International student activity in SF: Chinese New Year festival, February 23, 2013
When living in San Francisco, the influence of Asian culture cannot be denied: from the Japanese Gardens to Chinatown, Asian cultures are definitely an important part of San Francisco’s mosaic. With such a strong influence from Eastern cultures, it is no surprise that San Francisco’s Chinese New Year festival has been rated one of the [...]
CISL SF publishes student newspaper, “The Converser”
CISL is proud to publish our first student newspaper, called The Converser, this month! Students who attended (or currently attend) CISL San Francisco may have spoken with Academic Director, Wendy, or Derrick, CISL Client Services Coordinator. Get to know them in the first edition of The Converser, and also read an interesting article about the [...]
Student Writing Sample: “Do We Have Free Will?”
Do we have free will? CISL San Francisco students were asked this question last month for our writing contest. The winning entry, from Maxime Bindzi, is a wonderful example of a five-paragraph English essay. Enjoy his musings on free will. Congratulations, Maxime! Your writing skills are truly impressive! DO WE HAVE FREE WILL? By Maxime Bindzi [...]
Saeed’s Post TOEFL Exam Skydive!
I have been studying at CISL San Francisco for 2 months. I want to improve my writing and reading skills for the TOEFL Exam. My listening skills are okay because I watch T.V. in English. My goal for the TOEFL is 102 because I want to get my MBA in Marketing in California. This was [...]
From CISL student to San Francisco restaurateur!
I studied in the Premier English Program in 2010. I studied at CISL San Francisco while in process of setting up my business. I was preparing to live and work in a different language. I improved my vocabulary, my writing, and my spoken English skills and the classes at CISL San Francisco absolutely helped. I [...]
Martin & Milos: What are they doing now?
Exciting updates from CISL SF Alumni Martin I always wanted a job in aviation. I come from an aviation family and my parents flew a glider when I was a child. Now I am completing job training for aircraft maintenance. The aviation language is English and I needed to improve my English because I will [...]
Tips for preparing for the Cambridge CAE and FCE speaking tests
Many CISL students are preparing for the Cambridge University Certificate of Advanced English or First Certificate of English tests. CISL has some tips to help our students prepare for this part of the exam. Elements of the CAE and FCE Speaking Test For both CAE and FCE, the test is about 15 minutes long and [...]
Writing Contest Winner: Are the Olympics beneficial?
Today marks the beginning of the 2012 Olympics in London, so we thought it would be the perfect time to ask our students their opinion about sporting occasions. We asked our CISL SD and SF students the following question, which is based on a question from a previous IELTS examination: Popular events like soccer’s World [...]
Happy Birthday Sergio!
Sergio has been preparing for the CAE Exam at CISL San Francisco for the past 8 weeks. Most weeks, he studies from 9:00am-12:40pm Monday to Friday to improve his skills and spends time with his friends on the weekends. Two weeks ago was a very special week for Sergio because he celebrated his 50th birthday! [...]
Esther. Music. Guitars. English.
Back home in Switzerland, Esther practically lives and breathes music. She sells a variety of musical instruments, plays bass guitar in two rock bands, and her boyfriend is a musician too. Amazingly, Esther says she did not bring her guitar with her to San Francisco because “I wanted to focus on improving my English.” She [...]
