Welcome to Language upon Thames. This brochure has been designed to give you an overview of our Language School and the courses we offer. If you have some additional questions please do not hesitate to contact us for more information.
At Language upon Thames, we feel it is important to be flexible, in order that students can decide what period of study suits them best.
Small Group General English Courses
These courses are aimed at students who wish to improve their speaking, listening, reading and writing skills and are offered at the following levels:
BEGINNERS
ELEMENTARY(初级)
PRE-1NTERMEDLATE
UPPER-INTERMEDLATE
Studying one of the above courses will enable you to use English more confidently and competently on a daily basis.
Try our free online test to see which level you are at—CLICK HERE.
Exam Courses
These courses are aimed at students who wish to gain academic qualifications in English and are offered at the following levels:
University of Cambridge exams:
ADVANCED 1 — FCE (First certificate)
ADVANCED 2 — CAE (Advanced)
ADVANCED 3 — CPE (Proficiency)
Studying one of the above courses will enable you to continue your education or enter university in this country. (Students wishing to gain admission to a British university are normally required to have the Cambridge Proficiency Certificate.)
Speaking, Listening & Pronunciation
This course builds on communicative confidence and competence and is aimed at students who wish to develop the important skills of speaking and listening.
Emphasis is also placed on pronunciation, with activities designed to meet the needs of students of different nationalities, who need to focus on different areas.
CLICK HERE to register for a General English course.
Other Languages
At Language upon Thames we offer a wide range of cafeterias, restaurants, shops and bars.
Most importantly, we have foreign language classes of French, Japanese, German, Spanish and Italian during the day, evening or on a one-to-one basis.
What does this passage mainly talk about？
A．English courses.
B．Ways to improve students' English.
C．The best way to improve your skills.
D．The importance of English.
For American's high school seniors, April is the cruelest month. That's when colleges flood postal system with news of who has won a place in next fall's freshman class. For more than a few families, a difficult decision will follow: is it worth paying some $125,000 to give their child an education at an elite private college？ Or would her future be just as bright if she went to a less expensive school？
These questions have no easy answers. It is tree that big law firms as well as those leading American establishments—Sullivan & Cromwell—a gilt-edged diploma is a distinct advantage. However, there is plenty of evidence to prove that an elite education is not that necessary. According to a survey by Fortune, the majority of top CEOs did not attend an elite college(though a small number did.)
So what kind of return is there likely to be on that $125,000 investment？ On average, a person with an undergraduate degree now earns almost twice as much as someone with only a high school diploma. Some researchers found that those who attend more prestigious schools reported higher earnings.
Then Alan Krueger, an economist at Princeton and Dale, a researcher designed a study. They found no economic advantage in attending a selective college. Their study looked at freshman class at 30 schools, ranging from Yale to Denison. Krueger and Dale's research while intriguing is not definitive. Even they themselves find it odd that the results seem to show that while there is a correlation between college selectivity and future income, the more a college costs, the higher the earning of its graduates.
Critics have questioned their research—the limited number and range of schools evaluated, and conclusions. Under such circumstances, it is hard to say which is right and which is wrong. What can be said is that 1) An elite education gives students—especially less rich ones—better access to certain kinds of elite jobs. 2) There is no economic advantage to choosing an expensive, but not very good private schools. 3) Talented students everywhere rise to the top. So the future is in the hands of young men themselves.
Why is April the cruelest month for American high school seniors？
A．Because April is the month when they have the college entrance examination.
B．Because April is the time when the high school will decide whether they can graduate or not.
C．Because April is the time for high school seniors to find jobs.
D．Because April is the month for colleges to inform. the students who will have the chance to have further education.
In the college-admissions wars, we parents are the true fighters. We're pushing our kids to get good grades, take SAT preparatory courses and build resumes so they can get into the college of our first choice. We say our motives are selfless and sensible. A degree from Stanford or Princeton is the ticket for life. If Aaron and Nicole don't get in, they're forever doomed. Gosh, we're delusional.
I've twice been to the wars, and as I survey the battlefield, something different is happening. It's the one-upmanship among parents. We see our kids' college rating as medals proving how well or how poorly we've raised them. But we can't acknowledge that our obsession is more about us than them. So we've contrived various justifications that turn out to be half-truths, prejudices or myths. It actually doesn't matter much whether Aaron and Nicole go to Stanford.
Admissions anxiety afflicts only a minority of parents. It's true that getting into college has generally become tougher because the number of high-school graduates has grown. From 1994 to 2006, the increase is 28 percent. Still, 64 percent of freshmen attend schools where acceptance rates exceed 70 percent, and the application surge at elite schools dwarfs population growth. Take Yale. In 1994, it accepted 18.9 percent of 12,991 applicants; this year it admitted only 8.6 percent of 21,000.
We have a full-blown prestige panic; we worry that there won't be enough medals to go around. Fearful parents prod their children to apply to more schools than ever. "The epicenters (of parental anxiety) used to be on the coasts, Boston, New York, Washington, Los Angeles", says Tom Parker, Amherst's admissions dean. "But it's radiated throughout the country".
Underlying the hysteria is the belief that scarce elite degrees must be highly valuable. Their graduates must enjoy more success because they get a better education and develop better contacts. All that's plausible and mostly wrong. "We haven't found any convincing evidence that selectivity or prestige matters", says Ernest T. Pascarella of the University of Iowa, co author of "How College Affects Students", an 827-page evaluation of hundreds of studies of the college experience. Selective schools don't systematically employ better instructional approaches than less-selective schools, according to a study by Pascarella and George Kuh of Indiana University. Some do; some don't. On two measures professors' feedback and the number of essay exams selective schools do slightly worse.
In the author's eyes, parents pushing their kids to an elite degree are ______.
A．aggressive
B．misguided
C．reasonable
D．failing
