Why I choosed the British Council for Learning English - Sachitha

Before I came to the British Council, I was attracted as a student because of its worldwide recognition, reputation, the British teachers and because it's run under the British Government (The qualifications issued by a Government's well recognized.)

When I came to BC for the placement test, I was impressed by its calm & quiet enviorenment which is conducive for learning, the usage of the projectors & computers for teaching and the well deceplined students. I found the course books really interesting. The British teachers who taught me were excellent.Their teaching methods were completely different to the Local teachers. For me it was a wonderful experience. I felt as if I was studying in a class room in England, even though all most all of my class mates were locals. Studying under different teachers term after term changed the monotomy. ( I don't mind dis term. Liz, U're superb.So're Mr Mark Hindle & Ms Katherin Short.) They all had different teaching methods.

Apart from a few minor cons such as;
* High charges ( fee's ROCKETING up term by term)
Rs.30,000.00/= is o.k. but if it'll be like Rs.45,000.00/= ,

the students'll find it difficult to afford for more than one or two course.

* Lovely books such as "Harry Potter" 're locked in the Young Learner's Center & we're not allowed even to touch them. It's quite unfair.

I found the British Council very appealing. I never hesitate to gurantee the British Council for a new comer.

Oh Maradona..................

What a sad.................... AFA ( the Argentine Football Association) has decided not to renew Maradona's contract as national team coach following the team's 4-0 drubbing (a serious defeat) by Germany in the World Cup quarter finals. Maradona led Argentina to World Cup Victory in 1986 as the captain. He was appointed as coach in 2008 even if he had very little coaching experience.

Maradona said that Grondona (head of AFA) was pleased with what he had done and asked him to stay as coach after they were eliminated in South Africa. However, when they were in mourning, Bilardo (technical director of national teams) wanted to kick him out.

After winning the world cup, Argentina became one of the favourite teams. But Maradona's dream of victory was dashed by German.

Argentine President Cristina Fernandez was very sad about this and she has said that Maradona took on the team when it was a hot potato and people predicted that they wouldn't even qualify for South Africa.

Further she said that she doesn't know what has happened to Grondona. Anyway they have to come together and fix things.

This was saddened me a lot. What about you.................

It is nice to have people like you around me!

I think this is the first time for me participating in a class that consist of people from different age groups, different backgrounds and having different goals. However, I see all have commonalities like improving English and inspiration to be someone who is useful to this world.

Ms. Liz - Thanks for your effort. It is sad to here that you are leaving Sri Lanka within couple of months. I wish you all the best for your next location and I am sure you will get used to that place easily because when you stay 2 years specially in Colombo you will learn how to be patient, tolerate the rudeness, get over heat, blood donation to mosquitoes and train your stomach to withstand against bacterias. On the other hand I think you may have noticed the simple lifestyles of Sri Lankans, hospitality and friendliness too.

Dushy - I think I will not forget how we tried to keep the professional cricketer in that balloon even though we failed in the second time. Nice to have friend like you. I also like to play cricket and tap rugby with friends. Your car shed cricket reminds the time I played "one bump" at any place and any time. I see you as an intelligent and very promising young man. Regarding the picture, yes it is my wife and can you guess the location ?

Theepika - "She'd rather be hated for who she is than loved for who she's not" is a nice concept and well said. Very recently, I have found the same concept in teachings of Lord Buddha too. Yes, once upon a time I was also addicted to Facebook and I think still I am, even though now I try my best to limit the time on FB and try to use it as a tool to be in connection with my friends. You are good in Chess right ? How about a game of chess even though I haven't touched a chess piece in years.

Sachitha - It is nice to see that you have a clear goal, which most of our young generation lack of having goals. It is not what matters is to be a engineer or a doctor. What matters is whether you enjoy the work you do and at the end of the day to be happy about what you have done. It is better to try and fail instead of without trying any thing. Anyway, success makes you blind, failure makes your eyes open wide. Make use of that. I wish you all the best for a bright future.

Sepz - "nutty" ha, how can I take it ? mad or silly ? or nuts? I don't see any one of them in you. What I see from you is very serious and determined young lady. Correct me if I am wrong. Even though you are the tallest girl in the class I don't see you make use of your height. It could be an advantage if you play basketball or netball.

Fuzuki - Nice to have a Japanese Lady in our class and learn about Japan and Japanese view about Sri Lanka. I am bit afraid to comment about you because I don't know under which law you are going to sue me. "7 years of long-distance love" - I think you can write a book about that because I think it is very rare case. I am little bit skeptical about NGOs and promoting preschools because there are thousands of preschools in Sri Lanka. Ah, may be you are talking about very rural areas.

Monita - Nice to hear about your story. It is amazing to see your outstanding achievements. What are the places that you will visit in Kandy ?

I am sorry if I say something wrong by commenting about you guys. Normally, I don't comment like this but I think this is a better way of conversation and interaction in this blog as Dushy started commenting.

Monita's Blog

Hi, I'm Monita. I logged on to Emarald Blog today and noticed that many of you have updated your blog and some with nice pictures. I'm glad to know friends like you all. Thank you Liz for giving this opportunity to us. I joined the British Council to improve my English and I believe all these activities will help me a lot.

Briefly about me...I successfully completed my management degree at the University of Kelaniya in 2005 with a first class and the Gold Medal for the highest marks. That was a great achievement for me because I came from a rural area in Uva Province. My school had lack of resources and I was the only student who got through English in my O/L class. However, I was able to read my degree in English and to win the Gold Medal. I'm a chartered accountant and got membership in the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka in 2008. I worked as an accountant in a private company for a period of one year. After that, I joined Ernst and Young - Sri Lanka (a Global Audit Firm) as an audit manager and presently I'm working for Sri Lanka Accounting and Auditing Standards Monitoring Board as a Technical Manager. It's a regulatory body where compliance with accounting and auditing standards are being checked. So, we have to interact with top management of all the big companies (both state owned and private) in relation to the matters in the financial statements.

I'm married to Lasantha who is also in the same profession. Both of us like to travel but we got only few chances in this year because he had to work late. Anyway we enjoy the life when we have time. Our plan is to visit Kandy next week end with his family.

Talking about my family, I have two brothers and one sister. They live at our small village with my parents. We went to see them few weeks ago.

That's about me in brief.

Some facts about a nutty girl called Sepali Galappaththi.....

Hello everyone..

I'm sepali(most commonly known as Sepz),the youngest student in the Advanced Emerald class.I'm still 16 years old,but i got a height which is not common for the girls who are in my age.hehe....

I study at Sirimavo Bandaranaike Vidyalaya Colombo, and I'l be doing my A/L'z after two years.I joined British Council last term and I'm glad to say that Liz is my first teacher as well. I know that I have improved my language skills a lot after joining British Council, not only because i attended classes regularly, but also the help of the library and the extra activities(1.Interpreting sessions.....) I did.

uhmmm.......Whenever i get a free time, I listen to music. Music is my world.....I love Hip-hop music, RnB music and Rock music loads. Rather than listening to music, I chat with my friends and read mails I have received through the internet... Also I do collect stamps. I'm a member of my school's Philatelic Club as well. I have received many certificates for the exhibits i made by using my stamps i have collected.

I love make friends and share my ideas, feelings and have fun with them. Sometimes being the only child of the family might be the reason for me to think like that. Sometimes being a nutty girl might be the reason. Anyhow I find it great to have such a cool idea with me...hehehe......

Books, Movies, Music, Sports and Internet

I write this because I felt that I was too formal in my first blog after I seeing my classmates' blogs. I am sure, I'd give Ms. Liz a hard time by writing wrong English and making her to do correction by coloring my blog to indicate deferent types of errors. Anyway that's the whole objective of this exercise, isn't it ? To improve our English.

I can count the number of books that I have read which are not text books at school and university on the fingers of both hands. That doesn't mean that I don't like reading books but almost all the time, something more important or easier prevented me from reading books. The first English book that I managed to read was Great Expectation by Charles Dickens. I enjoyed reading it because it is about a boy at the same age as mine at that time. More resent books that I finished reading are Digital Fortress by Dan Brown (who is the Author of Da Vinci Code), which is a techno-thriller and The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari by Robin Sharma, which is focused on spiritual life. After reading the book by Robin Sharma, I felt that I should change the gears and paths of my life. I was a very aggressive and unforgiving driver earlier and I became a very calm and compassionate driver as a result of reading that book. Then I bought the whole series of books by Robin Sharma but I didn't finish any of them because all of them seemed similar to me.

I love watching movies and I like fantasy, historical stories, war films and stories based on unusual themes. Trilogy of Lord of the Ring is one of my favorites and Avatar is the number one film that I have ever seen. Connection to another body through mind, flying creature controlled by mind, a tree to memorize all the history and network of nature which fights back against evil forces are nice concepts which fascinated me. Further its animation was superb and within couple of minutes after I started watching the movie I lost track of real the world and animated world. This is the only film that I needed to watch twice but couldn't do that.

It doesn't matter whether a song is rock, pop, reggae, jazz, hip hop classical or modern I can enjoy that only if the lyrics and melody match each other. I enjoy music also (without songs). I admire the music of Yanni and Kenny Ge. I like to listen to music of different cultures and countries. One of the main reasons that I like Robin Hood which is shown in Rupavahini and subtitled by Titus Thotawatta is its mind blowing music which intrudes deep in my heart. I don't like reality shows like XXXX star and XXXXX star because the contestants damage the originality of the songs and organizers damage the uniqueness of an upcoming singer by forcing him or her to sing all sort of songs.

Sports and Internet - To be continued...

Hi ! Want to Know abut me ?

Firstly, I'd like to say that I'm a wannabe teacher. So, I'm following the Advanced Emerald course in BC & a Diploma in English ( final level ) in Aquinas College. Moreover, I hope to follow the "TKT" & "CELTA" teaching courses in the British Council.
Mmm... I'm from Kuliyapitiya. Since it's difficult 2 travel , I'm currently staying in a boarding place in Bambalapitiya.I studied at Saranath College, Kuliyapitiya. Even though, I did A/L in Science stream to be a doctor, I failed to score high in the exam. I hope that my only sybling,the younger sister will achieve her goal to be an NDT Engineer.

Wanna know about me????

Hi! Its me Theepika. I'm a girl who'd rather be hated for who she is than loved for who she's not. I'm neither specially clever nor specially gifted but very unique. There can never be another me. :-)

What else about me?? I'm studying at Stafford International School. I'll be doing my A/L exam next year. I wanna finish the exam and then fly to England for higher studies. I want to follow the MBBS degree at University of Manchester and want to become a doctor. Hope I'll achieve my goals someday...

I have a caring family and a lovely clique of friends, who has always been with me during the hard times of my life. I do lots of things in my leisure time coz almost all the time is a leisure time for me..... I spend a lot of time in face-book.I'm trying not to be addicted to it. I love music.... Nature is another thing that has always fascinated me. I spend hours and hours just watching the blue sky, the hide and seek of clouds, the sun, the twinkling stars and the moon... Night sky has always attracted me towards it..... Photography is another interest of mine... When it comes to sports, I play badminton and watch cricket. I'm quite good in chess too... I rarely watch TV or read newspapers.... That's why my general knowledge is very poor i guess..... I enjoy reading good books. Nicholas Sparks, Enid Blyton and R.L.Stine are some of my favourite authors. A crazy thing about me is that I love laughing till I cry and me and my friends do it often... Seems funny.. Isn't it? I'm good at making friends and I love it.Eventhough I had to lose some of my friends I never forget them. I love to hang around with my friends... That's what i do most of the time... I wanna travel around the world, wanna visit all the countries and get to know about their culture and all...

I've been in BC for a long time so I'm a familiar face there. I joined there for the young learners courses and after finishing it I took a break and joined again for the Pre-Advanced level and then I couldn't continue because of my other classes, so after a gap of one and a half year joined again in Advanced Level... We had Liz as our teacher last time and I'm happy that she's teaching us this term too.... I'd like to thank her at this moment for her great effort in improving our English. I know that I've improved a lot after joining BC. I've always had a great time at BC.... The interpreting sessions we did last time were also helpful in improving our knowledge and had a great time there.... I've always enjoyed the life at British Council....

These are more than enough about me i guess.... So, I'll finish my intro with this last thing. My life has always been very interesting and hope it'll be till the end..:)

somethings abt me

Hello! Every1 i'm Ruwan liyanage ,studin mechatronic engineering @ OU,love 2 wander around all the time ahh thats all .....i think.

It's me, Pavithra,,,,,,,

Hi ! I'm Pavithra,a girl with crazy thoughts and I'm well-known among my buddies for doing things in a very clumsy manner.I have been fortunate enough to be a part of the Colombo University,though I did not study hard for the A/L exam.It's because of my habit of always doing things in the easy way ,and that is how I ended up studying Sociology,which is my favorite subject, and few other subjects at the university.Other than that,I'm doing an English course at the British Council which I had joined few years back when I was studying for A/L exam.

The best period of my life was my schooldays.From the very beginning I knew that it was going to be the best time ever.May be that's why I didn't cry on the first day at school,while almost all the other little fellas were crying and strangling their moms to death asking not to leave them alone. I treasure each and every day of it as they were full of unforgettable memories and funny incidents.My school friends used to call me "Cha" ( only the native students will be able get the real meaning of it) because of the funny stuff I did and most of them were silly mistakes and slips of the tongue.When I was a kid,I never had big plans for my life,which is still the same,while all my friends were planning to get admission to a Colombo school, my sole intention was to be a student of Rathnavali.My parents found it strange for me to have that kind of an attitude because they also wanted to put me in a popular school.However I passed the scholarship exam and got admission in Rathnavali fulfilling my dream of wearing that dark green tie.I felt that I was the luckiest and happiest girl in the world when I wore it for the first time.You might find it silly to be extremely happy for an insignificant thing like that,but it that's how it was.

Though I didn't study that much,I had alwys been lucky enough to score good marks in school exams.Therefore my parents were pleased with my work and gave me freedom to study whatever I wanted for the A/L exam.I did more than enough extra curricular activities at school and teachers used to complain to my mom about it because I was never there in the the class when they were teaching some sort of an important lesson.But my mom never raised her voice against it because she knew how much I loved doing them and I'm grateful for her for being such a lovely and caring mom.By doing extra curricular activities I learned so much about life and society,therefore I never regretted being unable to attend all those academic lessons.
It is my dream to study foreign languages and cultures and to travel a lot,for this reason,I studied Japanese and German when I was doing A/L exam.English has always been one of my favorite subjects ever since I learned my abc.

I love reading,specially detective stories, and the novel which touched my heart the most was "Ivan" written by Vladimir Bogomolov.It was a heart rending story about a little orphan boy and his experiences during the second world war.I read the whole book continuously for five hours and at the end of the story eyes were full of tears.Usually I read a novel more than once, but I couldn't bear to read it again.I was scared of vampires when I was a little girl,but after reading "Twilight series " I fell in love with them.I know it sounds silly and creepy for a 21 year old girl to think like that,but the way the vampire boy ,who is supposed to be a blood sucking monster ,protects and loves the vulnerable human girl touched my heart and soul.Three of the movies of Twilight saga is already out, so I think some of you might have at least caught a glimpse of it.Usually I don't prefer watching movies of my favorite stories because most of the time the movie is a complete opposite of my imagination of the story ,but I made an exception for Twilight and Harry Potter.The reason for me to love the Twilight movie, was the actor who played the role of Edward,the vampire lover.I have been a fan of Robert Pattinson,ever since I watched "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" in which he played the role of Cedric Diggory,the captain of the "Quidditch team"(This might not make any sense to you,if U haven't read or watched Harry Potter).Harry Potter is also a great novel which got the attention of the whole world.Daniel Radcliffe,who plays the role of Harry Potter is quite similar to my imagination of that particular character.The way the background and the school was constructed was unbelievably attractive.

I hope you guys have enjoyed my ideas and if you find them extremely boring or unimaginably stupid, please bear with it.

Liz's blog

Hi! I'm Liz and I'll be teaching the Advanced Emerald course this term. I've started this blog for the class. It's your chance to share information about yourself, to air your opinions, to write reviews, to write creatively and to respond to other students' postings. In the process you should improve your writing skills and, I hope, enjoy writing in English. I will give you feedback on all postings.
I'll start it off by telling you a bit about myself. I'm in "phase three" of my life. Phase one was childhood, phase two was marriage and bringing up my two children (I was widowed in 1985), and now phase three is doing my own thing. I retrained to teach English, having spent most of my working life teaching the clarinet, mainly because I wanted to travel (not apparently the right thing to say at a job interview!)So far I've spent two years in southern Italy and now I'm coming to the end of my two year contract in Sri Lanka (in October).
I found my first few months in Sri Lanka very difficult. I had been teaching in a small school with only two teachers in Italy, so the British Council here, with nearly fifty teachers, was a bit of a shock to the system. Furthermore, it was very hot. I was nervous haggling prices with three-wheeler drivers, and once in the three-wheeler I was gritting my teeth all down Galle Rd! I was afraid of stomach upsets, dengue fever and in fact, any illness at all. However, I'm happy to say, I've survived without any serious illness, and when I did have a back problem I found that the medical facilities were excellent. I no longer grit my teeth in the Colombo traffic. My family have all visited me and we've had wonderful holidays together in Sri Lanka, most especially in the Hill Country round Haputale. So, having spent the first months in tears because everything was so strange and difficult, now I find myself in tears because in a couple of months I'll be leaving!