Once again, we are approaching the end of our Autumn term, and this means exam time! Every time we get to the end of the term our students do a test, and after that they get together with the teacher, discuss their progress on the course, and come to a decision about the best class for them for next term. It’s a great chance for the students to get really useful advice from their teacher, and to think about what they want to achieve. Our role is to facilitate our students in getting what they need for their future in the quickest way possible.

As I write, the first Christmas tree in Shepherds bush is twinkling on the street outside and a never-ending conga line of shoppers stream in and out of the Westfield shopping centre. As late november drifts into December there will be a mounting sense of excitement as the big day approaches. there will be more parties, people on the street in silly Santa suits and a general air of goodwill which we like to call The Christmas Spirit…

However, if you’re spending your first Christmas away from your family in a foreign country, Yuletide  can be a terribly lonely time and you may feel desperately homesick… There are, howewver, one or two things that you can do to accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative this holiday season.

Number one: whatever you do , don’t go shopping on Oxford Street! don’t get me wrong; while a lot of people claim that London’s central shopping thoroughfare has gone downmarket in recent years, it is still one of the finest streets in Europe for anyone who is gifthunting. The only problem is that it is ridiculously crowded and it literally is a battle to go from one end to the other, with people’s heavy shopping bags bashing against you and their umbrellas poking you in the eye. Personally, I always do my shopping on High Street kensington, which also has a great variety of shops but is far less congested with frantic shoppers.

Secondly, and most importantly,  whether Christmas Day or New Year’s Eve is the day most traditionally celebrated in your country,start making arrangements for the big day now. Put a post on the English Studio Forum and start getting people together, because if you leave it to the last minute you could end up spending the day alone and that would be terrible.

so go and get organising and may I be the first person this year to wish you all a very Merry Christmas.

Mike

Cycling in London is becoming more and more common and to some extent I would say fashionable in an attempt to be healthier and also collaborate for less Co2 emissions on the environment. Cyclists have as many rights as automobiles around the city, but also duties like stopping at traffic lights, signalling when they are turning right or left and they are not allowed to ride their bike on the pavement. One day, I was riding my bike around the Southbank, although I knew that doing so was against the law, I thought that it would not be a big problem as the police would not really bother with me. I was totally mistaken. In that day two policemen stopped me and asked me if knew that I was not meant to ride the bike, I started panicking and I answered that yes, I did. Well, they spent some time with me checking my details and sent me a fine of 30 pounds. I was very upset, but after that day I have never done the same anymore. I learnt the lesson.

 There are so many advantages of being a cyclist in London; you are actually protected by law to have your space on the streets but not on the sidewalks. According to a recent research on average, approximately 450,000 cycle journeys are made across London every day, the number of cyclists seriously injured in London has fallen 42% in the last year, 51% of Londoners own at least one bike and 41% said that they never ride on the pavement. Nevertheless, there are still so May accidents every day, between January and September last year, 67.8% were injured by cars, 3.3% by taxis, 9.2% by buses or coaches, 9% by mopeds or motorbikes – and 1.2% by bicycles. 82% of people in our poll believe that there are not enough cycle lanes in the capital. In order to raise more tolerance and awareness, every year there is naked cycling in London, it is one way to show people that bikes are a good alternative transport and everybody should respect it more.

That’s a bit more of London, when are you coming for a ride?

Take care!!!

David Vieira/Brazil

There are people who think school days are the happiest days of your life. I don’t know what you think about that but in my opinion they are not wrong.

If we think deeply about that sentence, the most difficult think that we had to do in those wonderful days was wake up early, because even for me, go ing  to the school was the best plan so far, days full of fun, joking with friends, annoying teachers and eating the delicious meals that were sold  in the cafeteria.

Yesterday I was talking with a friend who has been in London for two years and she told me that if she could wish something, she would go back to her childhood, but I think that life is more than that, life is a long  path  that we have to walk through  discovering new things and enjoying every moment without repentance and searching  for  our dreams. The past should be in our minds just as beautiful memories.

I´m writing today about this because I´ve been reminding my friends, my family, my country and all those memories have made me feel homesick… anyway don´t let that your memories and past bring you down, take them as something that make you stronger and happier.

my job for today is to expand the school library, and I’ve been asking students what kind of books and films they’d like to lend from us! apart from some ridiculous requests for Japanese horror films, we’ve been happy to supply  students with the things  they  need to help them learn English- after all, it doesn’t all just happen in the classroom, you know!

In last week’s blog I was speaking about how London’s buses are a great place to see Londoners in action: You have people from all walks of life sitting together and sometimes funny or lovely things can happen. This week I want to pay tribute to the Routemaster.

You don’t see many Routemaster buses these days:they have been replaced by the more modern double-deckers. So what’s the difference between these two types of buses? Well, when boarding a double decker bus you must enter at the front and pay the driver or swipe your Oyster card at the front. On the Routemaster, there were no doors at the back: you just jumped on and the conductor would come to check your ticket or sell you one. This, of course, is why Transport for London replaced them: it costs less to run them as you only have to pay one person rather than two.

I think this is a terrible pity, because the Routemaster was a much more ‘Old-world,’ vehicle and as a result had a lot more charm. In films made in London in the 60s, 70s and 80s you would see characters jumping on and off, like the trams in San Francisco and it just looked, well, cool.

Routemasters were so cool they were even mentioned in a Beatles song. Paul McCartney’s section of the classic A day in the Life includes the lines,

Found my coat and grabbed my hat

Made the bus in seconds flat

Found my way upstairs and had a smoke (Ah, the good old days!)

Somebody spoke and I went into a dream.

There was something so romantic about jumping on a Routemaster while it was already moving:it was illegal , but everybody did it anyway. I remember a few years ago, I’d just gone on a very first date with a girl I really fancied and she was waiting at the bus stop with me. My bus arrived. She kissed me goodbye. The kiss went on a bit longer than  expected and the bus started to pull away. I ran like crazy, timed my jump perfectly and said to myself,’If she’s still looking when I turn around and wave in ten seconds, then this could be the beginning of something.’ I turned. She was still looking. We’re now very happily married.

If you want to recapture the magic and romance of the Routemaster days, you can still jump aboard the Number 8 bus which runs through Knightsbridge, past Hyde Park Corner and on to Piccadilly. Mayor Boris Johnson says he plans to re-introduce these buses on to the streets of London. I, for one, fervently hope this happens.

Mike

Before you came to London, you must have had some idea what the city would look like: you imagined Big Ben, Parliament and a lovely little village called Notting Hill, where, according to that dream you had, you would meet Hugh Grant. No doubt you also thought of black taxi cabs and, of course, red buses. The London red bus is one of the most iconic symbols of the capital and it’s therefore no surprise that it was the centrepiece of the London segment of the closing ceremonies at the Beijing Olympics. Whether you study in Holborn or Shepherds Bush, I’m pretty sure that London buses are a part of your daily life here.

Now, you may have noticed that Londoners like to complain about things. They like to complain about every aspect of the city, whether it’s the tubes, the high cost of everything, the level of crime or, justifiably, the weather. But make no mistake: behind that whining facade, the people of this city are extremely proud of being Londoners and don’t like to hear anybody else criticise it – and this goes for buses as well as everything else. They’re not clean,they’re not safe, people come on blaring awful hiphop music on their phones, eating smelly food and often don’t even have the courtesy to offer their seat up to those less able to stand.

The bus system does come in for a lot of criticism, but I’m not going to add to it here. As a non-driver, I ride these rouge chariots daily and what I’d like to do is share with you some of the moments when the wit and good nature of the people of my adopted city have made the experience a pleasure, even when I thought it would be anything but.

I was on a night bus one Friday night and there was the usual post-pub party atmosphere, with strangers talking to each other freely and a general sense of bonhomie on the upper deck. Without warning, about five wannabe gangster types ascended the stairs and loudly plonked themselves down in the seats at the front. Within about ten seconds one of them had switched on some truly horrible rap song on his mobile, the only word of which I could understand was, ‘Bitch.’ You could sense that everybody was more than a little bit intimidated.

‘Oh no,’ I thought and I got ready to put on my iPod. But a chap a few seats ahead of me had other ideas. He too had a mobile phone and he stood up beside his girlfriend and started singing along to the tune his Nokia was playing; it was I Can’t Smile without You by Barry Manilow, a really cheesy love song from many years ago. Then something amazing happened.The whole upper deck started singing along! ‘ Ican’t laugh and I can’t sing. I’m finding it hard to do anything!’ It got louder with every word and the scary guys got off at the next stop. Everyone appluded the guy who’d started it off and he took a bow.

On another occasion I was standing in the central part of a bendy bus when a guy got on with a huge kebab and the smell filled the bus in a matter of moments. Now, don’t get me wrong: I LOVE kebabs: my huge stomach will attest to that, but on a bus I think it shows absolutely no respect for your fellow passengers-especially at six o’clock in the afternoon. However, this enthusiastic kebab-scoffer hadn’t counted on the mischief of two girls who were sitting two seats behind him: every time he lifted the kebab towards his mouth they started making extremely loud pig noises. Everyone started laughing and when he angrily turned around to see who was taunting him their faces became the picture of angelic, butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-their-mouths innocence. This happened three times before he gave up and put the offending sandwich away. Getting off the bus, I winked at the girls and they winked back.

There used to be an old guy- he must have been around 80- who proudly walked around Shepherds Bush wearing his old red army jacket with his medals polished and shining. I haven’t seen him for a couple of years, maybe he’s passed away, but I will never forget him because of something I saw him do on a packed 94 bus in August 2005. It wasn’t long after the terrible events of the 7th of July and regrettably there was a certain amount of animosity towards London’s Muslim community. A heavily pregnant lady wearing a burkha got on the bus and clearly needed to sit down. I was standing, so I couldn’t offer her my seat, but there were lots of young, able-bodied people who could and simply didn’t bother. One guy wearing an England football shirt even hissed at her. I felt tense, uncomfortable sad and angry watching the poor woman try to keep her balance. Then, clear as a bell, came a voice: it was the old guy who was sitting down on a seatnear me. ‘Madam! Madam!’ He slowly arose and gestured for the lady to sit down. She demurred. he insisted. Wordlessly, but with quiet, dignified gestures of gratitude, she sat down.

The old guy looked around at the generation whose freedom he and his comrades had fought and died for all those years ago and there was a look of profound disappointment in his eyes. The England t-shirt fellow ostentatiously stood up, saying, ‘Here mate. Have a seat.’

The old guy just looked at him, with contempt in his eyes…’Nah, son. I’m alright.’

When I got off the bus I wasn’t sure why I was crying.

Tomorrow is Britain’s “children in need” day-this is the day when we raise money for children who need it, both in Britain and abroad! We plan to raise some money by fining our students every time they speak their own language- helpful for them(as they’ll speak more English!)- and for the children too!

rob

our latest development at ES is that we’re looking into teacher-training! We’ve had a lot of success over the years in developing teachers from good into amazing, and we think we can do it on a bigger scale. We’re proposing to start our first course next March, and we’re confident that the quality of our teacher- training will match the super-high quality and value of our English courses. Get in touch if you’d like to know more!

Rob

We’re coming to the end of our hard work to make our school look as modern and cool as possible! After weeks of work on our buildings at High Holborn, they’ve finally got a modern new look, and in combination with our great teachers it’s making us an even more  exciting prospect for  students from abroad. They call us “the cool school’ in London- why don’t you come and find out why!