International Student Question: What are American Easter traditions?
Today people around the world will celebrate Easter. For some, the holiday is religious: for all, it is about food! But what kinds of food? And what traditions are typical of an American Easter? Our CISL students asked the question. The following are some common American Easter traditions: Dying Easter Eggs Even adults will admit [...]
Happy Valentine’s Day! Idioms with the word “love” for CISL students
February is the month of love, and we cannot resist a post on interesting idioms that use the word “love.” As you can see, all of these idioms might use the word “love,” yet they are not necessarily used to describe something romantically. Make sure to use the conversation questions at the end of the [...]
Happy Holidays from CISL!
Happy Holidays from the CISL San Diego staff! We hope that each of the students we helped this year had a wonderful experience living and studying in San Diego. We are looking forward to meeting our future CISL students in 2013!
Halloween Vocabulary for English students
This week marks a very special holiday in the United States: Halloween! As our students prepare their costumes, we have prepared a list of common vocabulary words and expressions to help you through the holiday, plus a mini-grammar lesson on Comparatives and Superlatives to help you use correct grammar when talking about the funniest, most [...]
“Enquire” vs. “Inquire”
Recently, a CISL student asked his teacher a great question: What is the difference between “inquire” and “enquire?” We thought it was such a good question that it deserved an entire blog post! Definitions of “enquire” and “inquire” The truth is, “enquire” and “inquire” are two spellings of the exact same word. According to [...]
Action vs. Non-Action English Verbs
In September, Converse International School of Languages’ grammar lesson is about action and non-action verbs. What are they? What is the difference between them? And, most importantly, how can we correctly use them in our writing and speaking? Action Verbs English language verbs can be broken into two categories: action and non-action. Just like the [...]
SF’s Harmony by the Bay Music Festival
San Francisco is full of culinary, music, art, theater, and social events, but here is one more suggested student activity that our music-loving English Language students will enjoy: San Francisco’s Harmony by the Bay Music Festival. The event will take place at Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, CA on Saturday, September 29th, 2012. The lineup is [...]
Belmont Park and Mission Beach (plus a vocabulary lesson!)
Summer might technically be over, but in San Diego, we are still enjoying some fun in the sun! Recently our CISL San Diego ESL students took a trip to Belmont Park and sunny Mission Beach for some afternoon relaxation. Belmont Park is a staple of Mission Beach. Its major roller coaster, the Big Dipper, [...]
Writing Contest Winner: What comes to mind when you think of summer?
Just two weeks ago, Americans celebrated Labor Day, which traditionally marks the end of summer. But the weather is still warm and summer is in full-swing here in San Diego! Because we are still enjoying the late summer sun and activities, we thought we would ask our students what they think of summer. The [...]
Hitting the waves in Pacific Beach
Surf’s up! One of the most popular activities for CISL San Diego students is surfing. We are lucky to have found PB Surf Shop, the oldest surf school in San Diego, to teach our students how to surf. According to our students, the instructors are fun, easygoing, and very helpful… and since nearly all of [...]
