ENGLISHCOURSESUSA

ALEX GRYTSENKO'S JOURNEY TO THE U.S.: LEARNING ENGLISH AND PURSUING A COLLEGE DEGREE

10/10/2023

Getting a Degree in Cinema Production in the Heart of Hollywood

Alex Grytsenko's journey to the U.S. began when he was a child, dreaming of what it would be like to pursue the American dream. After years of planning and hard work, he made his way in 2017 from Ukraine to Los Angeles.

Once in LA, Alex attended California Language School for three years, learning English from experienced instructors. He then moved to LACC where he stayed for another three years. During these years, he made amazing friends who showed him around Los Angeles and helped him adjust to his new life in America.

When he was learning English, one of the most difficult aspects for Alex was mastering verb tenses in spoken English. Although he has been here for seven years now, he still can find it challenging to communicate with native speakers due to different ways of speaking, pronunciation, and tone. However, Alex knows that practice is key as more exposure will allow one to master this language over time — something that Alex is actively doing every day!

Alex's story is an inspiring reminder that anything is possible if you put in the hard work and dedication needed to make your dreams a reality. Life can be difficult at times, but it is always worth it in the end. You may face setbacks along the way, but with perseverance and determination, you can overcome any obstacle. The key is to never give up and keep pushing yourself towards your goals. Take Alex's story as inspiration and start working hard today towards achieving your dreams!

To learn more about Los Angeles City College, click here.

Learning English Through Music: A Harmonious Approach to Language Mastery

4/15/2023

Do you find yourself humming to your favorite tunes and singing along to the lyrics? What if we told you that you can improve your English skills by simply enjoying music? Yes, it's true! Learning English through music is an engaging, fun, and effective way to develop language skills. In this article, we will explore the benefits of learning English through music and provide tips on how to use this approach to enhance your language proficiency.

The Benefits of Learning English Through Music

1. Boosts Vocabulary and Grammar

Songs are packed with new words, idioms, and expressions that you can learn as you sing along. The repetitive nature of songs helps with memorization, and catchy tunes make it easier to remember new words and phrases. As you become familiar with song lyrics, you'll gain exposure to different grammatical structures and sentence patterns that can improve your understanding of English grammar.

2. Improves Listening Skills

Listening to music can train your ear to differentiate between various accents, dialects, and pronunciation styles. As you become more comfortable with the language, you'll find it easier to comprehend spoken English in real-life situations.

3. Enhances Pronunciation and Intonation

Singing along with your favorite songs helps you practice your pronunciation and intonation. Music provides a natural way to imitate native speakers, allowing you to practice the rhythm, stress, and intonation patterns of the language.

4. Engages Multiple Learning Styles

Music engages auditory, visual, and kinesthetic learners, offering a comprehensive learning experience. Listening to songs, reading lyrics, and singing or dancing along all provide different ways to absorb the language.

5. Reduces Anxiety and Boosts Confidence

Learning through music can be a fun and relaxing way to practice English, reducing anxiety and increasing motivation. As your language skills improve, your confidence will grow, leading to better performance in other areas of language learning.

Tips for Learning English Through Music

1. Choose Songs You Enjoy

Pick songs from genres you love, as you'll be more likely to listen to them repeatedly. This can range from pop, rock, or country to hip-hop, jazz, or classical music. The key is to find songs that resonate with you and keep you engaged.

2. Analyze the Lyrics

Print out or find the lyrics to your favorite English songs and read them carefully. Look up any unfamiliar words or phrases and try to understand the overall meaning of the song. This will help you build your vocabulary and grasp the context of the lyrics.

3. Sing Along and Practice Pronunciation

Listen to the song multiple times and try to sing along. Focus on pronunciation, rhythm, and intonation. Don't worry about making mistakes – remember that practice makes perfect!

4. Use Lyric Videos and Karaoke Apps

Watching lyric videos or using karaoke apps can help you practice your reading and listening skills simultaneously. Following along with the lyrics as you listen to the song can enhance your understanding of the language.

5. Create a Playlist of English Songs

Create a playlist of your favorite English songs and listen to it regularly. This will not only expose you to new vocabulary and grammar structures but also help you develop a sense of rhythm and intonation in the language.

Learning English through music is a fun, engaging, and effective method to improve your language skills. By incorporating songs into your study routine, you can boost your vocabulary, grammar, listening, pronunciation, and intonation, all while enjoying the process. So, put on your headphones, turn up the volume, and let the music guide you on your journey to English fluency!

Again, Green River College Ranked #1 in Washington State

2/25/2023

Green River College (GRC) Ranks #1 in Washington State for the second year in a row when it comes to the number of international students at a community college. GRC ranks #11 in the USA overall. - IIE Open Doors Report for 2021-22.

Green River College is a public college founded in 1965. Approximately 9,000 students study at Green River, with over 850 international students from 60-plus countries. Most international students come to Green River for its nationally recognized “2+2” transfer program to top US universities, High School Completion program, Intensive English, and our personal service.

Why is Green River Colleg e the first choice for many international students?

Here are some of the top reasons:

Top Transfer Program - GRC students get into top universities across the country and the world.
Over 40 University Partnerships - When you apply for either the university transfer or high school completion programs, you can choose to receive a conditional admission letter or statement from one of our University Transfer Pathways
Transfer Fair - Largest in Washington State for community colleges - Twice a year, 60+ universities visit our campus so students can ask questions about transferring, housing, scholarships, internships, and more with university representatives.
High School Completion Program - In Washington State, qualified high school students can skip up to two years of high school, take university classes at a college, and receive dual credit for their high school diploma and a two-year college associate degree.
Cost Savings - Tuition at most public and private universities is more than three times the tuition at community colleges.
Small Class Sizes - College class sizes are typically small (20-35) and students receive close personal attention from their faculty and advisors.
Large Staff - Our program offers 40+ caring staff members who support the needs of our international student population.
Peer Mentors - New international students are paired with current students who are trained to help them adjust to living and studying in a new country.
Advisors work with students within a specific major - Advisors assist students with preparing an educational plan to show them exactly which classes are required to transfer to specific universities/majors. They are experts in their subject areas and can pass along that wisdom to students.
Beautiful Location - Green River College is known for its beautiful campus. It is surrounded by forest and trees and is 45 minutes south of Seattle.

Learn more about Green River College.

Embracing Your Culture During Your Study Abroad

2/15/2023

When I picked my life up and moved to another part of the world (for only a few months, mind you), my life felt like a movie. Bold leaps of faith are what great movies are made of. Every great adventure has an origin story; mine didn’t make the director’s cut.

We only ever see the highlights; the college football games, booze-filled house parties, and studying in aesthetic coffee shops with big friend groups. I was convinced that moving abroad would be filled with only positive experiences and that the life others were living abroad was much better than my own. Reality is a far different, far more humbling experience.

As an international student in a new country, you’ll go through several stages before you find your identity. We hope our story is something you can relate to and a guide to lead you back to your roots.

The Stages of Adapting to a New Culture

Stage 1: Admiration

Life gets stale when you’ve lived in one place your entire life. You build a routine for yourself, you know who your friends are, and there are very few surprises in your life — you’re lulled into a comfort zone, and no motivation can get you out of it. It’s an extension of living in one place, where we lose touch with our culture before ever leaving it.

Our admiration for other countries and cultures grows as we’re drawn away from our own. We start to watch videos about living abroad, read about life there, and even research places we’d like to live. Our admiration grows into a rose-colored outlook that blinds us from anything negative. It didn’t matter if the cost of living was higher or my quality of life would be significantly less — everywhere other than home sounded better than where I was.

Stage 2: Integration

When you reach your destination, hundreds of emotions will swirl around in your head. All the sounds, tastes, smells, and sights are different than what you’re used to. It didn’t take long to realize how different I was from the native residents.

Once the initial, somewhat overwhelming surge of stimuli passes, you’re left feeling a little antsy. A sense of urgency kicks in that makes you feel like an intruder in this new country. You start telling yourself, “I need to erase my accent. I have to go to that party I was invited to. I need to be more American — I need to fit in.”

I don’t know if it came from my admiration for the culture or my fear of being different; whatever the case, I immersed myself in my new environment as best I could. Sometimes it doesn’t matter how hard you try — you can never be someone you’re not.

Stage 3: Realization

If I had a dollar for every time, I heard someone say, “People back home think I’m too American, and people in America say I’m too (insert any culture here),” I’d have… probably $10. You realize that being someone you’re not doesn’t fool anyone. As your rose-colored outlook starts to dim, you begin to see things for how they are.

For an international student studying in America, it’s a nice place to live. The people are generally easy to get along with, the portion sizes are as big as you thought, and there are lots of things to do — but at the end of the day, people are people wherever you go. What about the international students you used to look up to before moving? They have struggles you don’t see. And the Americans who have lived there their whole lives? They have flaws just the same as the rest of us.

The pursuit of perfection is a never-ending cycle. We realize that neither our home nor the country we left it for is perfect. We’re all just people trying to find a place to belong, and sometimes that means losing your identity before you find it.

Stage 4: Confusion

After realizing that your view of your new country isn’t what you expected, the battle for your identity starts. The temptation to return home is strong; after all, you fit in more back home than you do where you are — that’s what I thought, too, until I went home.

Returning home after a few months of living elsewhere was a weird feeling. I still couldn’t put my finger on it, but everything felt different. I don’t know if everyone else changed or if it was just me — either way, home no longer felt like home. The friends I used to hang out with were busy living their own lives, and the places I walked by every day went through the smallest of renovations — life had moved on without me, and my big plan was to waste all the effort I put in to move… to go back to where I started?

This confusion was the price I paid for giving up my culture to pursue a ‘better’ one.

Stage 5: Acceptance

Somewhere along the way, I realized that I’m not my culture, and I’m not fully American either. Where I belong is something I have to figure out along the way, but who I am that’s something for me to decide — I am who I want to be. My identity is the culmination of my experiences; I can’t be defined by any label people put on me.

Now you might think that accepting your culture is the step where you finally figure things out, and everything works out. Not exactly. Accepting your culture is the first step to embracing it — it’s your job to live out your newfound commitment through your choices.

How Can You Embrace Your Own Identity?

Find your community in the U.S.

Our identity gives us a sense of belonging, which holds doubly true for cultural identity. Community is an integral part of life, and having your identity rooted in the culture at an early age gives you community as an extension of being born into it. As we get older and move away from home, our culture won’t always follow us — we must actively seek it.

One of the best ways to embrace your identity is to get in touch with your home culture in your new country. The U.S. is full of diverse cultures and communities; most are closer than you think. Nearly every major city in the U.S. has its take on Chinatown, and Latin American society is pervasive in many coastal towns in the U.S. Look around. You’ll find that home isn’t so far after all.

Some cultures are harder to find in the U.S. The great thing about colleges and universities is that multicultural clubs are an active part of many institutions. You belong somewhere — what your community looks like might be slightly different than you expected.

Embrace your American side

Just as you might have rejected your culture when you first arrived in the U.S., rejecting American culture will only make it harder for you to embrace your own identity.

What does it look like to embrace your American culture?

Picking up on American slang words
Celebrating American holidays
Getting used to ‘small talk.’
Understanding that America is the culmination of cultures from all over the world

Share your culture with the world.

As we discussed, multicultural clubs are a great place to meet international students. Many clubs host annual or bi-annual multicultural events. These can be a great opportunity to once again get in touch with your culture and share it with your local communities. You’d be surprised to learn how many people would be interested in learning more about you.

Once you become comfortable sharing who you are, what’s there to be afraid of?

If you’re looking for additional resources on your student journey, StudyUSA.com is an invaluable resource. Study in the USA is your all-in-one destination for all your study abroad needs: from connecting you with your dream university, helping you find a suitable graduate and postgraduate course to guide you through the visa process, and everything in between.

4 Ways to Quickly Improve Your English Language Skills

9/1/2022

Learning a new language takes consistent effort, discipline, and desire. There’s no quick solution to go from 0 to 1 for a new language learner. However, if you’re familiar with learning a language and have been doing so for some time, you can improve your English significantly in a relatively short period.

How can you quickly improve your English?

Immerse Yourself

The fastest way to improve your English ability is to live the language. Now, that’s easier said than done. As an international student living in another country, English isn’t the first language people speak, and that limits who you can communicate with to improve your conversational skills. Luckily, there are more ways than one to immerse yourself in a language.

“When you start learning different languages, I convert everything. Like my computer, I put in English, my cellphone, I put in English. I try to watch movies in English, listen to music in English, sing in English, and try to immerse myself.” — Juliana Pereira, Journalist and Geotechnical Engineering Ph.D student at Purdue University

In case you missed it, you can rewatch our informative Facebook Live session with TOEFL and Juliana Pereira to hear her story in its entirety.

As inconvenient as it may be, converting your devices and essential items to English can force you to learn English at all times of the day. Considering the average person uses their phone for nearly four hours a day, that’s a BIG chunk of your day dedicated to learning English. There’s no replacement for interaction, though.

If you want to immerse yourself, here’s what Valeria Renée Rivera’s life looked like when she was in El Salvador:

7 out of 8 classes were in English
She spoke with friends in Spanglish (a combination of English and Spanish)
She read lots of English books in her free time
She listened to music in English
She watched TV in English

Use an English Language App
Language applications are a great supplement to any English study plan. They won’t get you from 0 to 1 necessarily, but they can expand your vocabulary, fix your grammar, and improve your pronunciation. There are tons of options on the market — some fun, some effective, and some, both. If you’re interested in learning which apps are worth your time, you should check out our recent article on the 7 Best Apps to Learn English for Students Studying Abroad.

Shadowing
Shadowing is the process of mimicking what you hear. When you’re watching movies, tv shows, or listening to English music, listen for words or phrases that they say. How do they pronounce specific phrases? What words do they string together to convey their message? If you’re planning on moving to the US or UK to study abroad, the best way to learn native English is to replicate how it’s spoken in the country you’re moving to.

Avoid Burnout
Even our best efforts won’t let us master a new language overnight. It’s a long process that takes months of consistent learning. Sometimes you’ll feel like you aren’t making any progress; other days you’ll think you’re unstoppable. Don’t let your best days overwork you and don’t let your worst days force you to give up. In due time, we’ll all get to where we need to be.

Valeria Renée Rivera knows a thing or two about burnout, and she had this to share, “I always tell people, make time for yourself; set a time — two hours in your day, an hour — whatever it is, just, you know, watch a movie, listen to some music. Whatever it is that relaxes you, it’s very important.”

Conclusion
Ultimately, the fastest way to learn may not be the best. Making English a seamless part of your life through an effective study plan, English language apps, and self-care will give you all the tools you need to master the English language.

If you’re looking for additional resources on your student journey, StudyUSA.com is an invaluable resource. Study in the USA is your all-in-one destination for all your study abroad needs: from connecting you with your dream university to guiding you through the visa process, and everything in between.

LEARNING ENGLISH IN THE USA

8/1/2022

Find an English Language Program (ESL)

Each year, tens of thousands of students come to the USA to learn English to prepare themselves to enter colleges and universities in the United States. Others come to learn English while experiencing American life and still others come to improve their English to qualify for a better job at home.

STUDYING ENGLISH AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AUSTIN

7/1/2022

SMALL BUT CONSISTENT STEPS TOWARDS GRADUATE DEGREE AND BETTER FUTURE.

Monica Patricia Arboleda Martínez from Colombia attends the English Language Center (ELC) at the University of Texas at Austin. She has a bachelor's degree in computer and systems engineering with a major in software engineering, and a specialization in strategic management.

MIHO HASEBE FROM JAPAN: STUDIES ENGLISH AT COLLEGE OF THE DESERT IN CALIFORNIA

3/3/2022

Miho Hasebe from Japan studies Liberal Arts and English at College of the Desert in Palm Desert, California.

Why did you decide to study in the USA?
The reason why I decided to study in the United States is that I wanted to study English and American culture.

AMERICAN SLANG WORDS YOU NEED TO KNOW IN 2022

2/15/2022

For many English learners planning to study or work in the U.S., students are often bombarded with many unfamiliar slang words from American TV shows, songs, or native-speaker friends. Slang words learning are often excluded from formal English education, yet it helps English learners to understand American popular culture and better communication with their American friends.

Today, we’ll cover the top 10 American popular slang words to ease your communication with English native speakers.

1. Bail/ ditch
Bail and ditch both mean to have to break or cancel the plans with someone. for instance, you have to cancel the plans with your friends due to unfinished school work.
Example: “Sorry friends, I have to bail tonight.”

STUDYING ENGLISH AT THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE INSTITUTE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO

2/7/2022

Eneritz Ares is from Spain and is studying English at the English Language Institute at the University of California, San Diego in San Diego, California.

Why did you decide to study in the USA?
The USA has always interested me and especially California. Moreover, my uncles live there and this was a really good excuse to go to study.

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