Who we are

 

LANGUAGE CENTER offers English as a Second Language (ESL) for immigrants of any nationality. ESL combines, in its methodology, the Audio-lingual model and the Communicative Approach, so that the student takes control quickly of basic communication for daily home, work, and social activities.

This program is designed to develop, in the student, the necessary skills to communicate in English. First of all, students acquire or can improve their possibilities of personal, social, and employment, increasing their opportunities for insertion and stability in the economic and cultural system of North America. Second of all, they will have new channels of interaction with the world: fun, communication, and knowledge. 

 They can also extend the horizons of their employment opportunities.

We are located in Westbury just one block from the train station:

154 Post Avenue, Westbury, NY 11590

Phone: 516-408-3232

 

Come and join us for an experience that will change your life!

ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE

The concept of acquiring a second language instills in the speaker communicative skills to interpret a message, include and understand cultural references, use strategies to maintain communication and apply grammar development rules in that second language. These are the central intentions of our ESL (English as a Second Language) program. To obtain optimal results, our program considers the following aspects:

· Motivation

· Interaction

· Grammar in focus

· Vocabulary building

 

1. Motivation is why somebody decides to do something, how long he/she can maintain an activity, and how much effort he/she is determined to invest to reach his/her goals. For our program, it is of vital importance to discover and respond suitably to the student’s motivation through a structured plan. In the case of the students of WLC, one of the most important goals is to obtain a job or improve a job position. In other cases, there is a great desire for social integration or interest in communicating with their children’s teachers or passing the citizenship exam, etc.

Our teachers contribute to maintaining motivation and help their students to identify short-term goals that take shape in their progress and profits. Also, they stimulate the cohesion of the group in the classroom, through structured group and pair activities. Also, they propose projects that combine the space in the class with the outer world while creating opportunities to use English in the real world.

 

2. Interaction is the communication between individuals. Interaction not only facilitates the development of a second language but helps to increase the rate of acquisition of the same one. That is to say, the greater the interaction, communicative negotiation, and feedback, the greater the level of appropriation. Also, students who interact in pairs or groups produce longer sentences and have a greater capacity to negotiate their meaning of them. This is different from students who listen to a professor passively or only interact with him.

The development of interactive tasks is highly stimulating because it:

· brings something new for the participant

· requires the exchange of information

· involves details

· is centered on specific problems

· promotes the conversation and narrative construction

 

3. Grammar in focus implies that grammar forms are assimilated through activities in significant contexts. Teachers concentrate on those points that make it hard for students to include, understand, or produce language, and they also help to develop the grammar structures through creative activities. It is assumed then that our program is not dedicated “to teach” grammar but to creating communicative situations in which students use the structure based on models, and take advantage of mistakes in a constructive way.

4. Vocabulary building sets that the acquisition of vocabulary is stronger if it is assumed that it is easier to assimilate and to remember semantic networks than isolate words. Teachers contribute to this process when they promote associations through word families or semantic maps, in whose construction the students also participate. Also, the creation of reading habits accompanied by the constant use of the dictionary is fundamental in vocabulary appropriation. The class activities include many opportunities to use the new vocabulary by interacting with classmates and also reinforce it through the use in real-life situations outside the classroom.