Unit 1Listening and speaking

Optional Exercise：（选做）

Columbia College's been teaching            for about 27 years so far.

 We think it's very important that students develop a good basis of           . The student is really learning by doing, and that's a very important part of ESL learning. So, teachers will                     the class, but the students are doing the            of the talking, as well as helping each other learn.

     When you're talking with someone whose level is a lot higher than you, you kind of feel shy or you're scared to talk to them, so when then you talk to someone whose English is the same as you, yous lowly, slowly improve. And as you talk with your teacher, you even learn more.

      A lot of our students are interested in going into university transfer or high school courses, and so our focus is to prepare them for that.

      Students benefit from studying ESL at Columbia College for several reasons. Number one, our classes are small. Everybody gets to know everybody very well and there's a lot to be said for experience. We want teachers with at least two or three or four years' experience. Uh, when I came to Columbia College, I had 15 years of teaching experience.

Teachers here are the best teachers. They help the student as much as they can, even out of their office hours or out of the class.

 I think we've attracted over the years, uh, to international college. We've attracted instructors who are interested in international education; we held onto those instructors; we have about half of our instructors who've been here 20 years; we have a number of new younger instructors, but we also have a lot of instructors who've been with a college for a number of years and... and really enjoy working with international students.

      We also have a wonderful                of                         and languages in our classes.

      Well,               is very important to us, because I think Canada is a pretty diverse place, and so if you are planning to go to university or high school here, you are going to be in a diverse                           , and we have students from all over the world.

      Columbia college students are able to stay in Columbia College               .   A Canadian family open their home to a student from another country and most families consider their homestay student a member of the family. So when they go away for a weekend, very often the student will go with them. Students not only get to improve their English, but they get an appreciation of Canadian culture. It makes them much more comfortable using their English and living in Canada.