Tag: Class Projects

English in the City: Learning English in a New Way

Category: Class Activities, Class Projects, Courses, Uncategorized / Tags: ,

Last week, Jenna’s English in the City class set out in Faneuil Hall to complete a very fun and unique assignment. The students learned collocations and idioms with the verbs make and do (ex: doing time, make a promise). The students were given a list of these and were told they had 30 minutes to go out and take pictures of themselves acting out 3 of them. Here are some of the crowd favorites from that assignment.         English in the City is a new elective at EC Boston, where students go on an educational field trip in the city 2 times a week in order to get a more immersive learning experience. Get more information about learning English in Boston!  

English in the City Learns About the Boston Massacre

Category: Class Activities, School Activities, Student Work / Tags: ,

Jenna’s English in the City class visited the site of the Boston Massacre this week! There, teacher Jenna laid down at the site and the students took photos and role played as the different historical figures who were involved and live-tweeted about the Massacre. Boston Massacre Tweets Written by Paul Revere and Sam Adams When I passed through the State House I saw a boy who shouted “I’m dying” and he was bleeing on his head. People were gathering. British soldiers started shooting us, innocent Bostonians! Come and help us! #GodhelpAmerica @State House “Damn you, fire!” Don’t let the British steal your honor. Gather around and fight for your rights! Written by the British soldiers It’s evening now. I’m still on duty. There’s a bunch of teenagers yelling at my colleague. #KingStreet I feel scared because the snow they threw really hurt me. One of my colleagues fell down and accidentally fired his weapon into the crowd. #gangsta Finally, Governor Thomas Hutchinson #boss came here. He got everyone to leave. He asked me to talk with him about what happened. Written by the Boston teens who started the chaos On my way home from work I bumped into a British soldier. He kept bothering me so I told him his Mom was ugly and he hit me in the head #whatajerk Let’s fiiiiiiiiiiiiight guys! #hitinthehead #kickinthenuts #bestthingever #followforfollow #instalove #endlessfun 5 guys dead! The stupid governor came and brought more sheep with him. So the crowd broke up! #endoftheparty #whatashame Find out about learning English in Boston.

Greenvironment Club at EC Boston

Category: Activities, Announcements, School Activities, Social Responsibility, Student Work / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Greenvironment, which was set up by a few students and a teacher, Timothy. Having a meeting once a week, every Monday, we set out to consider recycling for environment that each person can do easily. As well, we research and find out how bad effects occur to environment when people do not care about recycling by throwing all garbage together into just one trash bin without any distinction, even if it could be recycled perfectly. Since I got interested in recycling by being one of the Greenvironment members, I’ve started to become conscious of some restaurants and cafes’ recycling systems and whether they have the recycling bins separate or not. Unbelievably, most of the restaurants and cafes where I visit haven’t considered it and they just had one trash bin, which was piled up with all kinds of trash in it. They did not care about it and seemed to be totally ignoring our world for their convenience and comfort. What I’ve seen of this situation has been really shocking as long as I have been aware of it. Thus, I thought I should recycle as a person at home, of course, and in EC Boston as well. The things that I can normally recycle are the plastic bottles, glasses and papers; in particularly, bottles and glasses should be rinsed out before being put into a bin and should not be with oil and organic things(food). I recognized that I should help the environment with consideration and responsibility for my world. Basically, the reason why I was able to change as a careful person about recycling is thanks to having been one of the members of Greenvironment. Before, we had an opportunity to make a presentation about our task. It’s about what’s going on in our world and what’s the … Read more

Musicians in Boston

Category: Class Activities, Class Projects, Courses / Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

As part of a class project, Collete’s Pre-Intermediate class interviewed street performers. Here is one conducted by student Mini Li. Students love the interactive way our teachers teach English! Interesting fact: street performers and musicians in Boston must get a permit before they can take to the streets. Would you ever perform on the streets? What’s your hidden talent? Leave a comment! 🙂

English Student writes about whether or not a writer can ever be truly unbiased

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The first lesson for all Journalism students should be trying to be as objective as they can when writing, but be sure that you will fail. And this rule works for all writing producers. Then you can think that all rules have its exception and maybe – but nothing other than maybe -, cooking recipes or any other kinds of technical writing descriptions can fit as an exception. However, some reasons which support the presented idea are personal opinion, sponsors and choosing facts. Let me show you the ones I chose for this text. First of all, every writer has their own personal opinion. Stronger or not, it is a fact that some different aspects influence what you decide to put on a paper. Background is one of them. If you were born in a rich and well-educated family or in another one with basic needs and where you had to work instead of studying during your childhood for example, it would interfere how you understand social rights. Experience is important too. If you spent your whole life in a dictatorial or even in a democratic country or if you had the opportunity to live in different countries with different cultures and government systems, your point of view about politicians would be narrowed or widened. The same if you just lived in a small or big city, with different problems and advantages. In addition, almost all the communication vehicles have sponsors or a company mission. In other words, different newspapers, TV broadcasts and internet news sources are tied to people and companies which support them financially by advertising incomes or any other kind of relationship. In this point, I want to make an exception to blogs and other new media that have allowed producers to write with liberty. At the same … Read more

A Story by one of our English Students

Category: Class Activities, Class Projects, Student Work, Uncategorized / Tags: , , ,

“If you give a camel a bikini, she will ask to go to the beach! When she is tanning, she will want some tanning-oil. When she gets to the beach, she will go for a swim. When she is finish, she will be hungry and want to have some whale meat. When you give her whale meat, she will probably want a knife! When she is finished she will ask to go to the club. When she gets to the club she will want to met a male camel. When she meets the camel, she will fall in love and get married.” ~By: Keonhee Nam, Ahmed, Muath, Charlie ~Illustrated by: Charlie English classes offered by EC Boston.

Jenna’s Advanced English Class Writes about Boston

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What does Boston mean to you? Boston is the first city that I visited in The U.S. I have been in Boston for more than a year. When I first think what Boston means to me many wonderful memories come across my mind. While being in Boston I have met many people from different countries and perspectives. Frankly, I became an open-minded person. Thoughts that I had never expected to think about; I became happy to discuss whatever subject is discussed. My essay is going to talk about: what the most whopping memories, which came across my mind when I read the title, are and how I see things differently. I came from a hot country; I had never seen snow before I arrived Boston. In fact, I was excited to see the snow; unfortunately, I arrived here at the end of March after the winter had finished which means I didn’t have the chance to see it. Finally, I was here when it first started snowing. I had a feeling that I had never had. It was a mixed of happiness and excitement that’s basically what it was. Another wonderful memory that came across my mind is my first night in Boston. I arrived in Boston at night after an 18-hour flight. A friend of mine welcomed me and took to my host family and he stayed with me until I became relax then he left. It is a good thing when you know someone in a country that you have never been in. Being in Boston has changed me a lot. People, that I have met, have changed me too. Indeed, I started seeing things from different sides and perspectives. Studying abroad made me rethink. I started to recognize how the world goes around me. For instance, before … Read more

TOEFL Student Writes about 3D Printing

Category: Class Activities, Class Projects, Courses, Student Work, Uncategorized, University / Tags: , , , , , , , ,

3D printing is a new revolution that can modify several aspects of the world, such as the economy, laws, medicine and environment. Furthermore, videos, lectures and interviews are already discussing this technology and its impacts on the society and consequently a new dynamic of consumer culture. According to a video about 3D printing, people have been discussing this technology because it can transform the culture of customization. “A customer goes from passive consumer to active creator”, declared in the video. Besides the economy, the marketplace can be totally affected. One point is a change in product sales. For example, people will be able to design their own products; a product will be brought to the market with no risk because stock will not be needed and the products will become unique, more valuable and expensive. However, some companies are scared of losing their clients and some people are afraid of losing their jobs. The video also states the impacts on case laws and medicine. As well as what happened to the model of the music industry, copyrights could be a problem for 3D industry because people will be making copies of products. And the real problem in the law would be the fact that there is no history about this technology. It would be an unprecedented case law that would be difficult for judges and lawyers to solve. Secondly, medicine would be affected principally by transplants. Scientists have been discussing the use of blood cells in 3D printing and it would provide transplants with no donors by printing real organisms. In addition, this tool could improve medical structures like models of babies instead of pictures. Listening to a lecture and a BBC interview, diverse ideas can be thought of too. According to the Forgac’s lecture, it would be possible use leather … Read more