Greetings!
This is the first issue of the ILI TESOL Alumni
Quarterly! We are getting in touch with you, our former TESOL students,
to find out where you have landed and update you on the news here at
ILI.
Win a t-shirt when you send us an e-mail.
You may be selected to receive a FREE new ILI t-shirt if you respond
before August 31. Please reply to this e-mail and tell us a
little about what you're doing now so that we can include it in our next
Quarterly. If you would like to send along pictures of yourself,
please do so!
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Students' News
Sonya Fierst: September 2009 TESOL 
Hi
guys!
I can just imagine your ILI offices
buzzing with various appointments, new students, exciting projects. I
arrived in Medellin 2 weeks ago and so far it's been great. I'm still
trying to develop a rhythm of life here but everyone is so nice and
helpful.
Unfortunately, the university I've been assigned to for my
scholarship
is
located in the wealthiest part of town. I'm
renting a room right now from a wonderful family, but trying to find my
own place asap in a cheaper, more interesting neighborhood. I also
wanna take classes at the public university which is a lot funkier, and
much
more economically, socially, ethnically, and politically diverse. Just
to put the difference into perspective, one girl at the private school
told me she goes on periodic shopping trips to Orlando. I'm sorta
struggling in general though with the concept of being in school.
Thankful for the fact I have this scholarship 'cause it gives me a fully
funded year to hang out in Colombia, but also trying to establish
connections outside of the academic world. I'm gonna start giving
free English conversation classes at this community center in town that
works with poorer communities around Medellin and gives scholarships to
indigenous and Afro-colombians from around the country. The people there
are
super cool.
I
started a blog... if you have any time or interest feel free to check up
( I figured its the better then clogging in-boxes with mass-emails)
http://sonyaincolombia.blogspot.com/
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More Students' News
Tom Bitters : August 2006 TESOL 
Right
now I'm teaching 5th and 6th
grade students in the public schools in Iksan, South Korea. The
TESOL Certificate program made me a lot
more confident even though the program was preparing me for smaller
classrooms.
I use the same principles for much larger groups. It is
hugely rewarding.
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A Tip for Teaching English 
by Caroline Gear
I hope that
this newsletter finds you all well and doing exciting
things. This past month I had the opportunity to work with Yohang, a Korean minister based in the US. We worked together for 20 hours and
focused on pronunciation and error correction. As many of you already
know, I love working on pronunciation and helping students find short
cuts to making themselves understood. Let's face it, there are words
that we can work on forever and it will always be difficult for the
students to say that word. For Spanish speakers nervous about saying " a
sheet of paper", I tell them just say "a piece of paper" and for
speakers from Pacific Rim countries, don't worry about saying "rural";
just say "country".
Yohang was excited to know that he already could say the words
"months" and "clothes" without any problems. Say these words quickly
and you too will know that native English speakers say "mons" and
"close".
In our work together, I found that one of areas that he could
focus
on was the use of contractions. Native English speakers use
contractions a lot and we worked on ways for him to self correct using
contractions. The gesture of my thumb and first finger closing quickly
really helped him focus on monitoring his English and kept my voice out
of the classroom.
It's so wonderful when teaching and learning go hand-in-hand and I
learned so much from working with my student. We'd love to hear your
ahah moments, too!
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ILI T-shirts For Sale
If you would like to buy a
t-shirt with the ILI logo on it, let us know!
They are only $15.
Womens: small, medium and large in black or pink.
Mens: medium, large and extra large in gray or black.
Email Betsy to let her know the size and color you want and where to mail it.
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See the School in our New Video
LINK
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If you haven't already, check out our website at www.ili.edu. Keep in touch!
We look forward to hearing from you,
Alexis
Caroline
Karine
and
all the teachers and staff at ILI |
