellence to aid your English learning in the best way possible.

STUDENTS

The inspectors also sought the independent opinion of our current students and found that:

The school’s quality procedures are excellent. Student views are regularly sought through surveys and focus groups. Students are extremely satisfied with their courses and the support provided.

Assessment is thorough and effective in supporting progress. Attainment is consistently high in external examinations and in non-examined courses. Progression from the University Foundation course into UK higher education institutions is outstanding.

Pastoral support is excellent and provided by staff in all departments. Support for students progressing on to higher education or work in the UK is exceptional.

 
 
So, when we say say on our website that we are the best English school in London, it appears that we were telling the truth!
 
 

Have a great Easter holiday and if you haven’t entered our fantastic Easter Bunny competition to win free English lessons here at SGI London yet, why not have a go?
 
 

 
Even though the best English school opened its doors in 1962, we shouldn’t forget some of the other big events of that year.

Surely you’ve heard of the people in the pictures below? Something significant happened for all these people 50 years ago, too – it wasn’t just SGI grabbing the headlines!  :)
 

1962: SGI opens – but what else happened?

The Beatles

5th October 1962: Love Me Do was released and The Beatles legend began. Their first record came out in January, but Love Me Do was their first record to really hit the big time.

James Bond

5th October 1962: Dr No released with a Scottish bodybuilder who had never acted before in the lead role as James Bond: Sean Connery would go on to become a Hollywood superstar, but no subsequent role was ever better than the world’s coolest secret agent.

 
Don’t forget to enter our James Bond Competition, where you can win a Week of free English lessons at SGI here in Central London!
 

The Rolling Stones

12th July 1962: The Rolling Stones played their first gig at The Marquee on Oxford Street in London (just round the corner from SGI). On 7th April, Brian Jones had been introduced to Michael Philip Jagger and Keith Richards (who was then studying at art college). 50 years later they are still going strong – just like SGI.

 

Marilyn Monroe

5th August 1962: Marilyn Monroe was found dead at her home in LA. She was only 36. It was reported that the last person she phoned was President John F Kennedy, who she was rumoured to have had an affair with.

 

Bob Dylan

August 1962: Robert Allen Zimmerman legally changed his name to Bob Dylan. He also travelled to London in December to play some gigs at London folk venues. One of those was The King & Queen pub in Fitzrovia (just a short walk from SGI, where you can find some of the SGI teachers having a drink on Friday nights).

Nelson Mandela

25th October 1962: Nelson Mandela sentenced to 5 years in prison. However, he spent the next 27 years in jail.

Thanks for reading our School Blog in 2011 – almost 87,000 views over the last year. We appreciate it every time you visit and we sincerely hope that you enjoy the posts and improve your English a little bit every time you read, listen to or watch one of our blogs. We put a lot of effort into making the blog as interesting as we can so that you, the students get the most benefit. Below are some of the best and most viewed blogs from 2011 that you might have missed and here’s to an even better 2012.

Bren – mp3, Beckham and The Queen’s received pronunciation

• A problem for thousands of learners of English is how to pronounce -ed endings. Explanations, mp3 and David Beckham here!
• When do you use Present perfect, past simple or past perfect? With the story of David Beckham’s baby (and mp3) you can find out here.
• One of the most commonly used words in English ‘get’, gets an mp3 examination in this post as Germans get it all wrong about Spanish vegetables here.
• Do you want to learn how to speak like the Queen? 3 video examples of received pronunciation show you how here.

Gavin – Film/weather/journalism vocabulary, relative clauses & Steve Jobs

• Film-buff, Gavin reviewed one of the best films of the year, The King’s Speech, along with some useful film vocabulary here.
• Also, contrary to bad public relations that the British weather receives, Gavin explained that the weather in London was extremely nice in April this year (with all the weather vocabulary that you need) here.
• Gavin’s vocabulary explanations continued (with journalism as the theme) as he explained one of the biggest stories of the year: the phone hacking scandal here.
• Gavin is not just a vocabulary master though! In another of the year’s biggest stories, he outlined the grammar explanation of relative clauses with an interesting post on 5 Things you never knew about Steve Jobs here.

IELTS Speaking test – sample questions & answers, teacher help, tips and guidance

If you are studying for the IELTS exam, then you should check out our popular IELTS blogs from 2011. Some of the most read posts on the site this year were our series on tips for the IELTS speaking test, filled with IELTS sample questions and answers.

1. IELTS Speaking Part 1: The Introduction and Interview – Tips, 3 sample answers on mp3 and how to get out of problems in the IELTS speaking.
2. IELTS Speaking Part 2: The Long Turn – more tips, lots of example questions of possible subjects, a full sample answer with mp3 and more advice on how to deal with problems.
3. IELTS Speaking Part 3: The Two-way discussion (part 1) – Seriously useful information on how to score high marks in the IELTS speaking test and how you can improve in each category (Fluency & Coherence, Lexical Resource, Grammatical Range & Accuracy and Pronunciation)
4. IELTS Speaking Part 3: The Two-way discussion (part 2) – Using all the information and guidance from part 1 you can practise with over 25 example IELTS questions for the final part of the speaking test. There is also an mp3 of a great sample answer and then teacher comments on why it would score very high marks in the IELTS exam.

Barney – Predictions, protests and the environment

• We had Barney making predictions for 2011 in terms of protests. Was he right? Find out here. There’s also words describing ‘going up’ and ‘going down’.
• The environmentally-friendly, Barney also looked at renewable energies and how to express quantities here.

Student Testimonials

Last, but absolutely not least, find out what some of the SGI students said about the school here.

Here are some of our former students and their progression into Higher Education in the UK and around the World.

If you have European nationality, and you are interested in developing your skills in customer service and administration, then please send in your CV to Josh at jround@stgeorges.co.uk .

Please note that this is an UNPAID Internship for a minimum of 10 weeks, preferably to start immediately.

We are looking for motivated, friendly applicants whose level of English is good Intermediate (B1+) or above.

Course start date:
19-09-2011 (36 weeks)

Either 6 or 9 months and a mix of English language study and subject study, Foundation courses at British-Council accredited language schools have grown enormously in popularity over recent years. There are a number of good reasons for this……

Unlock the language key

Of course the key area of expertise of an English language school is, not surprisingly, English language teaching! Almost without exception, University Foundation course students need to work extensively on their English, not least because they have to achieve a proven level of English usually by way of the IELTS test, in order to enter university. This makes language schools the natural habitat for the international student.

Small is good

Language Schools are small in comparison to universities. Their student numbers range from 80-200 whereas even small universities usually have many thousands of students. This ‘smallness’ has a number of benefits at both the pre-course and in-course stages including….

• A very quick and personal service to enquiring parents, often in their mother tongue. This is particularly important at the pre-course stage when parents need to feel they are making the right choice for their son or daughter.
• Class size is often only between 10-15 students whereas university classes are typically in excess of 40. This small class feature is very important to students from overseas, as they particular need that greater degree of personal attention that you get at a quality language school.

Meet the world…..come to London

You can take University Foundation courses anywhere in the UK but the number of students choosing to study in London has steadily increased over the past decade.

London of course is simply one of the great cities of the world. There is an energy and excitement about London that quickens the pulse of even the most seasoned traveller…the place for a young person looking to broaden their horizons.

St George International offers a comprehensive and stimulating University Foundation Course for overseas students leading to study of primarily business-related foundation degrees at British Universities.

SGI’s Business English Writing course is the latest addition to a growing list of specialist evening courses that meets the demands of London’s increasingly professional international workforce.

To complement the successful Business English evening course, with its focus on communication skills, the Business English Writing course looks closely at the different types of modern-day business writing people need to write such as: e-mails, reports, letters, as well as CVs. On completion of the course, besides having a clear idea as to how to write Business English in a well-planned, concise and relevant way, you will also be given model texts for the different types of business writing you will need to do in the future.

As with all SGI courses students enjoy small class sizes and experienced well-qualified teachers.

4 week course: Start date: Monday June 6th. Mondays and Wednesdays evenings 6.30 – 8.30. Please visit Business English Writing for more details

Just to remind you about the e-learning programme… the materials used are colourful, varied, interesting and interactive and the programme makes full use of external websites to make your learning stimulating. There is material relating to General English, Business English, Cambridge exams and IELTS. Remember, a student has access to the programme as soon as they have paid for their course.

For more information please visit to SGI Student Visitor Visa update.

The Cambridge ESOL examination board is famous for its suite of English language examinations that test overseas students’ English language skills across the full range of language levels. One of these exams is the CAE exam, which sits at the higher end of the scale. The successful completion of the CAE is proof that an individual has an Advanced level of English. On the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) scale, the CAE exam would be at the C1 level.
There’s no doubt that to achieve a pass at the CAE exam shows that you would be of great interest to employers as you would be relied upon to perform in English in very exacting and demanding work situations. It is for this reason that success at the CAE exam has global recognition from countless universities and colleges, employers and government departments all around the world.

The CAE exam and Visas

Another important feature of the CAE exam is that it is, along with other Cambridge ESOL exams, recognised by the UK Border Agency (UKBA) as an acceptable test of English to support a visa application to come and study in the UK for a lengthy period of time (i.e. 6 months or more). Currently, if you wanted to study English for a period longer than six months then you would require a language school to sponsor you. A language school, such as SGI, who are on the UKBA Highly-Trusted sponsor register, would require of you solid evidence of your level of English by way of an internationally-recognised exam such as the CAE.

The CAE Exam Preparation Course

The CAE course at SGI prepares students fully for the assessments and helps them to approach the exam with confidence.

9 week course: Start date: Monday January 10^th. Mondays and Wednesdays evenings 6.30 – 8.30 Please visit CAE Exam Preparation for more details

The Tier 4 policy guidance currently states that if a student wants to study with a new Tier 4 sponsor before the existing visa has either expired or been curtailed, they must make their new application in the United Kingdom. If a student makes a new application from outside the United Kingdom it will be refused.

However, under new Tier 4 guidance students with existing visas will now be able to make applications from outside the United Kingdom.  The Tier 4 policy guidance on the main UK Border Agency website will be amended shortly.

This test must be taken with a UK Border Agency-approved provider before the applicant applies for a confirmation of acceptance for studies (CAS) from the education sponsor.

Contact SGI today to provide you with help and information in order to make student visa process as easy as possible.

University Foundation courses have become increasingly popular in recent years as a way for overseas students to gain admission to British Universities.

Either 6 or 9 months and a mix of English language study and subject study, Foundation courses at British-Council accredited language schools have grown enormously in popularity over recent years. There are a number of good reasons for this……

Unlock the language key

Of course the key area of expertise of an English language school is, not surprisingly, English language teaching! Almost without exception, University Foundation course students need to work extensively on their English, not least because they have to achieve a proven level of English usually by way of the IELTS test, in order to enter university. This makes language schools the natural habitat for the international student.

Small is good

Language Schools are small in comparison to universities. Their student numbers range from 80-200 whereas even small universities usually have many thousands of students. This ‘smallness’ has a number of benefits at both the pre-course and in-course stages including….

• A very quick and personal service to enquiring parents, often in their mother tongue. This is particularly important at the pre-course stage when parents need to feel they are making the right choice for their son or daughter.
• Class size is often only between 10-15 students whereas university classes are typically in excess of 40. This small class feature is very important to students from overseas, as they particular need that greater degree of personal attention that you get at a quality language school.

Meet the world…..come to London

You can take University Foundation courses anywhere in the UK but the number of students choosing to study in London has steadily increased over the past decade.

London of course is simply one of the great cities of the world. There is an energy and excitement about London that quickens the pulse of even the most seasoned traveller…the place for a young person looking to broaden their horizons.

St George International offers a comprehensive and stimulating University Foundation Course for overseas students leading to study of primarily business-related foundation degrees at British Universities.

Our new status gives us a number of benefits, the most important of which is that we may issue Confirmations of Acceptance for Studies (CASs) for a wider range of courses, including courses at National Qualifications Framework (NQF) level 3 and equivalents – such as our University Foundation Course with start dates in September 2010 and January 2011 (link)

For more details, please check the UK Border Agency website, and especially http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/studyingintheuk/adult-students/can-you-apply/education-provider/

We are delighted to have received this recognition from the UK Border Agency of our hard work as a Tier 4 sponsor, and of the excellent study records of our international students.

French Courses: Montpellier, Nice, Paris, Vichy

Spanish Courses: Barcelona, Madrid, Malaga, Salamanca

German Courses: Berlin, Frankfurt, Munich

Italian Courses: Florence, Milan, Rome