One of the most common conversation topics we have in the CISL classroom is “What is a big difference between your life in America and life in your home country?”. Most students talk about the tipping process in the United States, or the differences in public transportation, but Yeo Jung from Korea had a very...
What is your favorite childhood memory? We asked our CISL students if they could recall a special time in their youth and share it with us. Karinne Schazmann’s beautiful entry was a clear winner! Thank you, Karinne, for such a heartfelt story. We enjoyed reading it, and we hope the other students do as well!...
Earlier this month we asked our CISL students a question: If you could switch places with another person, who would it be? And why? As always, we were amazed by the responses (and by the English abilities of our students!). Our winner, Hélène Dallaire, wrote an incredibly thoughtful answer. We hope you enjoy. Thank you, Hélène, for...
CISL students are awesome at answering TOEFL and Cambridge prompts… but can they be creative writers as well? They sure can! This month we challenged our Advanced Level students to write a story using some random words, like “squirrel” and “flag” and “consequently”. We loved reading the creative stories! Congrats to Manami, our winner. Enjoy Manami’s...
Is it any surprise that the “City by the Bay” hosts the largest oyster festival on the West Coast? We are not surprised! We encourage San Francisco students who love festivals, live music, and great local food to check out SF’s Oysterfest 2012. This is the 13th year that the event has taken place, and...
San Carlos Tower, Cessna 6-1-0 sierra papa, runway 3-0, ready for take off! A small white airplane starts rolling to the runway where it is getting lost because of the considerably huge runway. Two people are sitting inside when they airborne abeam your position, sitting on the left side, that is me. My name is...
Last month, the CISL Blog focused on Phrasal Verbs. For extra practice using phrasal verbs, we asked our Advanced Level students to write an essay answering the question “Who do you look up to, and why?”. We received many wonderful essays about the people who inspire our students, but the winner was Tatsuki Ibuki’s essay...
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!...
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...
When I spend time in the Multi Media Lounge at CISL San Francisco, our students are often planning something exciting for the weekend. “What are you doing?” I asked one happy group of students. “We’re buying tickets!” one smiled. After working for a few additional minutes, I became curious again and asked, “Where are you...
