Tag: language

My experience at Scrambled Eggs – Studying English at the age of 50 is still possible.

One of our longest-serving students, Adele, has this year discovered a great passion… writing… in English. She has been coming to the school for lessons for over three years and has always enjoyed her lessons with us. This year however, her passion for English writing developed and now she feels confident enough to share her experiences with you as a blogger. Read below about Adele’s experience and enjoy her fantastic writing!

I started my experience at Scrambled Eggs three years ago.
I was searching for an English course to improve my knowledge, my listening and speaking skills, when among several schools the name of a school caught my attention, Scrambled Eggs, what a particular name for a school!
The smart and innovative method to teach using the interactive board seemed right for me. I thought it was too difficult to study with books for hours after work, so I found this new method nice and simple.
The thing that certainly convinced me was the location. To think of studying English before or after an appetizer or a drink in Navigli, such a good location, could transform going to school into a pleasure.
I started my group course with a lot of difficulties in speaking but also in relationships with other students.
For a woman of my age to interact with young students, talking about different topics and also about my life was not easy, but the friendly atmosphere that I found helped me a lot.
The teachers are young, nice, smiley, well prepared, motivated and very motivating.

(Adele, left, thinking about her first novel)

They have the ability to motivate you to do even better and doing my homework I discovered my new passion: writing.
I couldn’t believe it! I like writing and I like writing in English!
Of course I improved speaking and listening as well!
In the school, teachers come from different countries and in three years I have met all of them. I’ve learnt to understand American and English accents and with their attitude and their approach to teaching they have contributed to improving my listening.

I have experienced also one-to-one lessons that helped me not only learning English but many other things.

Now even if I’m still not able to totally understand videos and news on the radio, I’m satisfied, I have started to enjoy the language and my studying English has become a pleasure!
My speaking is still confused, and I have to improve it again and again and certainly I’ll continue on my path. With Scrambled Eggs? Of course!

The Flag of Sicily | English Vocabulary Challenge

At Scrambled Eggs, we are a very international team. Our teachers come from the USA and the UK and our reception team are Italians! Therefore, we love to learn about different cultures and share our national and regional differences. If you come to our school, in our main classroom, you will find all of the flags of Australia, Canada, the UK and the USA proudly displayed. In fact, we are a bit obsessed with the flags of different countries! But, as you know, even within Italy, there are many cultural differences and different histories also throughout the regions. One very distinct region is the island of Sicily. So, we thought we would take a look at this proud region’s flag and give you the opportunity to learn some new vocabulary at the same time. Read the information below and then try our quizzes!

The island of Sicily has a long and interesting history. It’s certainly not straight-forward anyway! Humans lived on the island even as far back as 12,000 BC. Then the Greeks came and it became the site of the Sicilian and Punic Wars. After the fall of Rome, Sicily was ruled by many different kingdoms, from the Vandals, the Ostrogoths, the Byzantines and then eventually the kingdoms of Naples and of Two Sicilies. Italian reunification brought the region into the new nation of Italy and after World War Two it was recognised as an autonomous region of the Italian Republic.

As well as an interesting history, Sicily is well-known for its fantastic natural landscapes. The island is roughly in the shape of a triangle and from beautiful beaches, hills, rivers and even volcanoes, Sicily has it all. It has a typical Mediterranean climate, with mild and wet winters and with hot and dry summers. Because of the fantastic history of the island, there are many historic monuments left for tourists to see, such as Greek and Roman temples. The historic centres of cities like Palermo and Catania are very enchanting, and walking through you feel like you are stepping back in time. The Sicilan cuisine is delightfully diverse and features different dishes such as cannoli and arancine.

The flag of Sicily is extremely interesting. It is very colourful, with a red and yellow background which represents the colours of the two cities Palermo and Corleone. The flag also features the head of a medusa with three legs. This and the wheat ears symbolise the fertility of the island because it such a good place to grow fresh food. The flag has taken many different forms in the past but the version of today has been used since 1990.

We hope you enjoyed reading about Sicily and it’s flag… Now try the quizzes below to test your knowledge of the meaning and the words in bold!

Flag of Sicily | Definitions Quiz

Match the word with the correct definition

Flag of Sicily | True or False

Decide if the statement is true or false

Learning a Language | English Vocabulary Challenge (Adjectives)

Adjectives make our conversations interesting. With interesting adjectives, you can describe perfectly your feelings and paint fantastic, accurate pictures in your conversations and writing. Everyone learns the most common adjectives first, good, bad, happy, sad. But these adjectives are used so much they become boring after a while! Well, now it’s time to expand your vocabulary with some excellent new adjectives. Read the text below about Diana’s experience of learning English and then try our quizzes below!

“I studied English for years in school in Greece. To be honest, I hated it. After 10 years of studying the grammar, doing exercises from textbooks and listening to our teacher talking, I was exhausted. The whole thing was so boring and tiring. At the end of school, we had exams in English for speaking, reading, writing and listening. During my revision for the exams, I was very on edge. I was very stressed and I couldn’t remember lots of things. This made me frustrated and I started to get angry with myself. After 10 years of studying this language, I still could not remember the difference between the present perfect and the past perfect.

Anyway, my exams came and went and then I was waiting for the results. I got the result of my writing test back… I got an F! In that moment I was so upset. I tried so hard in the test and all those years of studying were for nothing. I thought about all of the textbooks I had read, and all the hours spent listening to my teacher and it made me really mad. What a waste of time.

So in the end I decided I could never learn English. After a long time studying, I still couldn’t speak it. I got an F in my speaking test too! I was really annoyed, because during my classes, I never got the opportunity to speak, I just listened to the teacher! Later I decided I wanted to go travelling and find a job in London. I was annoyed because my English was still so bad but I really wanted to go. So I found a little English school in my town and started having online lessons. My teacher was great and the lessons were so interactive. I had lots of opportunities to speak and I was thrilled with this.

After a couple of months, I felt very confident and I booked myself an IELTS test. My teacher gave me lots of encouragement and I studied very hard for the exam. The results came back and I got an 8. I was so thrilled and relieved to finally get a good grade in English. I felt on top of the world. Now I can go to London, find a job and speak lots of English!”

Learning a Language | Definitions Quiz

Match the word to the correct definition

Learning a Language | True or False

Decide if the statement is true or false