The organisers of the 2012 Olympics have revealed the timetable for building the venues needed to host the games. London can look forward to an £80 million 80-000 Seater Stadium and a £650 million Olympic Village, all built a year early.

The London Organising Committee, headed by double gold medal winner Sebastian Coe, are aiming to make the games the best Olympics ever. They hope that not only will the games be a success in 2012 but they will leave a lasting legacy.

Work has already begun in East London, to regenerate Stratford, and they are reputed to be further ahead than any other Olympic planning committee in terms of planning. With public projects like the new Wembley and the Millenium Dome being disasters, one can only hope that they are good to their word!  Go London!

Name: Letizia Aiello
Job Title: Waitress
Age: 19
From: Milan, Italy
In London: Since 1 July
________________________________________

Why did you come to London?
I wanted to experience life abroad, improve my English, gain more confidence and be proud of myself for what I hoped I could achieve.

What did you hope to achieve?
The best English possible!  Meet lots of people, make friends, earn some money, gain satisfaction.

What were you doing before this?
I just finished a diploma in Accountacy at ITC. Maggidini in Italy.

What does your job involve on a day-to-day basis?
Customer service, working behind the bar, serving food, collecting glasses & plates, taking orders, giving the bill and working the till.

What responsibilities do you have?
Not giving the wrong food to the wrong cusomter!

What are the best bits?
When I understand the customers!

And the worst?
Nothing, I’m very happy where I work, the manager the colleagues they are all nice people.

Do you have to have prior experience?  If so, what helped get you the job?
No.  But you have to be friendly and smile!

How did you go about getting it?
Laura, who works for Answer English, knew the manager and helped arrange an interview for me.  I then had a couple of hours one afternoon work trial (which I was paid for too!)

Any tips you could give our readers?
I was very lucky.  You have to believe in yourself.  Every experience is different, so go for it!  Don’t lose hope if at first you don’t find what you are looking for.

What if any lessons could the AE Blog readers learn from your experience in London?
Carpe Diem!  Everything is possible in London, there are so many things to do, so many opportunities.  Everything is a lesson.

How much do you think your English has improved?
I think it has improved, for sure, especially my listening and speaking skills.  Still lots more to learn though!

With this experience, what do you plan to do next?
For the moment I have to begin university, studying accountancy at Catolica.  I think in the future I would like to work in a big accountancy firm and come back to live in London.  It’s great!

The number of British people learning a foreign language is on the up, according to the BBC this morning.  From research conducted with both the Goethe Insitut and the Institut Francais which promote German & French language and culture respectively the number of people taking language courses has risen.  It seems that far from the typical image of British people shouting steadily louder at people abroad in English, we now take a greater interest in language learning.

They attribute this increase in interest to the World Cup, where national stereotypes were visibily broken down, and social changes brought about by cheap air travel to previously unchartered territories for many British people.  The BBC quotes Peter Daykin, a spokesman for the Football Supporters’ Federation (FSF), as saying ‘”People are now going abroad for a weekend to places like the Czech Republic, which once would have been unheard of.”  Mr Daykin was another visitor to the World Cup who left with a sense that the journey through Germany had been a very “positive experience” for fans - a long way from the negative stereotypes of the English as suspicious, tongue-tied travellers.’

This can only be great news for the British image abroad but also for the country in general.  If more British people start learning languages not only will our economy be better placed to compete internationally but also we will begin to understand better (and be understood by) the best of the world.  Muss ein gutes Ding sein!

Read the BBC article in full: Language Learning Kicks Off

Technorati Profile

Ever wanted to be able to take a copy of something, a page in a book, say, or a letter perhaps but couldn’t.  Well a new company www.clicktoscan.com have designed a special service whereby you can make scans of documents via your mobile phone!

It works like this, you see something in a book that you really want to remember, you take a picture (with your camera phone) of the page and using the clicktoscan application you send it to your email address or fax machine. The applications reads the text content of the page, cleans up the image and then sends it to the chosen output.  Easy!

The fun you can have with this is endless and could be a useful service for language learning students, who are pushed for time.  Check it out at: www.clicktoscan.com

This year, 2006, we celebrate the 30th anniversary of Punk music.  Punk and London’s influence on global youth culture are intertwined.  Punk stood for a look, an attitude and a sound like nothing before.  In 1976 Punk challenged the Pop and Disco music scenes and provided youthful rebellion with a voice.  30 years on Punk’s influence is clear.  It is amazing just to think that at the June perfomance by the Sex Pistols to only a couple of hundred people, in the audience there were future members of Joy Division, New Order, The Fall, The Smiths and erm… Simply Red. 

Defining punks birth date is no easy task.  In 1976 there were many seminal moments including in August Islington’s Screen On the Green performance from the Pistols, The Clash and The Buzzcocks; or the release in November of Anarchy In The UK, the Punk movements anthem.  Not to mention the infamous Bill Grundy interview when Johnny Rotten said “shit” on national television.

Punk was a challenge to the 1970’s order by a youth disenchanted with a stagnant post-Imperial Britain.  Malcolm McCalren and Vivienne Westwood were two of the provocateurs who set out to put two fingers up to the Queen’s Jubilee.  It was a moment in time, an era, that changed music for ever.  ‘God Save the Queen, she ain’t no human being, there’s no future, in England’s dreaming…’  Within 18 months Punk as a movement was largely disbanded but it’s influence lives on today.

Ruby Films have announced it is to film the adaptation of Monica Ali’s Book, Brick Lane, in the area.  The news was met with consternation from the Bangladeshi community, who have tried to prevent the filming.  Brick Lane follows the life of a Bangladeshi woman sent to London for an arranged marriage.  Many Bangladeshi’s feel that it does not portray them in the greatest of lights and find it insulting.

For those of you that have never been to Brick Lane I urge you to go to see this Bangladeshi community for yourself.  Especially if you are a lover of curry.  There is no better place in London to go to get a Bengal curry.  In a long line there are over 100 restaurants all enticing you in with a rich aroma of Asian cuisine.  The area is a vibrant part of London with many art galleries, designers, bars and clubs.

Brick Lanes takes its name for the Middle Ages when it was a centre of tile and brick manufacturing.  Later it became a popular destination for Huguenot Immigrants who established their silk weaving businesses there.  However from the 1920’s onwards it became the home of Bangladeshi immigrants, many of which were seamen, making it the diverse cultural centre it is today.

The manhunt for Jack the Ripper is one of the most famous unsolved mysteries in the world.  Between August and November 1888 5 prostitutes were murdered and left mutilated in the Whitechapel area of East London in 1888.  The police never caught the man responsible, and although they had their suspicions the Ripper was never named.  That is of course until this month when the family of Chief Inspector Donald Swanson handed in some notes into Scotland Yard’s Black Museum.

Written inside Swanson’s boss’ biography was the name of Aaron Kosminski, a Polish Jew, who he believed to be the world’s most famous serial killer.  In a line up at the time Kosminski was positively identified as the Ripper by an eye witness but she refused to give her testimony in court.  Swanson never gathered enough evidence to convict Kosminski who later died in a lunatic asylum.

The name, Jack the Ripper, comes from a published letter written by someone who claimed to be the killer at the time of the murders.  He struck fear into the Capital and there was daily coverage of his actions and the hunt to find him in the popular press of the time.  This served to romanticise the tale of who was the Ripper that has remained un-named until now.

If you are interested in Jack the Ripper, read more on the Casebook Website

Following on from the success of her Spanish-English intercambio night, Grace Kennedy has been in touch with Answer English again to tell us about her French Intercambio night, next week.  This is the first of many nights aimed at helping Language Learners in London meet people, practice their langauges and of course have fun!

If you are learning French or are French speaking learning English and don’t have the chance to meet and practice your languages then this is the night for you.  Some of our students went to the Spanish night last week and had a great time so I can only expect the French night to be as fun and succesful.

The details are as follows:

What: Intermediate French & English language exchange social
When: Wednesday 26th July , Soho @ 7pm
Where: Private bar in Soho
Price: £10 – includes food/nibbles
Contact: Grace either by e-mail: grace_kennedy50@hotmail.com or mobile: 07736 876289

Bon chance!

I came across this article from the Globe and Mail website of how Londoners speak.  ‘Londoners’, according to Eric Wright ‘are under the illusion that all the English speak the same language, that the old dialects have been dissolved into something called “estuary English,” the sounds made by natives of the Thames estuary, has now become universal.  If you believe this, spend an hour in a betting shop in Birmingham, only 160 kilometres from London. You won’t understand a word they are saying. You will need help, and not just in Birmingham.’ 

To read more about Eric’s opinion of how us ‘Brits’ speak, click here  I am not in total agreeance with all he has to say, but it’s interesting to hear how other natural English speakers perceive our use of the same language!

Internships abroad grow in popularity every year.  More and more students are realising that to progress in their working careers, time spent working in another country, speaking another language is the way forward.  One company that could help you if you were looking for an in internship in Spain is BEST Programs.  I’ve been in touch with Jill Gordon who’s in charge of BEST recently to find out the following:

With BEST Programs you can study and intern in Spain while earning university credit or simply attend the classes without taking the exams at the University of Seville.  You have a choice of electing up to 15 credits per semester in the Faculty of Business where classes are taught in both English and Spanish, simply auditing the classes or just doing an intensive 2-week pre-internship Spanish language course followed by 2.5 months of internship.  You decide.

The programs begin for all participants with a preparatory Spanish course, in the nation’s capital, and allow you to ease your way into Spanish language immersion.  Interning in a Spanish firm or humanitarian organization guarantees you will improve your Spanish on a professional level immensely in just 3 to 6 months in Seville, Barcelona or Madrid.

BEST personally search for internships in any field of study or industry of your choice.  You have the opportunity to improve your foreign language skills enormously on a practical & professional level while trying out a new job without making a permanent commitment.

For more information visit their website: www.bestprograms.org