Thank you to all of you that have got in touch from Estudia, in Barcelona.  We hope that we can be of help to you in finding the best English course for you in London. 

A number of you have been asking about doing English courses in Barcelona, so thought it would be of value to add a quick post on the subject.  To clarify, Answer English, offers English courses, accommodation and where possible assists students in their search for work in London.  Our head office is in London and in being based their we can deliver a high quality service to you, to make sure you get the most out of your time abroad.

We also have links with schools from Oxford, England to Toronto, Canada through Quality English, a partner organisation.  If you are specifically looking for a course in Barcelona, as some of you have been, before you come over to the UK, can I suggest two companies:

For Business Classes: Hot English Academy, www.hotenglishmagazine.com.

Contact Carmen on 696 108 245 or: csoini@yahoo.com

For Individual Classes: London Language Centre, www.londonlanguagecentre.com. 

Contact: Lala on 93 410 0007 or: lala@londonlanguagecentre.com

Best of luck! James

Hope you all had a pleasant weekend.  Mine was a very sporting one, played Tennis on Saturday morning, saw Spurs overcome Man City at White Hart Lane in the afternoon and on Sunday took on my housemate at Squash.  That is not to forget the Grand National, Congratulations to Numbersixvalverde for running a great race.

Sport is definitely a favourite pastime of the British.  The weekend is filled up with hours of Sporting activity, teams & individuals across the land compete, locking horns at both professional and amateur level.  There are certain events that define the year’s calendar, more recently the Cheltenham Cup, the Boat Race, the Grand National, and coming up the F.A.Cup, Wimbledon and the summer Cricket tests.

Going to a sporting event when you are in London, is an unforgettable occasion.  If you wish to come to an event with the Answer English team, please e-mail James at: james@answerenglish.com

We will try to organise a couple of events a month, and will let you know in due course.  This week we are going to see Fulham v Charlton Athletic on Saturday and already have 5 Spaniards signed-up, if you are interested in coming, get in touch, as the last time I enquired there were tickets left at Craven Cottage.  More events and reports to follow!

Name: Natalia
Job Title: Shop Assistant
Age: 21  
From: Monzon (Aragon, Spain)
In London: Since November 2005

________________________________________

Why did you come to London?

I came to London to be able to improve my English and to have a new experience in my life in a foreign country.

What did you hope to achieve?
 
I would like to think that when I have finished my experience here I will have a good level of English and will have enjoyed myself here.

What were you doing before this?

I studied in Barcelona before and I realised that English is very important in the world of today.

What does your job involve on a day-to-day basis?

I have to make sure that the shop is in a good situation, clean, tidy… and help the costumers that came to the shop.

What responsibilities do you have?

Making sure that the customers are happy.

What are the best bits?

I can meet new people in my job and improve my English speaking with the customers.

And the worst?

There aren’t any!

Do you have to have prior experience?  If so, what helped get you the job?

Yes, definitely! I have experience working in shops in Spain, and I think that this is helpful for people looking for a similar job to mine in London.

How did you go about getting it?

I left my CV in the shop and they called me for one interview.  And I got the job!

Any tips you could give our readers?

Don’t worry if you don’t find work in the first days you have to keep on trying.  Also learn from each time you drop off a CV or have an interview so that eventually you will find something!

Anything you know now that you wish you’d known before coming here?

London is very big and in the first time here you can feel a little bit lost in all things (yourself, looking for a job…) but don’t worry sometimes the first days are hard but after you going to feel better in this new experience.

How much do you think your English has improved?

I think quite a lot, but I need stay here more to improve more and more my English.

With this experience, what do you plan to do next?

Go back to Spain to continue studying, but I don’t know when…. Maybe it is because I feel so good here!
 

Thanks to Sital Bhundia from Ink Publishing for contacting Answer English with a job opportunity. 

Sital is looking for a Spanish speaker to work on the “My Travel” In Flight magazine to sell advertising space to the Spanish market.

Essential Requirements include:

• Ability to speak Spanish fluently and have an understanding of English to converse in the office internally
• Have good sales experience and knowledge of Spanish market (preferably in media sales)
• Can work well under pressure
• Results driven, money hungry

If you are interested in this role please contact Sital Bhundia on 020 7613 6962

or by e-mail: sital.bhundia@ink-publishing.com

More information: www.ink-publishing.com
 

More and more people are coming to me asking about the world of work in London.  I have e-mails from students in Spain who I met at Aula or Estudia, saying they want to ‘buscar la vida’ (literally look for life) in London, come here work, live, have fun.  At the same time I am getting calls from recruitment consultants asking do I know anyone for this position, or that position.  My aim is to develop this site so that we can marry these two groups up.

So if you are a student looking for work in London, or a recruiter looking for staff I want to hear from you!  So students please send me an e-mail, james@answerenglish.com, with your CV and a brief explanation of what you are looking to do and your level of English.  Recruiters, feel free to send me job specs and I’ll try and put you in touch with someone with those skills.

Thanks, and Best of luck to everyone.  James

One of my favourite sayings is that ‘there are always two ways of doing things in life’, meaning the right way and the wrong way.  One company whose philosophy of how to learn english is definitely the right way, is Moving On Courses.  They offer intensive summer courses, where you speak English all day, every day. 

You have 3 lessons in the morning, followed by activities & excursions in the afternoon.  All day you will be with the teachers, from breakfast in the morning till the revision session of the days’ vocabulary in the night.  So there is never a chance to slip back into English, and the results speak for themselves.  Over a quarter of the students each year have gone before.

Gavin runs Moving On Courses and his enthusiasm to make sure that students not just enjoy themselves but also learn lots of English personifies what the course is all about.  If you would like to find out more about Moving On Courses click here

Many people have been asking me about immigration issues, so thought I would post up a link for you all.  Rules and regulations for language students coming to the UK are constantly changing.  To keep yourself up-to-date on wether you need a Visa or not and how to apply for them, the best thing to do is to go to the UK Visa website.

It is vitally important that you come into the country with the right visa, especially if you are looking to study and or work in the UK.  If not it is highly likely you would have to return to the country of origin.

If you are booking an English course with Answer English, we make sure that you receive all the necessary paper work from the language schools, where you will be studying, and the accommodation agents, where you will be staying, so that you can complete your visa application.

Many people complain that the weather in the UK is bad, some consider it terrible, others awful.  Now I’d like to take this opportunity to clear something up.  Yes Britain is hardly the Mediterranean, but do we hit 40 degrees in the summer months meaning everyone has to down tools and flee to the coast? No.  During the winter months does it drop below zero on a regular basis, meaning the whole of the country goes into meltdown with no one being able to leave their own houses to buy food, electricity goes down and people have to huddle round a candle for warmth?  No it doesn’t.

And as for ‘it always rains’ - Britain is currently in a drought.  I kid you not.  The news was plastered yesterday with emergency measures (such as hose pipe bans) to avoid water shortages this summer.  It is a myth that the weather is so bad in the UK.  To clear things up I’ve put the link to the Met Office below, so that you can see for yourself the joys of a four season country like the UK.  Why don’t you come and see for yourselves? 

Met Office Website

Yesterday in London we had the Boat Race - an annual rowing race between the universities Oxford and Cambridge.  This is quite a spectacle to behold, the river bank filled with spectators trying to catch a glimpse of two rowing crews of eight slugging it out on the river.

This is a quintisenntial English event, that I’m sure many on-lookers would wonder what all the excitment is all about.  In fact I overheard one North American sound lady asking, ’What’s going on, is it some kind of swimming event?’

It is one of those typical occasions when it is an excuse for people to get together, inevitably have a few drinks and jeer.  The english love a good crowd ’jeer’.  It’s what they are good at. 

The good thing was to see so many people from other nationalities joining in, and coming down to join us on the bank.  Oxford eventually won, but by then most people had lost interest.  For more information on the Boat Race: http://www.theboatrace.org/ 

If you were at the Boat Race, I’d be interested to hear your thoughts.