Tips for finding ESL educational agents

July 10, 2010

An ESL agent, also known as an educational agent, or an international education agent, is someone who brokers a relationship between prospective students and an institution, be it a university, college or privately run school.

Good agents will act as a trusted advisor for both parties, working with prospective students to find them an excellent school abroad, helping them with any necessary paper work and  coaching them on what to expect.

Good agents work with excellent, accredited schools, ensuring that the experience they are providing is the best it can be for the students.

Bad agents don’t give a rat’s behind. They take money from students, making promises that will never come true. Ever heard of an agent who promised students they’d be driven to school every day in a limousine driven by a chauffeur? I have. And I can tell you that in Canada, I’ve never seen an international student arrive at school in a limo. Ever.
Bad agents don’t care that they’re telling lies or cheating students. And really, there’s nothing you can do to make them care.

What you can do, is spend your time finding a good agent.

But how? There are a number of ways.

Though you may find agents on line, it is more likely that you’ll find organizations that work with accredited agents. You may want to check out:

My suggestion would be to target which areas of the world you’d like more students from, then approach the professional organizations in those countries that work with reputable agents.

There are probably more organizations out there than I have listed here. And of course, I have to say that I’m providing these links as information only, not endorsements. 😉 There are no guarantees that working with an accredited organization will find you a stellar agent, but it does increase your chances. The bottom line is that finding excellent agents to work with takes time. Do your homework.

Related posts:

How to find a good ESL agent: Tips from the trenches

Tips for success at educational trade fairs

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Update – January 2018 – This blog has had over 1.8 million views thanks to readers like you. If you enjoyed this post, please “like” it or share it on social media. Thanks!

Sarah Elaine Eaton is a faculty member in the Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary, Canada.

5 Comments | agents, ESL agents, languages, marketing, recruitment, second languages, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Sarah Elaine Eaton, Ph.D.

How to teach vocabulary with color file cards

July 7, 2010

Color file cards are a great way to teach vocabulary. I’ve used this system as both a student and a teacher with excellent success. As a teacher, I used it when I taught Spanish and as a learner when I was studying German and French as an adult. There are lots of different ways to use them. Here’s how I do it:

Choose a different colour card for each part of speech. I like to use green for verbs, since green means “go” in the traffic lights, that colour is already associated with an action. I teach Spanish where there are both masculine and feminine nouns. I use the tradition of colours to create a visual cue. I put feminine words on a pink card and masculine words on a blue card. Some may call that sexist, but you can use any colours you like, really. I use yellow for adjectives, green for adverbs and purple for prepositions and anything that doesn’t fit onto one of the other cards. Students tell me that when they are in a pressure situation and can’t remember if a word is masculine or feminine, they try to recall what what colour card the word was on. The cards create a mental visual cue that students can use during tests and other situations.

Write out the cards. I like to fill up the cards by theme, putting 5 – 10 words on each card. For the green cards, I write the infinitive form of the verb on the back of the card, where there are no lines. On the lined side, I write out the verb conjugation. Some of my students say they prefer to put one word on each card, as it makes it easier for them to remember. The act of writing having the learner write out his or her own cards is an important part of the learning process.

Be monolingual or bilingual. You can either write just the target language on the cards, or you can write the target language and the learner’s native language on the cards. If you choose the bilingual option, you can use one side of the card for one language and the reverse for the other language.

Use the cards as a study aid. Cards can be stored in a file card box or carried around in a plastic zip bag. They are more portable than a big, heavy textbook.

At the beginning of a new term, I bring a few cards to class as an example of how I make my own cards. I explain how students can make their own cards and use them as a study tool. I emphasize that learners creating their own cards makes them a more powerful study tool than store-bought cards. Let students make the cards “their own” by allowing them the flexibility of having as many words on the cards as they choose, adding pictures or stickers or whatever it is that will help them learn.

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Update – January 2018 – This blog has had over 1.8 million views thanks to readers like you. If you enjoyed this post, please “like” it or share it on social media. Thanks!

Sarah Elaine Eaton is a faculty member in the Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary, Canada.

6 Comments | second languages | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by Sarah Elaine Eaton, Ph.D.

Interview with Martha Urquhart: Leading by Example Series

July 5, 2010

Monday Inspiration Series: Literacy and Language Professionals who Lead by Example

This new series is dedicated to highlighting the impact made by exemplary literacy and language professionals who lead by example. The series features interviews with each of our leaders, sharing their inspirations, stories and tips. This week I’m delighted to showcase a literacy and language leader in Alberta who impacts the lives of many people in amazing ways through her work.

What is your name, affiliation, and connection to language learning?
Martha Urquhart
ESL Consultant with Rural Routes Initiative, NorQuest College
Literacy Specialist with the Community Reading Program, Slave Lake Adult Education Committee

As an ESL Consultant with Rural Routes, I train and mentor ESL Instructors and Tutors across Northern Alberta.  I consult with the ESL providers in small, rural communities, who are often the literacy coordinators or the adult education coordinators for the local community learning councils, regarding the training needs of their instructors and volunteer tutors, resources to use in their programs, ESL support available for their community, and any other topics on which the ESL providers require input.

As a Literacy Specialist with the Community Reading Program, a local volunteer tutor adult literacy service operating under the umbrella of the Slave Lake Adult Education Committee, I assess ESL learners, train the volunteer tutors, and provide resources and support for the tutors as they help their learners acquire the English language.

What are your thoughts about leadership and language learning?

To me, a leader is someone who helps others to rise up to their fullest potentials. All of the volunteer tutors who work one-on-one with their learners and ESL instructors who teach ESL classes are leaders in the field of language learning.  Even the volunteer tutors who work one-on-one with literacy learners are leaders as they are helping someone develop their literacy skills, part of language learning even if that language is their own.

These are perhaps the greatest leaders of all because they do so quietly, most often without rewards of any kind, other than pats on the back and yearly appreciation dinners.  They attend training without any compensation, donating their own time to improve their own skills in order to help others rise up to their fullest potentials.

Truly, the greatest leaders of all time are the ones at the grass-roots level.

In your opinion, what’s the most important aspect of a language teacher’s job?

It’s critical for language teachers to connect the classroom to the outside world.  Learners have to be able to use the language outside of the classroom. The purpose of language is not to be able to communicate within the halls of an institution, but to take that learning out into the world and apply it to one’s own life.

This requires the teaching of skills that allow learners to complete activities that require interacting with their communities (such as interviewing business owners), providing a safe place for the learners to develop the required skills, and creating opportunities to build bridges between the classrooms and the communities.

I believe this is important regardless of whether you are working with children or with adults.  It is especially important when working with adults, as adult learners have to see the relevance in what they are learning and how that applies to their own lives.

What are some of the projects you’ve been involved with that you would like to share?

I seem to always be involved in some project.  I believe in lifelong learning and being a part of a variety of projects allows me to live that belief.

My most recent project involved working with the iCCAN project and utilizing video conferencing equipment to increase training opportunities for small ESL and literacy community based programs.

Most of the 13 communities involved in this project had little to no video conferencing experience.  Eight sessions were offered (two of three different topics; one topic having two parts) with a total of 160 tutors, instructors, facilitators, coordinators, and board members participating.

I facilitated the first topic from a desk top videoconferencing unit while the next two topics were conducted from a classroom unit. These experimental sessions showed grassroots in action as some community programs are now partnering with other rural programs in utilizing video conferencing to increase the professional development opportunities for their tutors and instructors.

What do you see as three new directions in language learning?

I think that ESL programming in small rural communities will become more systematic.  Although it will be a challenge to ensure that community based programs remain personally relevant for their particular learners, I believe this will increase the quality of ESL programming.

This, in turn, will increase the professionalism within the field.  As more communities become comfortable with using video conferencing, and more training opportunities become available (via video conferencing or traditional formats), small rural community based programs will be able to increase the professionalism within their ESL programming.

And I believe computers will become an “additional language” that everyone, regardless of their roles within their communities, will need to add to their database of knowledge.  Already, literacy programs are seeing an increase in requests for what is being termed “computer literacy”.  I think incorporating the use of computers within the ESL programming will also be important, both as a tool for language learning itself and as a required skill for future opportunities.

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1 Comment | ESL, leadership, Literacy and Language Professionals who Lead by Example, non-profit, second languages, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Sarah Elaine Eaton, Ph.D.

What I learned about marketing from making cappuccino

June 30, 2010

Last year, my partner and I moved in together. Along with him came his professional quality cappuccino machine. He’s a really down-to-earth fellow – with one exception. He’s a coffee snob. He drives across town to buy beans from his favorite Italian importer. Seriously. I’ve never seen anything like it.

I’d seen him make coffees with it dozens of times before, but when the machine arrived in my kitchen, I realized that I’d never actually used it myself. I figured it was time to learn how. It was not as easy as it looks. But now, many months later, I make a pretty decent coffee, if I do say so myself. As I was making myself a latte this morning, it dawned on me that making specialty coffees is not unlike marketing. Here’s how:

There’s a learning curve. You don’t just walk up to a cappuccino machine and make a perfect coffee. You have to figure out what needs to be done and in what order. If you screw it up, the results leave you with a bad taste in your mouth.

Learn from an expert. My beloved coffee snob coached me through the process. He left a “cheat sheet” posted to the fridge with a magnet so I’d remember what had to be done and in what order. I tried a couple of times on my own (failing miserably). I asked for more advice. Got more coaching. Eventually, I got there.

Failure is inevitable. Suck it up. My first few cups of coffee were, well, pretty putrid. Did I drink ’em? Well, mostly (unless they were really, really bad). Those beans are over $30 a pound. I felt terrible wasting all that money. Besides, I wanted to get a sense of what I was doing wrong and how the taste would change as I learned how to do it right. I didn’t really get all caught up in feeling like a failure. I just took each try as a learning opportunity – even if the end result wasn’t great.

It takes time. Making a cup of coffee with a cappuccino machine does not happen instantly. The machine must be turned on and warm up first. Then you grind the beans. (You must have freshly ground beans, of course.) Then you make your coffee. Then you steam your milk. If you’re about to fly out the door in a hurry, you’re not going to get a nice coffee. Preparations are key to making a delicious coffee, no matter how bleary-eyed you are.

Clean up is important. Besides the fact that coffee grounds seem to get everywhere unless you brush them into the garbage right way, there’s more. If you don’t clean the wand that produces the foamed milk, then all the milk dries inside it clogging it. Once it gets clogged enough, you can’t use it any more. It’s the same in marketing. Following up with contacts, cleaning up after an open house or a trade fair, keeping your database up to date, cleaning out your filing cabinets. These are all good ways to follow up on your marketing and management. If not, at some point, you’ll realize that your whole system is clogged up with unfinished “stuff” because you never followed through.

Take the time to enjoy the reward of all your hard work. Once you’ve put in your effort and cleaned up so you’re ready for next time, take a few minutes to sit back and enjoy. I only have one – maximum two – cups of coffee a day. I have learned that coffee is not for gulping. After I put in all that work, I want to sip on it slowly. It’s the same with marketing. Take the time to reward yourself and your staff for their efforts. Even if it’s not perfect, they’re learning how it all works. That is worth savouring.

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Update – January 2018 – This blog has had over 1.8 million views thanks to readers like you. If you enjoyed this post, please “like” it or share it on social media. Thanks!

Sarah Elaine Eaton is a faculty member in the Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary, Canada.

Comments Off on What I learned about marketing from making cappuccino | ESL, languages, marketing, second languages, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by Sarah Elaine Eaton, Ph.D.

Check out Roswita Dressler’s presentation on website promo for language schools

June 23, 2010

My friend and colleague, Roswita Dressler, from the University of Calgary, did a presentation called “Increasing the Effectiveness of Website Promotion for Heritage Language Bilingual School Programs“. She reviews websites from a variety of schools and talks about bilingual and heritage language learning. Way to go, Roswita!

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Check out Roswita Dressler’s presentation on website promo for language schools http://wp.me/pNAh3-a0

Update – January 2018 – This blog has had over 1.8 million views thanks to readers like you. If you enjoyed this post, please “like” it or share it on social media. Thanks!

Sarah Elaine Eaton is a faculty member in the Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary, Canada.

Comments Off on Check out Roswita Dressler’s presentation on website promo for language schools | 101 Ways to Market Your Language Program, languages, marketing, second languages | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Sarah Elaine Eaton, Ph.D.

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