EC London English Language School

The purpose of the Social Programme is to contribute to the EC London objectives by providing a range of interesting and rewarding events, learning opportunities and cultural experiences that will enrich the students’ stay at the college and provide a varied social framework for them to engage, interact and share experiences. Based on historic successes plus innovative new ideas, the programme will be shaped through continual feedback to increase involvement and enjoyment so that students consider the social programme an integral part of their learning experience. Success will be judged by demonstrating increasing levels of satisfaction and participation and using positive testimonials as a significant point of differentiation in EC London’s marketing activities.

Written by Geoff

Our trip on Thursday 27th August took place in lovely summer sunshine and it didn’t take too long from EC London before we arrived at Syon House, set on the edge of Chiswick and the River Thames. Our visit was a memorable experience as Syon House is effectively a large country house set in 200 acres of parkland……………but within London. The Duke of Northumberland lives there as his London house and his family have owned the estate for over 400 years.

We had a great time walking through the Park which has many specimen and ornamental trees and a Conservatory built in 1830 which was one of the first structures of its type to be built on such a scale. We relaxed in the gardens taking in the views and enjoying the weather and then went into Syon House itself. The House is famous for the rooms designed by the renowned architect Robert Adam in the 1760’s. We really enjoyed looking around the building and although we could have spent a whole day there our visit was more than enough to get a feel for the history of the buildings and to enjoy the settings and a glimpse into what life must have been like for the rich and nobility of that period. As we came out of the main gate the reality of London came as a real contrast. One side of the gate was peace, tranquility and the countryside. Outside the gate was vibrant London with its housing and traffic.

Written by Geoff

At today’s session Mayerly from Venezuela and I discussed plastic surgery and beauty. We began by discussing whether it was generally a good or a bad thing and I showed some picture examples of some famous people who have had plastic surgery – Victoria Beckham, La Toya Jackson and Mickey Rourke. We agreed that for Mickey Rourke his surgery had been unsuccessful but whereas Mayerly felt that Victoria Beckham’s breast implants looked ok, I felt they were very unnatural looking.

Mayerly felt that overall, if someone wanted surgery and it helped them to feel more confident, then this was a good thing. I said that perhaps we place too much importance on our appearance and we should be more accepting of our looks, including the bits we don’t like! We both agreed that there is a lot of pressure on women, in particular, to look a certain way and this made it difficult to be happy with the way we look naturally.

Mayerly told me that in Venezuela, plastic surgery is very common for women with breast surgery being the most popular procedure. In Britain, it is probably not as common, but is becoming more so as it becomes cheaper.

Our conversation moved towards how much time we spend on our appearance on an average day. We discovered we both spent only a little time in the morning getting ready but that I probably am more concerned about current fashion than Mayerly. In Venezuela Mayerly said she would wear more make-up than here in London, but that clothes are more casual there due the weather being hot. She said in Venezuela she would never wear trainers and instead wear high-heels most of the time even though heels made her feet hurt!

We talked about fashion in London and she thought that here people wear more different styles of clothes, which having been to South America, I think is true. Londoners are famous for their sense of style, even though to foreign visitors some of the fashion here may seem odd!

I enjoyed today’s conversation as it is always interesting to get a point of view from someone from a different culture. Exchanging views and expressing opinions is a very important aspect of learning a new language and students should take every opportunity to practice this.

It’s hard to do justice in a few words to the success of the party we had at Pacha, one of London’s most famous clubs. As a number of people said to me “It was such a good time, my best so far”. It was also a really positive environment for students from a variety of courses to mix together, share experiences, relax, dance and thoroughly enjoy themselves.

400 tickets were offered for the Summer Party and these had all been taken up within a couple of days of being available. We had our own room allocated to us in Pacha, which helped the EC London ambiance. This coupled with good music and DJ’s got everybody dancing and everybody, including the teachers and staff, joined in. Bernard even put a few of the younger partygoers in the shade! There was a lot of fun and laughter and I suspect a lot of new friendships. A really great EC London night out.
Written by Geoff

Today in coffee and conversation we had 4 students from Italy and 1 from Japan. We began by introducing ourselves, telling each other where we were from, our jobs at home and how long we are staying at EC London.  Asami from Japan is planning to stay in London for 1 year, studying and hoping to work. In Japan she worked for a publishing company. Emanuele from Italy is studying law and is spending just 2 weeks here. Gaetano had come to London to stay with an English friend he met in Rio de Janeiro and works as a mechanical engineer. Marcelo studied cinema in Italy and has been working in film production. He has visited London before and came back to practice and improve his English. He is the first student I have met who likes the English weather! Roberto has spent the last 10 years working in a legal office and is staying in London for 2 weeks also.

We decided to talk in pairs about either a recent film we had seen or one of our favourite films. Most of us liked gangster and action films and Asami told us about a Japanese animated film, (not using actors, but either drawn pictures, models or computer images), called Ponyo. These type of films are very popular in Japan and are often about imaginary worlds where strange and unusual things happen.

Gateano said that he liked films just for entertainment and that they didn’t have to be very memorable afterwards. Roberto enjoyed Ocean’s 11 because it was full of action and was fast-paced, meaning that the events in the film happen quickly.

We also talked a lot about what our plans for the coming weekend are. Marcelo and Emanuele were due to fly home to Italy at the weekend and were both looking forward to meeting up with friends and family. As usual, there were quite a few complaints about the English food. Any students that have found nice places to eat, should let staff here know so that we can improve London’s reputation in this area! Surely, not all the restaurants in London can be terrible?

Roberto was planning to visit lots of London’s sights, including Buckingham Palace, Green Park, Big Ben and Trafalgar Square.

Asami was being very kind and helping her friend move into a new flat and Gaetano  was going to a friend’s barbecue and was hoping to provide lots of delicious Italian coffee.

As for me I am going to the Roundhouse in Camden to see an art exhibition where the whole building has been turned into a musical instrument that visitors can play.  The exhibition is on until 31st August and tickets are £5 or £2.50 for full-time students. You can get more information about this on the Roundhouse website. The link is below:

http://www.roundhouse.org.uk/whats-on/productions/playing-the-building–3268

Last week for the first time I went to Stowe Gardens, a National Trust site with beautiful gardens and monuments, breathtaking views and  plenty of great picnic spots. I’d really recommend it, especially on a sunny day! Have you been anywhere new recently? Would you recommend it?

A sunny summer’s day added extra sparkle to our afternoon out in Hampstead. We started by window shopping in the boutiques and speciality shops in the village, then walked up Heath Street, taking in some of the beautiful Georgian houses which help to make the area so historic and exclusive.
As we arrived at the top of the hill, Heath Street opened out into 800 acres of grass and woodland, known as Hampstead Heath. It was hard to believe that a bustling residential centre was just a few minutes behind us. We walked across the Heath and past the ponds which were originally excavated to provide reservoirs for 17th century London. As we reached the central section – known as Parliament Hill – a vista of London was revealed, and we stopped for a while to enjoy the unusual view of the city.

We walked on to Kenwood House, a stunning 18th century mansion designed by the famous architect Robert Adam, which is now home to art collections by Rembrandt, Turner, Reynolds, Gainsborough and Vermeer.

As we walked back through the famous gardens and across the heath, we felt lucky to have seen so many beautiful works of art, and stopped again to enjoy the sense of space and the views.
We all agreed that the combination of village, heath, views and Kenwood House made this a venue to return to.

Written by Geoff

Sun shining, music playing, friends laughing… it should have been the perfect weekend. Our friends who went the day before even took our tent and pitched it for us so that we could all camp together. The Big Chill festival last year was absolutely brilliant and we had been looking forward to this one ever since.

Unfortunately things didn’t quite go to plan. Having caught a cold the day before, we set off a little later than planned so that I could have a lie-in and hit traffic before we had even left London. The journey from south London to the festival site in the Malvern hills should have taken three hours. It took us five and a half. Not to be defeated, we smilingly trudged on and carried our backpacks the half-hour walk from the car to the campsite  to meet our friends. Once there I took a potentially lethal concoction of Nurofen (to help my worsening cold symptoms) and red wine then headed off for the main stage.

The festival site is truly the most beautiful I have ever seen. The campsite is high up on a hill so the view of the festival down below on the opposite side of the river that runs between the two is quite spectacular. The  whole place was full of twinkling lights, wish lanterns high up in the sky and brightly coloured flags.

The music was brilliant (we saw the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, Pharoah Sanders, Spiritualised, Kathryn Williams, Friendly Fires and my favourite, Lamb, amongst many others) and the atmosphere was just fantastic.

Sadly my cold only got worse and sleeping in the tent was pretty awful. By Saturday night we had to abandon the whole thing and drive to a Travelodge hotel in Tewkesbury. Very uncool.

Here’s hoping that next year’s Big Chill will be much more successful for us!

Vocabulary Focus:

 pitched (to pitch) - (verb) to set up and fix in position, e.g. a tent 

trudged (to trudge) – (verb) to walk slowly and with heavy steps

concoction – (noun) a combination of ingredients to eat or drink

twinkling – (adjective) light that changes constantly from bright to faint

The social programme has been very active in the last few weeks and has been particularly well attended. We started with a day trip to Cambridge in June which enabled a full quota of people to experience punting on the River Cam, a picnic on the historic ‘Backs’ and sightseeing the medieval colleges. Some people were having such a good time that they stayed on in Cambridge and took a much later train back to London. As one student said “it was a perfect English day out”.

July saw an afternoon trip to Kew Botanic Gardens which amazed quite a few of our group as they hadn’t realised such an oasis of beautiful and tranquil parkland was just a short Tube ride away. We walked the pathways through the specimen trees, tried the aerial walkway to see the tree tops from a very different perspective and a few visited the Royal palace where King George 111 stayed. We were lucky with the weather and even managed to fit in a visit to the historic Orangery (now a tearoom).

Chris’s evening walks around London continue to be a very popular event as he always finds places of interest with intriguing stories to tell about the places that are visited.

In the 3rd week of July came two very special events – the Candlelit Dinner and The Summer Party. The dinner was a sell-out with 50 people attending and enjoying canapés, cocktails and a delicious choice of salmon with dill sauce or chicken with tomato. The Pavlova that was offered for dessert helped to provide plenty of energy as the diners took their taxis to Pacha night club.

Our Summer Party at Pacha was a great success with some 400 people attending. The music was great with good DJ’s and a real party spirit was created. The dancing styles got quite ambitious and some of our teachers joined in to show they also knew how to share in the party spirit. There was no specific leaving time but it was early morning before the last of the EC students left the club. As one of the students said , it’s “The best thing I’ve been to, since coming to London”.

Which brings us up to the most recent day out on 2nd August where a group of 10 of us took the DLR on the ‘scenic’ route through Docklands to Greenwich. This is a very pretty and historic area which is home to a former Royal palace and the imposing former Naval College. We visited the National Maritime Museum and the Royal Observatory and enjoyed a walk through the lovely Greenwich Park which provides views across London. A trip to Greenwich market completed our day with a choice of stalls for shopping and food.

What do the next few weeks promise for the Social programme?

We have another Summer Party planned for the August 14th. Get your tickets early next week to make sure you can join in the fun.

A day trip to the seaside at Brighton on 8th August (sign up at Reception now)

We have had a request for a day visit to Oxford or Cambridge which we are hoping to arrange before the end of the summer.

Chris will be conducting his evening London walks.

One of the suggestions received was a trip to Hampton Court Palace – the historic home of Henry VIII . Does this appeal to you?

An afternoon visit to Tate Britain & Tate Modern using the riverboat for the connection.

Tell us if there is any special place that you would like to visit and we will see what we can arrange…

We’d been looking forward to this event for weeks – and in the end over 50 people came, making our special supper a sell-out. The Café was transformed with pre-laid tables, mood lighting and music. Guests were treated to Caiporoska cocktails and snacks on arrival, with a dinner of salmon with dill sauce or chicken with tomato and basil to follow. Both were delicious…. and the Pavlova dessert was a great way to finish the meal! As people jumped in the free Summer Party-bound taxis there were empty plates and wine bottles – which probably accounted for everybody’s good mood!