The UK Border Agency have recently announced the following changes for students wishing to study in the UK using the Tier 4 General Student Visas. These changes came into affect on April 21st 2011.

• Only Grade A and Highly Trusted Sponsors (such as LSI )  will be allowed to issue CAS’s (confirmation of acceptance for studies) to students
• School tests and skype interviews will no longer be accepted as proof of level. Students must have a valid exam certificate from the proscribed list, or have taken a Secure English Language Test (SELT) at a recognised exam centre. SELTs will also be made available at some consulates and embassies. The UKBA site have more information about the SELTS. Level requirement for Tier 4 visas will stay at Intermediate B1, ready to study at B2
• Students on Tier 4 visas will no longer be allowed to work in the UK while studying at language schools.
• All language schools will have a limited number of CAS’s available for students until April 2012. Therefore, LSI will issue only one CAS to each student.
• A new Extended Student Visitor Visa has been introduced for Highly Trusted Sponsors. Language school students will now be able to apply for a Student Visitor Visa for up to 44 weeks at LSI.

LSI UK  has been busy investing in the latest classroom technology,  installing interactive whiteboards in the classrooms. These new additions to the classrooms have been warmly welcomed by both teachers and student alike.

Noah using the whiteboard

Noah Fisher, a teacher at LSI London Hampstead, is a very keen proponent of the electronic whiteboard and has even provided training sessions in its use for other members of staff. “Interactive whiteboards are just great! Thanks to the amazing range of media that can be accessed from the Internet , it allows us teachers to be able to provide a much richer learning experience using the whiteboards. Apart from just being more visually appealing than the usual paper based resources, I find that the students become more engaged when sharing, discussing, even interacting with texts using the Interactive Whiteboard. It really seems to pull them into the tasks. ”

Ana Cristine, an LSI Hampstead student from Brazil, is in total agreement with Noah. “When we work with texts on the normal whiteboard I never finish writing down it all down before we move to the next topic but with the interactive board you can easily go back to previous exercises. Also the teacher is able to use lots of colours to highlight texts which makes it more interesting to look at as well as making each mark more distinct.”

LSI now has interactive whiteboards in all its UK schools at London Central, London Hampstead, Brighton and Cambridge. Learning a language has never been so much fun!

LSI has been successfully running Young Learner courses at our schools in London Hampstead, Toronto, Brighton and San Diego for two years and for 2010 we have also introduced a campus programme at Chichester. These courses are proving to be increasingly popular with record numbers booking the courses this summer. Below you can read some recent feedback that we have received from the family of one of our students on our London Hampstead Young Learners Course.

Laura Navadijos Peral wrote the following to school director Greg Wickline, ” I would like to thank you and congratulate you for the quality of the study programme your school has offered my nephew Jorge Calvo Navadijos. Jorge finished a two weeks young learners course on Saturday 24^th of July and he has repeatedly told us how happy he has been with the classes. Jorge has greatly appreciated having more than one teacher every day with different styles and accents and he has found that the rhythm and the exercises were very fresh and different from the methodology he has always followed in his home country Spain.”

Laura continues, ” From my side, his uncle and his family in Spain we would like to thank you for making us feel he was in safe hands. We felt he was given the protection that was needed at his age and level of English and we sense he has not felt overprotected. Greg, from my first interaction with you a few months back I had the feeling we were choosing the right school and I am glad we were right. We will recommend your school wholeheartedly to our friends in England and Spain with children in similar ages and situations.”

We thank Laura for taking the time to give us feedback on our Young Learners Course and for the helpful suggestions she has made to improve the course even further. It’s great to know when we have happy students!