Euroasia: Language, Culture and Travel

If you’re keen to experience Asia, but not sure you want to live in a stressful, smoggy megacity, Malaysia offers a refreshing alternative! Euroasia is working with a client looking for teachers of EFL to teach foreign students (mainly adults from China, the Middle East, Russia etc.) who choose Malaysia for their English language studies. Some are required asap, but others may join the team at a later date.

Malaysia offers:

• Unique cultural background, see all of Asia in one country
• Year-round tropical climate
• Lively city life and unspoilt nature both within easy reach
• Modest cost of living, much cheaper than Tokyo, Seoul, Singapore, Shanghai
• Cheap flights to other Asian destinations (45mins to Singapore, 2hrs to Bangkok, 3hrs to Bali, 4hrs to Hong Kong)

Applicants have to meet minimum criteria as detailed below.

• Degree
• CELTA or equivalent
• Min. one year’s teaching experience (TEFL or other subject)
• Native English speaker
• Good general health
• Preferably aged 25 and up (for Malaysian visa purposes)
• Citizen of NZ, Aus, EU, USA, Canada (for visa purposes)
• Customer service oriented
• Willingness to contribute to the life of the school

More details and online application available via the following sites:

• Trademe Jobs
• Seek

Do tell your friends about this opportunity (but we can only proceed with applicants who meet the minimum criteria).

New Zealand Herald headline today “Imaginary friends boost language skills”

In a study in the latest issue of the journal Child Development, Otago University associate professor Elaine Reese, and former student Gabriel Trionfi, of Clark University in the United States, investigated the language skills of 48 boys and girls aged 5-1/2, of whom 23 had imaginary friends.

They found that the 13 girls and 10 boys who had engaged in imaginary companion play had more advanced narrative skills than children who had not.

“Because children’s storytelling skills are a strong predictor of their later reading skill, these differences may even have positive spinoffs for children’s academic performance,” Prof Reese said.

OK, so having imaginary friends is one way of developing your language skills. If you’re all grown up and not that keen with having imaginary friends, then come along to one of Euroasia’s language classes where you can practice speaking with some real people, and make some real friends in the process.

This is an awesome video…viral ad from a Russian language school. Hit me baby one more time!

One of the most difficult tasks for new language students is to figure out how to remember new vocabulary. It can be pretty challenging remembering new words in your native language, let alone new words in a foreign language. In this article, my friend Stephen Bayldon, veteran educator and ex-principal of a language school in Auckland, shares some of his views on how to remember what you learn. Here are some very useful tips for language learners.

His latest thoughts reproduced here:

I find memorising information long term a real challenge. This is certainly true for many of us learning a language. Often as fast as we can learn new words we forget the earlier ones! Or only the most common words which come up frequently enter our long term memory.

Of course practice makes perfect – repetition is the key; but who has time to go through thousands of flashcards regularly? Recently I read an article in Scientific American Mind magazine about an eccentric Polish professor named Piotr Wozniak who’s spend his life working on this problem. He now memorises thousands of facts every week.

Timing is the second key. If you practice too soon you waste your time. (You need time to work on reading, listening and speaking). Practice too late and you’ve forgotten the material and have to relearn it. The right time to practice is just at the moment you’re about to forget. Obvious but useless information! Imagine a pile of thousands of flash cards. Somewhere in this pile are the ones you should be practicing right now. But which are they? Fortunately, human forgetting follows a pattern. We forget ‘exponentially’ as shown in the picture. Of course there are individual differences. So how can we organise the cards perfectly? Manually it’s impossible, but Wozniak’s realised it could be done with interactive computer software.

I found his difficult to use (at least the free version). After some frustrating surfing I found one which is free and easy to download and to use: www.ichi2.net/anki

You can make your own ‘cards’. When a question comes up you click a tab, according to how difficult you found it to remember the answer. The programme then combines that information plus the number of previous repetitions. The next review date is scheduled accordingly – beautiful!

Of course there are other useful tips for learning vocabulary faster:

* Connect new information with something you already know about.You can put example sentences plus info on usage, collocation, pronunciation etc in your “anki” entries.

* Make the connection memorable – funny, personal, sexy, emotional…etc AND including different senses. Eg the Japanese for apple is ringo – so I picture an “Adam and Eve ” scene in which I bite into a sweet smelling, crunchy and delicious apple from my Japanese Eve, only for my teeth to hit a ring that goes around it…

* For more abstract words and topics, you can connect a lot of words together on one topic using mind maps; so they are organised in the same way as the human brain – eg use http://www.bubbl.us/ (free online tool). Then try to read, listen, write and talk to yourself and others about the topic.

* Read, read, read! Anything that you are interested in (see above). Find readers at a level where you know about 80% of the words; then guess the rest. There will be many words in your own language you don’t know. Good language learners are relaxed about uncertainty.

Spanish classes are very popular amongst Kiwis. Many choose to kick off the year with some Spanish lessons, in preparation for an upcoming trip to South America or Spain. Some choose to learn Spanish because of business reasons. At Euroasia, we are often asked why Spanish lessons are so popular. Here are some reasons.

• Spanish is unquestionably one of the world’s most important languages, spoken not only in Spain but also in most of the Americas, from California to Cape Horn!

• The Spanish-speaking countries are exciting places: the cities offer a round-the-clock buzz, while the great outdoors has huge potential for adventurous outdoor activities.

• Within the Spanish-speaking world, there is an enormous range of exciting places to visit: in Mexico and Central America, the cities of the Maya and the Aztecs, and resorts such as Acapulco and Cancún; in South America, the cities of the Aztecs (including Machu Picchu), the colourful Andean cultures of Peru and Bolivia, the strikingly varied landscapes of Chile and Argentina, and the cosmopolitan excitement of Buenos Aires.  Although some English is spoken, getting around is much easier with a little Spanish.

• Spain itself is one of the world’s most popular tourist destinations, famous not only for its Mediterranean beaches, but also for its stylish cities, its well-preserved small towns, and, in the south, its unique Moorish heritage.  Not to mention Ibiza, with the hottest nightclub scene in Europe, if not the world!

• The Spanish language has been the vehicle of great writers, from both Spain and Latin America.  Both areas have also been the home of world-renowned artists and, more recently, film-makers.

• New Zealand is increasingly looking to South America for trade links, especially Chile, the most prosperous of the South American states, and the one closest to New Zealand.  Spanish speakers will be in demand in the future (in fact right now we have Kiwi businesspeople doing business in South America learning Spanish at Euroasia).

• Young Kiwis can work in Argentina, Chile or Uruguay for one year under a working holiday scheme.  A knowledge of the Spanish language would obviously make a huge difference to anyone’s job prospects.

Find out more about Spanish lessons at Euroasia.  Or to enrol for a Spanish course, check out the Spanish timetable!

2-week intensive Spanish language courses start this week (20 January intake) and the once-a-week option kicks off early Feb. Enrol now.

Euroasia Language Academy is successful because we have a unique system to teach foreign languages.

We have small classes of no more than 10 students, with expert native teachers. We use a curriculum uniquely designed for New Zealanders, with an emphasis on helping students to start speaking as soon as possible. Most importantly, our classes are fun and interactive.

Languages available include Spanish, French, German, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean etc. Check out our website for timetable and pricing details.

Euroasia is an award winning provider of foreign language and cross-cultural training programmes, helping New Zealanders understand how to work with people from other cultures. Courses available in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch or online.