Academic English

My stay in Leicester

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Hello! I’m Niruta from Barcelona in Catalonia and I’ve been staying two weeks in Leicester living with my teacher Karen and her family.

For me it was a very nice experience where I learned english and also I got a lots of greats moments with this family. For example we went to visit Leicester City Centre that it was very good and also we went to the country side.
With my teacher Karen she helped me and now I’m feeling that my english level it’s improving and for me this two weeks had been very helpful and has also helped me to consolidate basic concepts.
I recommend this type of course to people who want to learn english and live a period of time like english people.
I’m very happy of this new experence for my and I’m sure that I will repeat this great adventure again.
I will miss this amazing family!!!
Thanks for all.

Long-lasting Friends

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Just two weeks ago, I happily returned back home from Rushden, England. This happiness mainly routed in the satisfied feeling of having made four new friends. Family Robb from Rushden with the extremely experienced English teacher, Chris, his warm-hearted wife, Fernanda, baking astounding chocolate cakes and their two lovely children, Ashleigh and Chris (“Junior”) constantly contributed to harmony and great fun over the entire course of two weeks. From the first day on, I felt secure and welcome.

 

Originally planned as an English preparation for university and the TOEFL test, my stay in Rushden turned into a wonderful holiday experience. The quality of teaching was amazing so that I felt extremely well prepared for my TOEFL which later on had been successful. Meeting lots of family friends gave me numerous opportunity to communicate in English. Furthermore, spending a weekend in Bournemouth with more family friends from Brazil, I got to know a highly interesting insight in their colorful culture.

 

Looking back onto these two weeks, it does not seem irrational that family Robb has so many friends. They are simply lovely to everyone. That is why I am so glad and thankful to have met them.

 

3 weeks in paradise

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Hello everybody!

We’re two 17 year old girls from Spain and Austria who already met last year at Michelle Miller’s place in Suffolk. So, as you can guess, we had a great time together and that’s why we decided to come back this year.
Last year we only spent one week together and we became good friends, so this year we wanted to lengthen our stay to 3 weeks. They’ve been, undoubtedly, the best weeks in our summer holidays!
We’ve done so many things that it’s impossible to list all of them. But we’d like you to have an idea of some of the amazing things we’ve done.

In the mornings, we had lessons, but don’t think they were monotonous or boring. Each day we did something different and had a large variety of things, so time passed very quickly. We learnt lots of new things, but not only from books, also in different ways, such as funny games, making up stories with the new vocabulary, treasure hunts in stunning places, cookery, watching the news and we also went to the court to watch a trial! One day we conducted an interview with a friend of Michelle’s, who made us a delicious tea with cucumber sandwiches, scones and chocolate cake! <3
In the afternoons, we had excursions in which we visited different places and did several activities. And the great thing is that we had lots of choices! Our favourites were the magic show, the archery, stately homes like Kentwell Hall and beautiful seaside places such as Frinton.
At the weekends, we had full day excursions. For the first one we went to Ipswich to the Fake Festival to watch tribute bands, which was a nice and enjoyable experience. For the second one we visited the castle of Framlingham and we also walked around the town. Afterwards, we went to other pretty villages which are nearby.

Michelle’s house is in a rural area, but not far away from Ipswich. It’s a lovely old building and it has the best accommodation you could imagine. We both have our own bedrooms and our own bathroom. Everyday Michelle cooked us the most delicious dishes in a huge variety. She also gave us the choice to decide what we preferred. In the evenings we were more than welcome to join Michelle and her husband Jeremy in watching TV. We had our beds changed every weekend and if we wanted to get clothes washed we only had to tell her.

The first thing Michelle told us when we arrived was “Feel like you’re at home”, and she also said “help yourselves!”. She lives with her husband, Jeremy, who is a very friendly, witty and funny man. They also have a cat called Tigger, who is very nice! All of them made us feel like we were part of the family.

In conclusion, we had a memorable experience at Michelle’s place and we’ll always be grateful for everything the family had done for us. We’re sure that we’re going to come back in the future, not as students but as friends. We know that we’ll always be welcome there.
Now we’d like you to see some of our memorable moments represented in the following pictures!

We urge you to go to Michelle’s place, to have an amazing experience as we had!

Marta&Katharina

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The best stay in England

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Food
The food was lovely, Daniela cook very well. We had three meals.
Breakfirst : we’ ve got milk, cereals
They were a lot of kind of cereals and we’ve got an orange juice.
For lunch we’ve got two sandwiches or pasta carbonara. The sandwiches was good but i prefer pasta carbonara she makes it very well.
For diner we’ve got some different meal everyday like pizza which i did it with her, we’ve got curry, chicken, risotto… . And some times for desert we can have ice-cream. We were never hungry because we can have as much as we want.

Excursion
The excursion was very good.
Our first little excursion it was when we visit the village with Andrew ( the son of Daniela).
The second we went to two museum which was cold Fitzwilliam museum and the second polar museum. In cold Fitzwilliam my favorite things were mummies and in the polar museum it was the model of boat. After visit museum we went to shopping it was very fun and at the end we went visit a lot of colleges and climb up an tower with the tight spiral staircase.
But my favorite excursion was London because we went to London dungeon it was very fun and scary. After we went to Buckingham palace but they were a lot of people so we went to Westminster and we had a tour of boat in the river. Later we went on tower bridge, we climbed up and up there the were floor that was made with window. the view was beautiful, we took a lot of picture and we went at the front of the bridge because it was going to get up and open to have more place so the boat can pass. A few minutes later we went to Piccadilly Circus and we went in to Hamley it is a very big shop just for toys.

I want to say thank you to Daniela for all the excursions, lessons and food. You are a good teacher you get me have fun into this trip. It was my favorite stay with Living Learning English.

Hugo

Two Awesome Weeks With Daniela

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Hello! My name is Ivan Bokhan. I’m 15 years old and I’m from Belarus. I staying in a nice two-story house in Cottenham , Cambridge. I will be here for two weeks, with Daniela, Deryck (her husband) and two nice children. I stay here with another student called Hugo. I’m really happy that I can stay with so nice family.

Family

The family is really polite and funny. I think that is good that I can talk with native speakers. They have a children, Emma and Andrew (7-years old and 11-years old) and they are very nice and polite kids. I’m spending a lot of time with Andrew and we become a friends. I didn’t expect that in these family they have a children and I thought that it will be worse that without them but later we started to communicate very well.

Lessons 

This is very good that in our lessons we can decide the time of the lesson per day (we choose 5 hours per day) .

In our first lesson Daniela show us the fat book called “Phrases, Saying, and Quotation” and every lesson we need to take two frappes from these book and explain it. In the beginning it was hard but later it became easier.

In our lessons we work from the book as well as discussing exercises with my partner. And that was interesting and fun. Daniela reproduced texts for us and we listened to it. We had a lot of reading, speaking and working with exercises. I think that the main reason for this improvement is that I’m speaking English all the time. In lessons, with the children, on the excursion and with the partner. And I think that is important to think in English. I’ve been in England twice before, but this time was the best.

House

I was really impressed when I arrived. I went upstairs and I saw my room and it was awesome because the room is very big and we have our own bathroom. I shared the room with Hugo(my partner) but there is more than enough space for both of us. Our bedroom looks very big and clean and there are two windows so the room is nicely lit up the whole day.
But not only our bedroom is really comfortable. We live here in a big house, the sitting room as well as the dinning room are quite big.
Sometimes we have dinner in the big, nice and comfortable garden.I was extremely  glad when I saw our house.

Food

I’ve been in England twice before, but this time i had the best meals. We have three meals a day. In the morning we always have cereals with milk and orange juice. After lessons we usually have a lunch. Sometimes it is something lite like omelet or sandwiches. Near seven o’clock we have a dinner. Daniela always cooking something nice and tasty for example pizza, pasta, risotto, fish or chicken. And sometimes we can try very tasty desert like chocolate cake or  “pavlova” cake.

Excursions 

Excursions was really interesting. One time we were in London and the other days we stayed in Cambridge.
In Cambridge we visited many different Colleges. For example the St. Johns college impressed me because it looks like the Hogwarts from Harry Potter. We had many activities in Cambridge, like visiting tho shopping centre, the Fitzwilliam Museum, swimming pool, aqua park, and I really enjoyed the boat ride in King’s University.

When we went to London we had the possibility to decide what we want to visit. So we decided to go on the London Dungeon. After this attraction we did a short boat ride which was very beautiful. We left the boat near the Tower Bridge so we climb to the top and took some beautiful photos and went by metro to the Picadilly Circus. The excursion to London was absolutely lovely.

In the end I want to say that the house, people, food, excursions was really great. Thank you “Living Learning English”!

Superbe séjour à Cambridge

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Food

It been one week when I arrived and the food is really good. We have three meal every days. For the breakfast we have cereal with juce a de sometime hot chocolat. When we have a little break between the lessons we have the lunch. We usually eat spaghetti carbonara or soup after that we usually play in the garden. When we are out we have fresh baguette sandwich. For the diner Daniela cook different dishes every evening, like a pizza, risotto, curie, ships, meat and many other things. She cook very well and we can eat as much as we like. The meal are so tasty and really delicious Arrivée et logement

Quant je suis arrivée, j’ai été très impressionné par la beauté de la maison. J’étais la première à arriver donc j’étais très timide avec Daniela et Derik, mais ils ont été très accueillant et chaleureux avec moi se qui ma tout de suite mise à l’aise. Je suis donc allée voir ma chambre. Celle-ci est très grande et très lumineuse. Moi et ma camarade avons un lit chacune avec une table de nuit chacune. Il y a une grande armoire et deux buffets ainsi qu’un bureau. Notre chambre comporte aussi une salle de bain toilettes ce qui est très agréable au quotidien. Nous avons trois fenêtre dont deux donnent sur le jardin. Celui-ci est très grand. A l’intérieur il y a un trampoline, des balançoires, un bassin avec des poissons ainsi qu’un porche avec une table et un hamac. Nous mangeons en général dans le jardin car c’est un endroit magnifique.

La nourriture

Cela va faire maintenant une semaine que je suis arrivé en Angleterre et la nourriture est vraiment bonne. Nous avons trois repas par jours. Pour le petit déjeuner nous mangeons des céréales et nous buvons du jus d’orange et parfois un chocolat chaud. Quand nous avons la pause déjeuné, entre deux leçons nous mangeons des spaghettis carbonara ou une soupe. Après sa, nous allons en général nous amusez dans le jardin. Quand nous sommes en sortie à l’extérieur nous mangeons des sandwichs dans de la baguette fraîche. Pour le dîné Daniela cuisine différent plats tous les soirs comme des pizzas, un risotto, du curry, des frites, de la viande et bien d’autres choses. Elle cuisine vraiment bien et nous pouvons manger à notre faims. Ses plats sont vraiment bon

Les leçons

Les leçons commence à 9h du matin. Au début de chaque leçons nous avons un test sur les verbes irréguliers. Pendant les leçons nous faisons en général 15 pages dans le cahier d’exercices. Si nous n’avons pas fait 15 pages pendant là leçons nous les avons en devoirs. Daniela est vraiment gentille avec nous et les leçons ne sont pas ennuyeuse car nous parlons beaucoup avec elle. Les leçons ne sont pas du tout stressante. Nous faisons aussi beaucoup de jeux avec elle. En une semaine nous avons appris beaucoup de choses et nous avons fait beaucoup de progrès

Nos Sortie

Nous sommes très heureuses par ce que nous aimons beaucoup les sorties et nous en avons fait beaucoup.Pour notre première sortie nous sommes allées à Cambridge où nous sommes allées au Cold Fiz Wiliam Museum. Nous y avons vue de magnifiques porcelaines et des tableaux de peintres célèbres telle que Picasso, Monet, Matisse, Degas, Renoir ainsi que beaucoup d’autre artiste. Par la suite nous sommes allés à Peimbroke College. Nous avns donc mangé dans les jardins de cette université. Ceux-ci sont très agréable et beaucoup d’étudiants viennent y manger, étudier ou juste se relaxer. Après ça nous sommes montés en haut de la tour de l’église St Marie d’où nous pouvions admirer le panoramas et la vue imprenable sur Cambridge. Par la suite nous avons pris une barque sur la rivière Camb, nous avons vue plus d’université et grâce au guide nous avons appris des choses sur l’histoire très riche de ces universités.

Le second jour de sortie nous nous sommes rendus à Londres où nous sommes allés au London Aquarium (l’aquarium de Londres). C’était vraiment magnifique ! Par la suite nous avons pris un bateau touristique sur la Tamise. Nous y avons vue beaucoup d’immeubles parfois un peu étrange mais se fut une très belle balade où nous avons enfin pu voir le Tower Bridge. C’était incroyable !

Pour notre troisième jours de sortie nous sommes allés à Wimpool Estate. Il y avait un jardin vraiment incroyable, avec beaucoup de magnifique fleurs. Wimpool Estate comportait aussi une ferme où nous avons pu y voir un cheval, des ânes, beaucoup de porc des chèvres, des lapins et bien d’autres animaux. Il y avait aussi un grand palais vraiment magnifique.

Amazing two weeks in Hastings!

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I enjoyed two weeks in Hastings with my teacher Jennifer, her husband Tim and his cousin Riz. The teacher organised the classes with different activities and materials which helped me to improve my level of English. Not only did I learn in 4 hours a day classes, but also it was awesome to enjoy conversations and excursions with the family. We visited an art gallery, many villages and towns of East Sussex and a film with live music in St. Leonards. Staying two weeks in Hastings was amazing for improving my English, for travelling in this area, doing fun activities and learn more about English history. Thanks, Jennifer & family!

An incredible week staying with Daniela

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By Margaret

Class
The class we had were really great! Daniela is an experienced, considerate and patient teacher.As a result, her classes were colorful and rich.We can choose whatever we like to learn,whatever we like to discuss during these classes.We can express our opinion and experience freely.Daniela would correct our mistakes of grammar and pronunciation.I really like this way of learning though we had five hours’ class each day we need to study.

Play
On the 17th of July, the students of St.John’s College performed the famous play,Hamlet,for celebrating their school’s 30th birthday.It’s a pity that Amy was so tired that she didn’t come with me.As a result,I just enjoyed it myself.

The show began with the music which made people feel sad and upset.Suddenly,this was broken by two knights’ talk.The actors have really infectious and loud voices.All the people just got lost in the story and the world they painted.Hamlet’s sadness,hesitation，anger and the final relaxation，Ophelia’s desperation……The different feelings from different characters came out at different time.On the other hand,not only was the sound effect great,but also the scenes they made were beautiful. And the screenwriters have done some adaptations for this play so that it can be finished in two hours and a half.For example,they deleted the character,Fortinbras and the scenes which had something to do with him.But that doesn’t hurt.All of these met together and eventually brought the audiences special enjoyment of sight and hearing.

.All the characters just show some sides of human nature,no matter they are good or not.It reflects the kindness and evil of human.Maybe that’s why it became famous and still very popular all around the world.

Perfect story,good environment,fantastic actors,beautiful scenes,all of these belong to a great play.I believe most of you will enjoy it.

Food
The food in Cambrige was home–made, which tasted wonderful.We had different kinds of food from various parts of the world.Italy food，Indian food，British food……Daniela is really good at cooking!
We even had some discuss about this.Both of us just agree that food in your hometown is the best.As the saying goes,east,west,home is the best.No matter where you go,whatever you like,the things in you hometown always take an important part in your heart!

By Amy

Family

I had a really good time playing with Emma, the little sister in this family. For one evening, we played four different kinds of games.

In China, when an elder kid playing games with an younger kid, the elder one usually let the younger one win on purpose. Parents tell us this can make the younger kid happy, which is the duty of the elder kid. Although I don’t agree with this idea, but I still follow it while playing with Emma.

To my surprise, when Emma found that I was about to lose the game (and I had already lost several times) , she actually gave up a few turns in order to let me win easily. She also taught me some little tricks to win this game.

She is such a smart girl which has a great kindness in her heart. She tried her best to make me enjoy the games, because she regarded me as a friend, instead of a competitor. I guess Emma’s friendly personality,  positive attitude towards life as well as the incredible imagination mostly comes from the family education she has. And this can make us rethink about the family education we have in China.

 

Trip

One the first day we arrived, Daniela had made a great plan about our trips, after considering about our own preferences. Because we were living in Cambridge, so I truly didn’t imagine that we can travel around London. It was so nice of her to offer this trip to us.

On our first trip, we visited Cambridge. First, we had went punting on the river Cam. The view on the two sides of the river was gorgeous. There was a guid who introduced the buildings and the history behind them while rowing the boat. Then we climbed the tower of the St. Mary’s Church. Because the stairs were quite narrow and steep, Derek was very attentive that he took great care of us during the climb. After that, we went to two museums. I especially love the history museum there. It was quiet and you could spent a whole day there. We had also been to the Cambridge Botanic Garden. It was quite large, with fresh air, warm sunshine and breathtaking scenery.We had spent a great time there. In the whole day, we had encountered many Chinese tourists there. And I think we are actually much luckier than them, cause we have a perfect local guide who is very familiar with Cambridge.

On our second trip, we went to the Wimpole Estate. I had watched the Downton Abby TV series. So I really found that estate amazing. In every room of it, there was a volunteer (mostly elder people). They would make a brief introduction of that room to you and willing to answer your question and have a discussion of the history in this house with you. I absolutely learned loads of interesting knowledges there and also enjoyed this trip very much.

On the third trip, we went to London. It was a long trip. And we were a little bit tired. But I think it was definitely worthwhile to have this trip. We have taken a bus tour to the Buckingham Palace. The queen’s personal flag was flying that day, so she was in the house doing her work.We had taken a boat tour too. On the boat, we have seen the London Eye, the Houses of Parliament and the Tower Bridge very clearly. Then we stopped at the Baker Street to visit the museum of Sherlock Holmes. There was a long queue outside, but the things inside the house was amazing. Then here comes my favorite part. We went to the Platform 9-3/4!!! There was a half trolley in the wall. Just like in the films of Harry Potter. This is the place where they go to school every beginning of a term. There was a Harry Potter shop beside the platform. I couldn’t help myself from buying things!! I bought a scarf of Gryffindor, a time turner necklace which Hermione had worn and a very specific map. That was amazing !!

Before our trip, Daniela always prepared enough food and drinks for us. During our trip, Derek has looked after us very well. It was very nice of the family to take us on these amazing trips.

 

IELTS in Bristol

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It was a very good experience, I’ve learned a lot of English that was the purpose of this trip to Bristol. The house where I’ve been was great, I have visited different parts of Bristol, for example: Cabot Tower, the SS Great Britain and the famous Suspension Bridge, and always had a good time with the family, and most importantly, learned a lot about the IELTS exam.

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