Dear students and friends

I hope you are all well and keeping as active as possible in these challenging times. The staff at ELA-Edinburgh are still busy, working from home to give you the best possible service, and many of our students have continued to do their lessons with us online. As a teacher, it’s been a wonderful experience for me to keep in touch with familiar faces in different parts of the world, and it’s been heart-warming to see how our students are continuing to make good progress with their English despite all the current restrictions. I’m particularly proud to report that one of my students has made really good use of her time and has just finished reading a book in English for the first time (I’m not going to name names, but you know who you are!). It’s also been nice to welcome some new students onto our online courses and to see how they are benefitting from the personal touch we can offer.

We are using this time to develop online versions of our range of courses, and also to explore exciting new opportunities that combine our teaching expertise with the latest technology. What I have learned in the past few weeks is that students adapt very quickly to this new learning environment and that they find talking to the teacher online is a welcome change to our new daily stay-at-home routines. And nobody can now claim they don’t have enough time to do their homework! So, do get in touch if you want to change your routine and continue learning English or try something new; you might be surprised by how much fun it is!

If you want to use this time for some serious self-improvement, don’t forget that you can still study our wide range of professional and exam English courses online. Are you a student wanting to prepare for your IELTS exam? Are you a medical professional wanting to prepare for the OET exam or to improve the way you communicate with patients? Do you need to prepare for a job interview? Do you need to get extra points for your Australian visa application? Do you want to re-train as an English teacher? If your answer is ‘yes’ to any of these questions, please feel free to get in touch and I will be happy to advise you.

If you’re not sure that online learning is for you, we are offering free lessons using Zoom. You’ll learn plenty of new language, you’ll experience a new way of learning, and you’ll make some new friends as well. It will be lovely to see you all so we can share our experiences.

In the meantime, stay well, stay positive and stay active.

Best wishes to you all

David Birch

Director of Studies