Kaplan is the only school this year to win not one, but two awards at the ceremony. It is a great achievement and shows how hard working the Kaplan staff is. It’s no wonder so many students want learn English in London with Kaplan.

“Best performing new center” and “Best use of Facebook for promotion” are the two awards recently won by Kaplan London Exam Center. The center is a part of Kaplan International’s language school in Leicester Square. It is also the only institution to take home two awards from the Somerset House event this year.

Various Cambridge English exam centers from around the United Kingdom attended the ceremony this year at the historic and beautiful Somerset House. They were all acknowledged for their outstanding work as part of the Cambridge English Language Assessment mission in the UK.

Kaplan Leicester Square is also a Cambridge ESOL exam center and is located in a modern building in the heart of London. The center helps students get ready for many different Cambridge exams, including the First Certificate (FCE), the Certificate in Advanced English (CAE) and the Certificate of Proficiency in English (CPE).

Craig Sargent is the Principal at Kaplan Leicester Square. He proudly stated that Kaplan Leister Square is thrilled to receive the level of recognition it received at the Cambridge Centenary Awards. He is excited that Kaplan is the only school to win two awards at the ceremony and acknowledges the great achievement that it is. He is keeping his eye on the future in order to guarantee even more successes.

If you need more information about Kaplan’s various Cambridge exam preparation courses, or to find schools near you that offer the Cambridge Computer-Based exam, visit http://www.kaplaninternational.com/courses/exam-preparation/cambridge.aspx

Although we never recommend using text speak for formal work, students who attend our junior English classes are proficient on the latest mobile devices, making it natural that they use text speak daily.

Even though some English learners use text speak while writing essays and exams, a new study says 63% of them do not think text speak damages their grammar or spelling.

Kaplan International Colleges, a leading English course provider to teenagers, explained that 63% of English learners who were surveyed believed that their grammar and spelling was not affected by using text speak like LOL and YOLO.

This result came even though 5% of the respondents state they use text speak in their written essays and 3% say they use it during exams.

The study also showed that 71% of the respondents use text speak when texting on cell phones, 64% use text speak online and an incredible 14% use it when speaking aloud.

Anna Robinson is the Junior Operations Manager for the UK and Ireland at Kaplan. She said that Kaplan would never recommend using text speak in any kind of formal written work. She notes that the junior English students are pretty handy with the latest mobile devices so it’s expected that they use text speak in everyday life.

According to Anna, technology is a great language learning aid. Because of this, Kaplan has launched K+ for Teens, which offers a wide range of learning materials, including books, apps, games and online platforms. Using these technologies has considerably changed the way teenage students learn English.

Researchers at Coventry University recently conducted a study among primary and secondary school students and found no evidence that using text speech hindered their literacy abilities.

The lead author of the study, Dr. Clare Wood, is Professor of Psychology in Education at Coventry University. She said that her research into the psychology of English learners supported Kaplan’s study results.

One of her studies followed children who use mobile phones and watched them over the course of an academic year, while a second study followed those children just over 10 weeks.
Those two studies found that there was no evidence of a negative affect on literacy skills among those children using texting slang or abbreviations. On the contrary, use of text speech seemed to add value to the children’s spelling abilities because of the highly phonetic nature of the text speech most commonly used.

It was a very interesting finding because text speech seems to rehearse children’s understanding of how sounds correspond to printed characters in a way that benefits their normal literacy advancement. Kaplan’s study included more than 150 English learners in more than 44 different countries.
Other results of the study include:

English learners most commonly used the LOL and THX text speak acronyms.
-66% use LOL and THX
-63% use OMG
-26% use 2MORO
-21% use GR8
-12% use YOLO
-77% find text speak faster than writing full words.
-15% use text speak because everybody else uses it
-3% use text speak because their parents cannot read it

Kaplan surveyed 178 English learners from: Hungary, Brazil, Italy, Argentina, Turkey, Colombia, Georgia, Estonia, Spain, Serbia, Pakistan, Ethiopia, Austria, Bosnia, Vietnam, Croatia, Azerbaijan, Holland, Syria, Mexico, Somalia, Ecuador, Sudan, Venezuela, Philippines, Burundi, Mongolia, Libya, Thailand, Algeria, Senegal, Egypt, Iran, France, Haiti, Pakistan, Iraq, Romania, Slovakia, Armenia, Morocco, Russia, Bolivia and Greece.

The Kaplan Talent Awards are open to everyone and Kaplan International Colleges needs people to judge the entered photos. Judges can win an English course at a Kaplan English language school by helping to pick the winner of the global talent search.

The Kaplan Talent Awards are a worldwide search for student photography talent. Judges can imagine themselves at Simon Cowell and help choose the winner. One lucky judge will win a Kaplan International Colleges English course! Kaplan’s Facebook fans have currently been judging the contest and have been voting on a series of more than 1000 photographs which have been sent in over the last month. So far, 30 photos have made the final cut.

One lucky judge and the winning student photographer will both win a two week English course at any Kaplan college location. Kaplan has English language schools in some fantastic locations worldwide, including London, Singapore, New York and Sydney. Kaplan has never run a competition of this size and nature before.

Kaplan Social Media Manager, Robert Pickstone explains that the language school has been amazed by the talent of their students. Kaplan believes that its students have excellent photography skills and wants to recognize and reward outstanding student photographers. Pickstone further states that Kaplan wanted to simultaneously engage their Facebook fans. All this led to the creation of the Kaplan Talent Awards.

Attending a Kaplan International College English language course is an experience of a lifetime and Kaplan wanted to make sure everyone had the chance to win. Pickstone is excited to be able to offer this opportunity and wishes everyone the best of luck!

Visit http://www.facebook.com/kic to judge the entered photographs and enter the drawing for the free two week English course. Look for the Kaplan Talent Awards Facebook App. The contest ends May 13th!!

ESL teachers were surveyed and 40% of them answered that they play Beatles songs to help teach English to students. Research also showed that 86% of ESL teachers enhance their lessons during class by playing music, which helps students better understand English.

The most popular group amongst ESL teachers is The Beatles. Hey Jude, Love Me Do and a Hard Day’s Night are played by over 40% of ESL teachers.

Paul McCartney’s only son, James McCartney recently stated that music is a universal language and it can bridge traditional language barriers. He proudly claimed that The Beatles has always been a bridge between communication and love. James says that learning any language through music is a great way to learn that language.

The influence of The Beatles is still seen across the world. In the Kaplan study, it was the most played band in English lessons, even more popular among ESL teachers than Bob Marley, Elvis and even Michael Jackson.

Only 6% of ESL teachers preferred Jackson while 5% chose Marley’s reggae music. Elvis was played by only 4% of the teachers surveyed. The band One Direction was also included in the study but was only used in the classroom by 3% of ESL teachers.

Kaplan’s survey included over 500 ESL teachers from more than 40 countries. The study was designed to discover the most popular tools used by teachers to enhance their lessons. Kaplan’s “How to Teach English” survey results were published as an infographic, which has quotes covering the various aspects of the study.

The survey’s other results:

81% of ESL teachers use native English-speaking celebrities in the classroom: U.S. President Obama is currently the most popular.

76% of teachers have used movies in the classroom. Harry Potter is the most popular.

75% have used newspapers. The New York Times is the most often used newspaper.

60% of ESL teachers have made use of television programs in the class. Mr. Bean is the most popular.

34% of teacher have used the radio to help students learn English. The BBC World Service is the most often used.

33% of have comics in class. Spider-Man is the most often used.

24% of made use of computer games in class. The Sims are the most widely used.

Kaplan’s survey included over 500 ESL teachers from the UK, USA, Australia, New Zealand, China, Japan, Russia, India, South Korea, Turkey, Georgia, Germany, Brazil, Canada, Hong Kong, Ireland, Greece, Vietnam, Spain, Cuba, France, Taiwan, Thailand, Azerbaijan, Pakistan, Tunisia, Mexico, Iran, Ukraine, Jamaica, Malaysia, Romania, Poland, Argentina, Czech Republic, Latvia, Uganda, Malta, Singapore and Chile.

A previous study took place in 2012 and determined that Bob Marley was the most popular musician used by students to study English outside of the classroom. 80% of the survey’s respondents said that their English skills were enhanced by listening to music.

If you’re an egg head, you’ll remember them all!

Kaplan English Idioms Illustrations

This post comes from Kaplan International Colleges.
Kaplan International Colleges is part of Kaplan, Inc., an international education services provider offering higher education, professional training, and test preparation. Kaplan is a subsidiary of The Washington Post Company (NYSE:WPO). http://www.kaplaninternational.com

Learn how to speak English with Kaplan

This post comes from Kaplan International Colleges.
Kaplan International Colleges is part of Kaplan, Inc., an international education services provider offering higher education, professional training, and test preparation. Kaplan is a subsidiary of The Washington Post Company (NYSE:WPO). http://www.kaplaninternational.com

Learn how to speak English with Kaplan

The two-time world recording breaking Kazakhstani weightlifter will be taking a Kaplan English course in London at their Covent Garden educational facility.

After outperforming his own expectations last year, Ilya has set his sights on learning to speak English. He wants to learn from native speakers and thinks that he’ll learn best by returning to the city where he accomplished the grand feat of becoming the only weightlifter to retain their Olympic title from Beijing.

The Kazakhstani icon is so happy to be learning English that he will take the ten week general English course. The course is semi-intensive and focuses on the four main language skills: writing and reading; speaking and listening.

Ilya believes that English is a must-learn language for those who travel a lot in the world. He says that new doors are opened, new friendships can be made and of course, professional networking is easier when you speak English. He was recently named one of the best Asian athletes in the world by the Olympic Council of Asia.

What do you drink to get energy?

Vocabulary

Hopped up means energized from eating or drinking something.

Sentences

“I’m hopped up on coffee.”

Pronunciation

Natural Pronunciation Tip: Notice how the -ed in the word hopped is pronounced “t”. Also, listen how the two words are combined, so it sounds like “hopptup”.

Bingbing has co-starred with Jackie Chan and Jet in the adventure movie Forbidden Kingdom, a martial arts action adventure movie. In her latest movie, Resident Evil: Retribution, Bingbing appears alongside Ada Wong.

Here’s what she had to say about studying at Kaplan:

“Learning another language actually is learning a new culture, is also a new way to know who you are. So we need a good mentor when we study.”

“I like the personalized education from Kaplan International Colleges. It was just like Chinese traditional private school education. I improved my listening and speaking a lot,” said Li Bingbing.

Bingbing’s next film, 400 Boys, is futuristic drama where life expectancy has been radically altered. The government is corrupt and ruthless, and the characters are pitched in an ongoing battle for survival. Sounds cool!