Study Tip How to Create a Good Study Environment

Study Tip How to Create a Good Study Environment Weve talked about the how to avoid study distractions, weve talked about randomly helpful items to help you study, but now its time to talk about how you can put all of those things together and produce a great study environment. No student is in a good position to study if the surrounding atmosphere isnt conducive to such productivity. Before you gather your books and attempt to cram that information into your brain, you need to make sure you are placed in a good setting, whether it's somewhere for a solo study session, meeting with your SAT tutor, or taking an ACT practice test. The number one rule when it comes to creating study environments? Dont go by what anyone else does. Everybodys brains are vastly different and therefore excel under different types of circumstances. Joining your roommate at Starbucks may seem fun and beneficial to your workload, but is it? Do the subtle conversations and noisy blenders really comfort you like they comfort that friend of yours? They might. But if they dont, just the fact that youre with your supportive friend isnt going to be enough to bring the good studying out of you. Never completely rely on another persons ideas for study environments, no matter who they are. It is up to you and you only to choose what surrounding details make you study well. Not sure what exactly constitutes your perfect study environment? Below are some ideas to give thought to: Noise level: Complete silence, constant sounds, or somewhere in between? The silence can freak some people out while others find it vital for focused studying. Just as well, some students hate noise during this time while others find it reassuring. Whether all of this refers to nearby people talking, buses that often drive by, or a smoothie machine mixing away, you need to figure out how theyll factor into your brains train of thought. They might throw it off or they might encourage it to work harder its up to you to see which direction you typically go in. Seating/Tables: Do you need lounge chairs and incredibly cushy couches when studying? Or does that just distract you more? Dont use seating that will send you into a study coma or day-dreaming session. If those comfortable arrangements will prevent you from being productive, find a place with ordinary, hard chairs that will force you to sit up straight. Tables are the next item to cover; dont get trapped in an area with very little table space to align your study materials. That is a category of frustration that nobody has time for. For instance, some cafs have extremely tiny tables that are great for setting down your coffee, but thats about it. Consider a sturdy desk or lengthy library table if youre going to be spreading out a lot of notes to look over. Amount of people around: Think about the constant actions of adjacent strangers and how they make you feel when studying. That kind of situation may sidetrack you on very high levels, or it might make you feel relaxed again, everyone is different. Also, you could be in a place where these other people are studying, which could help you stay motivated, or you could be somewhere where these people are just hanging out and not working, which could frequently divert your attention. Determine how surrounding people affect your study process and go from there. You might find that you need total isolation to focus Computer-friendliness: Often times you need your laptop with you to study, so its always a good idea to make sure your study space is conducive to that. You dont want to end up in a situation where theres basically no room for your computer to sit other than on your lap. Even worse, being stuck at a place with little to no outlets around can leave you in quite the compromising position if you run low on battery power you certainly dont want to have to end your study session abruptly against your will. Additionally, make sure to find a place that is not messy; for instance, you dont want to sit your computer on a dirty table that is rarely cleaned off. Dont set it up on a constrained space where a nearby drink could spill onto it either! Location: Is this place right by where you live? Is it a time-consuming drive away? Is it close to a coffee supplier? These are all good things to think about when choosing the study spot of choice. Perhaps you are creating this environment in your home, but even then you should consider how close you are to food, television, or anything else you might want on a much-needed break or not want near you at all. Some students find it helpful to be nearby their home so they can easily return to comfort if they get restless and frustrated. Others purposely situate themselves far from their places of residence in order to ensure they will stay put in the study zone. Ultimately, think about the things you want near you when you study and the things you want to be a great distance from you. Pick your locale accordingly. With these standards in mind, you should have a much easier time preparing for those exams. Find this perfect spot and get going!

For Beginning Guitarists Right and Left Hand Basics

For Beginning Guitarists Right and Left Hand Basics Suzy S. Want to improve your coordination and guitar technique? Here, Goodyear, AZ guitar teacher  David A.  shares two simple guitar exercises to try out   Do you love listening to guitar music and do you want to learn how to play? Well, in addition to having a passion for guitar, it is important for you as the aspiring guitarist to maintain a consistent practice routine that incorporates guitar exercises to improve your right and left hand coordination and timing, which will, in turn, boost your overall musicianship and enjoyment of the instrument! The Mechanics of Playing the Guitar Guitar exercises involve the right and left hands doing two separate things at the same time. The challenge can be just that: get the right and left hands to do those two things at the same time! The right hand, hovering over the body of the guitar and using a guitar pick or just the fingers, strums, plucks, or picks one or more strings, while the fingers of the left hand press down on the appropriate strings at the other end of the guitar on the neck fretboard. (Note: I am describing hand movements from the point of view of a right-handed guitarist, so if you are playing a left-handed guitar, the actions of the hands are reversed.) Exercises to Strengthen the Hands Improve Coordination Although it is not possible to cover all of the many guitar exercises or go into specific detail regarding proper technique within the scope of this article, I will describe a couple of drills that would certainly be a great start for the beginner. For the following examples, let’s assume that you will be using a guitar pick. You hold the pick between your thumb and index finger, with the pointed end of your pick striking the strings. There are three basic picking patterns to strike the strings: downstroke (toward the ground), upstroke (toward the sky), and alternate (down, then up). To fret with the left hand, make a loose fist with the knuckles bent. Place your thumb along the back of the guitar neck. Place the other 4 fingers on the front of the neck. The finger assignments for the left hand are as follows: index is 1, middle is 2, ring is 3, and pinky is 4. If possible, use a metronome to help keep time. A good starting metronome speed is at or around 60 beats per minute (BPM). Allow at least 5 to 10 minutes to complete each exercise and practice them daily! Exercise 1: This is a simple drill on the high E string. Fret this string on the first fret with finger 1 of the left hand. Try to use the tip of your finger to fret the note. (You will build up calluses on the tips of your fingers.) With the right hand, play downstrokes with the pick with each click or beep of your metronome. Repeat this exercise by playing upstrokes, again hitting the string on each metronome beat. Finally, play a repeating alternate picking pattern. You can gradually increase your metronome speed as you feel more comfortable. Since this exercise does not involve moving the left hand to fret different notes, try experimenting by using a different finger on a different fret to fret the E string, while you play the downstroke, upstroke, and alternate picking patterns with your right hand. Exercise 2: This time, you will play the 3 right-hand picking patterns, but we will add left-hand finger movement. Start with finger 1 on first fret, and with each consecutive click of the metronome, place finger 2 on the second fret, then finger 3 on the third, then finger 4 on the fourth. Increase your metronome speed as you feel more comfortable. The goal is to coordinate the timing of the picking of the right hand with the fretting by the different fingers of the left hand. Repetition is the Key Practicing the guitar resembles, in some ways, practicing a sport. Just as baseball players have to develop the mechanical ability to throw and catch a ball through repeated drills, guitarists have to acquire the ability to sound the correct notes on their guitars through continual practicing. The trick is to develop technique through the repeated execution of guitar exercises that promote hand coordination and timing. While there are many exercises that you can practice, it is important that you play them slowly and evenly at first, and then gradually build up speed. With regular and consistent practice, you will notice that as you gain greater control over your right and left hand picking and fretting technique, your speed of execution will increase. As your guitar technique improves, you will start being able to learn how to play the music that YOU enjoy and ultimately, achieve your guitar lesson goals and beyond! David A. teaches guitar, piano, singing, songwriting, and more in Goodyear, AZ. He has  performed in numerous and varied musical situations, including with The University of Maryland Jazz Orchestra and the Pavement Chasers Tribute to Adele. He currently performs as a freelance keyboardist and guitarist in the Phoenix metro area.    Learn more about David here!   Interested in Private Lessons? Search thousands of teachers for local and live, online lessons. Sign up for convenient, affordable private lessons today! Search for Your Teacher Photo  by  David Masters

A Definition of Tutoring

A Definition of Tutoring Academic Support: What’s Available? ChaptersWhat Is Academic Support?The Origins of Academic SupportAcademic Support: From Homework Help to Catching UpEducational AccompanimentPrivate TutorialsAcademic support is widely available nowadays.A lot of people, including parents and students, have the wrong idea of what academic support is.So what is it?Is it what you need for your child or yourself?It’s important to know that academic support includes a number of different tutoring services and which services aren’t included.Superprof is getting to the crux of the matter and finding out what academic support is and what other types of tutoring there are. CalumDrama School Entrance Teacher 5.00 (15) £50/h1st lesson free!Discover all our tutors ToriSpanish Teacher 5.00 (1) £15/h1st lesson free!Discover all our tutors OliviaSchool support Teacher 5.00 (2) £21/h1st lesson free!Discover all our tutors MarkESOL (English) Teacher 4.76 (17) £20/h1st lesson free!Discover all our tutors YuweiChinese Teacher 4.33 (6) £19 /h1st lesson free!Discover all our tutors JenniferMusic reading Teacher 5.00 (1) £30/h1st lesson free!Discover all our tutors LouiseAutoCAD Teacher 5.00 (3) £60/h1st lesson free!Discover all our tutors RickyPercussion Teacher 5.00 (7) £35/h1st lesson free!Discover all our tutors NicolasGuitar Teacher 5.00 (2) £35/h1st lesson free!Discover all our tutors MyriamOrganic chemistry Teacher 5.00 (13) £20/h1st lesson free!Discover all our tutors JonathanEconomics Teacher 5.00 (9) £40/h1st lesson free!Discover all our tutors Oluwakemi imoleMaths Teacher 5.00 (1) £30/h1st lesson free!Discover all our tutors AlexPhysics Teacher 5.00 (1) £50/h1st lesson free!Discover all our tutors AdamSinging Teacher 5.00 (14) £48/h1st lesson free!Discover all our tutors ValentiniMusic reading Teacher 5.00 (2) £50/h1st lesson free!Discover all our tutors MilenaMaths Teacher 5.00 (5) £25/h1st lesson free!Discover all our tutors RashmiEconomics Teacher 5.00 (1) £35/h1st lesson free!Disco ver all our tutorsWhat Is Academic Support?When you hear the terms academic support, you probably already have a decent idea of what it is. A private tutor sat in their student's home across the desk from those being tutored.Let's get to the bottom of the different types of tutoring available. (Source: StockSnap)This is the traditional idea we have of the discipline.But what exactly is the definition of academic support?Edglossary gives the following definition:“The term academic support may refer to a wide variety of instructional methods, educational services, or school resources provided to students in the effort to help them accelerate their learning progress, catch up with their peers, meet learning standards, or generally succeed in school.”There are two important factors that we believe also defines academic support:The duration: Academic support can occur at regular intervals. From a few lessons over several weeks to a much longer time. The tutor could help their student over the course of several months to an entire school year.Complementing schooling: A lot of academic support services are designed to help students who are struggling or falling behind.This doesn't mean that it needs to take place during the semester, you can get academic support during the school holidays. There's nothing wrong with a bit of extra preparation.Discover the benefits of academic support!The Origins of Academic SupportIt’s difficult to talk exactly about where exactly academic support came from. For those not familiar with private academic support, you probably remember all the hours you spent studying in primary school, secondary school, college, and sixth form. Many hours of your schedule were spent dedicated to studying, revising, or doing your homework or coursework.When a student's struggling, there's nothing wrong with enlisting the help of a professional tutor. (Source: kaboompics)These hours were recommended by teachers who would (if they could) help studen ts who were struggling. While we’re talking about the past, the same is true today.Barring a few charities and free tutoring services at schools and universities, academic support is entirely private. That said, more and more parents are getting in touch with academic support tutors to help out. This is due to a few societal changes:Mothers, unlike previous generations, are more likely to be working.Parents are getting home from work later and later, which leaves very little time for them to help their children with their studies.Private Education for State School StudentsThe success of academic support is not just down to how effective it is but also due to increasingly worried parents. With mathematics, foreign languages (French, Spanish, German, Italian, etc.), history, geography, physics, chemistry, economics, and English, there are so many subjects for parents to be worried about.Some parents believe that there are too many subjects and children are struggling to keep up with all of them.This means more and more parents are enlisting the help of academic support tutors to help their children keep up by providing supplemental instruction. This is why we say that academic support is private education for children at state schools.Find out how parents, tutors and students all work together to achieve academic success...Even if you’re hesitant, there are plenty of students who’ve benefitted from academic support. It’s helped many students to catch up with their studies. This has helped then avoid failing exams and having to resist them.There are academic support classes for those in primary school, secondary school, sixth form, and college. They complement a child’s regular schooling. For example, a private tutor can move away from the traditional teaching a child gets in school and help them see schooling differently.They can use different resources and tools. This freedom allows them to draw on different school subjects to help the child understan d better, too.Finally, the biggest benefit of academic support tutorials is the fact that they’re tailored to the student. In a maths class at school, the teacher has to deliver a standardised lesson for all the students. This means the class is designed for twenty-odd students.With academic support, the private tutor plans their lesson around the person in front of them.What is the student’s level?How much do they understand?What kind of personality do they have?Do they respect authority?Are they keen learners?Are there certain things they struggle with?Academic support is there to fill in the gaps.If calculus, algebra, geometry, or trigonometry is giving you a headache, you just have to look for maths tutoring.Find out how you can get customised tutoring for your academic needs! CalumDrama School Entrance Teacher 5.00 (15) £50/h1st lesson free!Discover all our tutors ToriSpanish Teacher 5.00 (1) £15/h1st lesson free!Discover all our tutors OliviaSchool support Teacher 5.0 0 (2) £21/h1st lesson free!Discover all our tutors MarkESOL (English) Teacher 4.76 (17) £20/h1st lesson free!Discover all our tutors YuweiChinese Teacher 4.33 (6) £19/h1st lesson free!Discover all our tutors JenniferMusic reading Teacher 5.00 (1) £30/h1st lesson free!Discover all our tutors LouiseAutoCAD Teacher 5.00 (3) £60/h1st lesson free!Discover all our tutors RickyPercussion Teacher 5.00 (7) £35/h1st lesson free!Discover all our tutors NicolasGuitar Teacher 5.00 (2) £35/h1st lesson free!Discover all our tutors MyriamOrganic chemistry Teacher 5.00 (13) £20/h1st lesson free!Discover all our tutors JonathanEconomics Teacher 5.00 (9) £40/h1st lesson free!Discover all our tutors Oluwakemi imoleMaths Teacher 5.00 (1) £30/h1st lesson free!Discover all our tutors AlexPhysics Teacher 5.00 (1) £50/h1st lesson free!Discover all our tutors AdamSinging Teacher 5.00 (14) £48/h1st lesson free!Discover all our tutors ValentiniMusic reading Teacher 5.00 (2) £50/h1st le sson free!Discover all our tutors MilenaMaths Teacher 5.00 (5) £25/h1st lesson free!Discover all our tutors RashmiEconomics Teacher 5.00 (1) £35/h1st lesson free!Discover all our tutorsAcademic Support: From Homework Help to Catching UpFor those who still aren’t quite sure what kind of academic support they need, keep in mind that it can include a huge range of services.If you want to succeed, you're going to have to study.But what can you do when it doesn't seem to be working?Students can get help with their homework from a tutor anywhere in the world! (Source: StartupStockPhotos)It could start out with some homework help. In primary school, secondary school, sixth form, and college, a lot of students seem to be drowning work. As we said earlier, a lot of parents just don’t have the time to help their children as much as they'd like.So why not employ a private tutor to help your child?Homework is a big and important part of the learning process. It can help them reinforce w hat they’ve learnt in class. A professional tutor can help them in a number of subjects throughout the year. This can help them to avoid failing exams, improving their performance, and getting good results.Academic support is useful for helping students catch up. This is one of the most common reasons for getting academic support. When a child is falling behind at school, there are some important decisions to be made in order to stop them failing their exams and having to resit. Of course, you often have to pay for academic support. It’s unlikely that the teachers at their school will have the time to provide this level of support.Join the discussion: can academic support supplant traditional education models?A private tutor can dedicate all their time to them. Thanks to teaching methods that are tailored to the student, the teacher can quickly help them catch up.  That’s the main goal of academic support, after all.Catching up can take place in the medium term and the long te rm. It can take some time and new teaching methodologies for a student to start understanding their courses. Once a learner has the necessary study skills, you'll start seeing their performance improve in both the classroom and in their academic support tutorials.If you or your child struggle with writing essays, you could work with an English tutor or look for writing tutors on Superprof.Discover the wide range of subjects you can find tutoring for...Educational AccompanimentWe’ve already seen what academic support is and what services it includes.  There’s also educational accompaniment which is often thought of as academic tutoring.How is different to academic support?Educational accompaniment is more so for students aiming to get into top universities. This can take place over a long time. It can take a student through their undergraduate or postgraduate degree.There are private tutors offering educational accompaniment. We’re talking about support for students who aren’ t struggling. Those with acceptable or good grades. The goals are simple:Improve their gradesGetting them ready for top universitiesStudying for important examsGetting them onto courses at said universitiesEducational accompaniment, just like academic tutoring and private tutorials, is available in all subjects from the sciences to the humanities.If science isn't your strong point, why not consider getting a physics, biology, or chemistry tutor to help?Private TutorialsIt’s very easy to confuse academic support with private tutorials. They are often quite similar. However, not all tutors can offer both.Think about the kind of private tutorials you need to get for your child. (Source: jstarj)Put simply: academic support (either at home or via online tutoring) involves helping with homework or an assignment, revision, or helping students to catch up with one on one tutoring. It’s usually for students who are struggling in school.Private tutoring is generally more relaxed and is fo r students who just want to learn something. They help the student learn new things and help the student to think of new approaches.Academic support is tailored schooling and there’s also academic coaching.  Of course, most tutors don't expect you to be experts in the differing types of private tuition. When it comes to home tutoring, it's fairly easy to find a tutor who can offer several different types one to one tutoring.When it comes to academic success, there's plenty of reasons why home tutoring is so popular. Whether a student is struggling with a bit exam or test prep, needs help with writing an essay, or wants to apply to a good college or university, tutoring is the way to go.Don't forget that it's also very easy to become a tutor and start getting tutoring jobs. You can make your profile on Superprof today!Now you know that academic support is really so much more than homework help!

Physical Wellness An Underappreciated Key to Improving Performance on Tests

Physical Wellness An Underappreciated Key to Improving Performance on Tests Improving Academic Performance No matter how confident you may feel, final exams can still cause a great deal of anxiety. For many students, the pressure builds even if the understanding of the material is thorough. In more extreme cases, you might begin to doubt yourself, lose sleep and fail to remember the information you studied so hard to learn. When it comes to improving your performance on exams, taking care of your overall health can be almost as beneficial as studying. This is because your physical health can have a major impact on your ability to memorize, think and reason. Disregarding your physical health and well-being could result in your brain not functioning at full capacity. Getting plenty of sleep, eating the right foods and drinking enough water all can improve your test-taking abilities and help you to get better grades. An example of this is that many students may not realize that proper hydration is essential in how well they perform on their exams. Dehydration can lead to irritability, fatigue and lethargy â€" which all will prohibit you from doing your best. Research suggests those who drink a bottle of water during their exam perform slightly better than those who don’t. Good nutrition is also a key factor for how well you’ll perform on tests, as the brain uses as much as 20 percent of the energy your body needs daily. Eating nutritional foods can help keep you focused and energetic so you won’t feel fatigued during your midterms or finals. Given how critical your grades can be in order to reach your academic and professional goals, it’s worthwhile to seek any additional advantage you can. It is important to not let bad habits such as overindulging on junk food or poor sleeping habits hurt your chances to do well on exams. The below slideshow has more tips you can use to reduce stress and improve performance on exams: Tips To Improve Performance Around Testing Time from MacCormac College Author Bio Dr. Kenya Grooms is a clinical psychologist and Dean of Student Affairs at MacCormac College, the oldest two-year, private, nonprofit institution in Illinois. MacCormac offers educational programs for court reporting, criminal justice, business administration and more. Dr. Grooms has written and presented about family life, international partnerships, personal resilience, support services for non-traditional students and many other topics in psychology.

Introducing Tutorfairs Online Classroom

Introducing Tutorfair's Online Classroom As Head of Operations at Tutorfair, I get to be involved with lots of really exciting projects that help both tutors and clients get the most out of the platform. Our big project in the second half of 2018 has been developing Tutorfair’s online classroom, an online learning platform! Why did we want to provide an online classroom for Tutorfair users? On Tutorfair, more lessons than ever before are online - making up to 50% of Tutorfair lessons, on some days! Many tutors enjoy the online lesson format, finding it as engaging as in-person lessons, and now, more and more students are also opting for the online learning experience. We know that at the moment, our tutors and students use a mixture of online platforms and teaching resources, such as Zoom, Skype, and bitpaper.io, to conduct lessons. With this in mind, we wanted to provide tutors and students with a resource to make online learning even easier and more effective, which is why we’ve been working on the Tutorfair online classroom. Tutorfair’s online classroom is an e-learning platform available and free to use for Tutorfair’s tutors and students. It features a variety of teaching tools and will be easily accessible for lessons directly through your Tutorfair account. What have we done? After lots of research with our development team, we have chosen a fantastic, versatile online classroom to integrate into the Tutorfair website. It was chosen because it has all the features tutors told us they would need to conduct great lessons online - and all in one place! Since integrating the classroom, we have run pilot tests with some fantastic tutors (thanks for the help guys!) and collected LOTS of feedback. We have since been working on improving the classroom experience for all users. What’s new and exciting the classroom? The online classroom is specifically designed to enhance the experience of online learning.  It has a range of teaching tools and features that will help tutors conduct engaging lessons for students. These include: Video, audio and chat facilities A whiteboard to draw on The ability to incorporate documents, images and videos onto the whiteboard Screenshare Learning tools such as Wolfram Alpha and LaTeX tool The work done in the classroom can be saved as images straight to the user’s computer. What’s great is that both the tutor and student will be able to access the classroom directly from their Tutorfair account - either from their messages, or lessons/bookings pages. How we are moving forward We’ve had some really lovely feedback from our pilot tutors so far! Katherine was very excited about all of the features of the classroom. She particularly liked the whiteboard, the video embed feature, the screenshare and the ability to upload pictures/documents and write on them. Luke, a Science and Maths tutor, really likes the Wolfram Alpha feature. He considers this to be a big advantage to the classroom and says that things will be much easier. Juliette observed that the classroom is very user-friendly and thinks it’s a great piece of technology! With the feedback collected from our pilot period, we’re implementing some small changes to improve the online classroom experience. The one big project we’re working on is being able to provide a lesson recording, so that tutors and students can go back and watch/listen to their lesson. In the meantime, we’re inviting tutors to get in touch if they would like to trial the classroom. Just send us an email to support@tutorfair.com! The online classroom is an incredibly exciting project that is giving us lots of scope for future development, so if you would like to be kept updated, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us.

How to Become Bilingual When Your Memory Sucks 5 Flexible Strategies to Beat Defeat

How to Become Bilingual When Your Memory Sucks 5 Flexible Strategies to Beat Defeat How to Become Bilingual When Your Memory Sucks: 5 Flexible Strategies to Beat Defeat Hang on.What were you just thinking about?Cant remember, huh?Maybe it was all those late nights in college.Maybe you have too many important things to keep track of these days.Whatever the reason, your memory just isnt as stretchy and sticky as it used to be.Its hard to grab hold of any fact and cling to it.You cant remember what day of the week it is. You cant remember what you had for breakfast. Heck, you probably cant even remember why you clicked on this article.So let me remind you: You want to become bilingual.But maybe youre hesitant. A whole language? Thats a lot of words to learnâ€"can you really memorize all of them? How long will that even take?And grammarâ€"chances are just hearing the word subjunctive gives you unpleasant flashbacks to high school Latin.Well, Ive got good news for you. Even if your memory isnt what it used to be (or if it never was that great to begin with), there are a few basic strategies you can use to take the heavy memorization burden out of your la nguage learning.While were on the topic, theres also a strategy I know of that you can use to remember what you had for breakfast. This is the easy part: To remember what you had for breakfast, just eat the same thing for breakfast every day.OK, now on to the harder part. These strategies for becoming bilingual below are a little more involved, but with some time, commitment and a plan, plus  a little bit of creativity, theyre almost as foolproof.Lets begin by talking about how to get going on becoming bilingual from the very start, before youve even really begun learning a language. How to Become Bilingual When Your Memory Sucks: 5 Flexible Strategies to Beat Defeat1. Start with a 70-day Language Learning WarmupOne of the more overwhelming aspects of trying to become bilingual for the first time is just how many different things you have to deal with when learning a language.Between syntax, vocabulary, pronunciation, spelling and listening comprehension, it can feel like youre ac tually trying to learn many languages at once rather than just one.And for those whose memories could better be described as fickle than photographic, having to memorize tons of new material and worry about all these other aspects of language learning means that things can get out of hand pretty quick, and before you know it youre re-gifting your copy of Acme Languages Self-Teach Turkish 101 to your bewildered nephew.Theres a better way to become bilingual.Instead of trying to memorize a boatload of vocab and learn a language at the same time, just get the memorization out of the way first, and then start learning the language.I realize that might sound strange. This isnt your grandmas language learning strategy. But it works.It works because to be in good shape to learn a language, really good shape, you only need to memorize 100 words.Maybe it doesnt seem like having 100 words under your belt would make a big difference on your path to becoming bilingual, but just stop and think a bout it for a minuteâ€"in English, the 100 most common words account for about 50% of all written language.I mean, sure, loquacious is an English word, but would the quality of your everyday life as an English speaker be greatly impoverished if you didnt know what it meant?The idea behind the 70-day language learning warmup is to take a couple months to familiarize yourself with the 100 most important words in the language youre learning, so that on day 71â€"when you start actually working on becoming bilingualâ€"most of the words youre seeing arent showing up out of thin air and asking to be immediately memorized.Days 1-5: PronunciationYou cant memorize what you cant pronounce, so the first five days of the language learning warmup are all about learning the sounds of your new language.Try to spend a minimum of 15 minutes a day on this. Look up a pronunciation guide for the language youre learning (try Googling [language] alphabet pronunciation or [language] pronunciation guide, re placing [language] with the language youre becoming bilingual inâ€"heres the kind of thing to look for) and spend 10 of those 15 minutes going through it.Unless the language youre learning is extremely obscure, you should be able to find a free pronunciation guide with audio.For the other five minutes of your pronunciation work, you want to listen to any excerpt of the language you can get your hands on. An easy way to do this is to get an audiobook in the language youre studying  and listen to a different excerpt from it every day. Movies are also good for this, as is foreign language radio.Once youve picked your listening material, just listen for five minutes uninterrupted.You wont understand anything youre hearing, so heres how you should be listening: Pay attention to the inflections of the speakers voice and try to count how many sentences you hear total over the course of the five minutes. If you lose track, just keep counting and try to get as close as possible.This exercise might seem a little pointless, but theres a scientific reason behind it: Research (for example, this study and this one) has found that this kind of listening is an efficient way to learn the sounds of a language. It will help you start to make sense of how those sounds fit together and what syllables are most common in the languageâ€"but only if youre paying attention to the material youre listening to.Counting sentences keeps your focus on the sounds youre hearing.All the better if you can put in more than 15 minutes a day going through your pronunciation guide and doing some attentive listening, but even if you cant, youll find youve gotten a basic feel for how the language sounds after five days.Days 6-35: One Word a Day from the 100 Most Common WordsOn day 6 of your language learning warmup, move from working on pronunciation to learning vocab.Find a list of the most common words in the language you want to become bilingual in by Googling something along the lines of 100 most common [language] words. Make sure it actually lists them in order of frequency and isnt just a list of random common words someone threw together without any researchâ€"heres a good example of what you want.Then, from days 6-35, learn one word a day, so by the end of day 35, youll have the 30 most common words down.Every day, your process should look something like this:After you get up in the morning (or as early in the day as possible if your morning routine consists of rolling out of bed, looking around wildly, seeing what time it is and making a mad dash for the subway), find the word of the day on your list of common words, look up the pronunciation on Forvo or by Googling [word] pronunciation, write the word down on a piece of paper and put the paper in your pocket.For a nice added touch, you can also draw a picture associated with the word on the paper, because visual associations always make things easier to remember.Then,  at least 10 times at intervals throughout the day, try to remember the word and say it to yourself. If you cant remember it, no worries, just take the paper out of your pocket and look it up. Keep doing this until you go to bed.When you wake up the next morning, try to remember yesterdays word, look it up one more time if you cant, then move on to your new word and start the daily process all over again.If you find you sometimes have a hard time remembering a certain word or if by the time you get to day 35 you no longer have any clue what the word you memorized on day 6 was, dont sweat it. The point isnt to be able to remember all these words perfectly by the time you finish the 70-day warmup, but rather to familiarize yourself with them and get them into your awareness so that once you do start learning your language and using them in context, they stick much more easily.Days 36-70: Two Words a DayWhen you get to day 36, its time to up the ante and start doing two words a day. Keep the same process from days 6-35, but cross off t wo words from your list every day.Besides letting you move through words 30-100 twice as fast as words 1-30, going from one to two words daily when you get to day 36 pushes you to flex your memorization muscles. So once you get to day 71 and start the real work on becoming fluent, youll be on intimate terms with the 100 most common words in your language and your memorization skills will be better than they were two months ago.Days 71+Once you hit day 71, get started on actually learning your language. You might be rusty on some of the words you did during the 70-day warmup, but when you go back to learn them in the normal course of your language studying, youll find they stick more easily.Youll still have to put in some good memorization time, and you might want to get yourself a flashcard app, but the amount of memorization wont be as overwhelming as if you hadnt gotten to know the 100 most common wordsâ€"which will free up your mind to give more attention to things like grammar a nd thus make everything a little easier.But where exactly do you go from here? Read on.2. Set Weekly Language Learning GoalsWhen youre working on becoming bilingual for the first time, the sheer volume of stuff you have to learn can be overwhelming. On the bad days, you might feel lost in the middle of an ocean of words and grammatical structures with no land in sight.The best way to avoid this feeling is to set concrete weekly language learning goals so you can measure your progress and have something to work towards every week. These goals can include memorizing a list of vocab words, getting down a certain grammatical construction or even just working through a text.Slow and steady is always better than fast and erratic in learning a language, so set goals youre pretty sure you can reach in a week. Try to push yourself, for sure, but its okay  to sometimes err on the side of setting less ambitious goals you know you can reach rather than lofty goals that end in frustration. Youll be surprised how quickly modest steps add up.If you hit points of frustration in your journey to becoming bilingual, the antidote is just to set specific goals and not worry about anything else. The secret to learning any language is to learn to value improvement.When you find yourself thinking, Wow, my reading comprehension sucks and its not getting any better, just say, Okay, Im going to read this article and take however much time I need to understand it.When you find yourself thinking, Ive been doing this for months and theres still so many words I dont understand! say, Whatever, Im going to just get down this list of 15 vocab words this week.Learning a language is a pretty massive task, so sometimes the best way not to let it get to you is to simply focus on meeting concrete, short-term goals on a regular schedule and let the rest fall into place by itself.3. Expand on Your Vocab Learning with the Four-line Dialogue TechniqueYou can take a lot of the stress out of vocab learni ng by thinking of it not as an exercise in memorization but as a process of integrating new words into your lexicon that youre actually going to use to communicate (after all, thats the whole point of becoming bilingual).An easy way to move from mere memorization to learning for the sake of communication is by ending every vocabulary study session with an ad-libbed, four-line dialogue that uses one or more of the words youre learning.The idea is simple: Create a four-line dialogue between two imaginary people in real time, two lines for each person. But write one persons lines and speak the other persons lines. Make sure to use the vocab word(s) youre working on at least once in the dialogue. So if youre trying to memorize the word “life,” your dialogue might look like this:Person 1 (written): Hello.Person 2 (spoken): Hello. How are you?Person 1 (written): Im doing well. How are you?Person 2 (spoken): My life is a disaster.This exercise is a winner because it accomplishes so man y things at onceâ€"it helps you learn vocabulary by using it in context, it makes you more fluent at producing the language in real time and it integrates your speaking and writing.Of course, you can do several of these dialogues at a time, and theres no reason you have to limit yourself to four lines if youre feeling creative. I just like four lines because it doesnt take very much time and Im impatient.4. Dont Just Become BilingualBecome Bi-sing-ual!No, thats not the title of a little-known Glee spinoff. Its the best advice I have on how to get out of the memorization doldrums.Music is like steroids for your memory, only without all the bad health effects. Think of any song you know the lyrics to and then ask yourself, would you have memorized all those words without the accompanying music?Just by picking a song you like, listening to it repeatedly and memorizing it, you can learn a wealth of new words. Even better, because music tends to be structured in a way that brings out the grammatical patterns behind the lyrics, learning songs is a great technique for internalizing grammatical constructions in the language youre becoming bilingual in.To get the most mileage out of this technique, you really should memorize the songs, or at least excerpts from them. Your process could look something like this:Pick a song you want to memorize in the language youre learning. An easy way to find songs is just to Google best [language] songs. Cant go wrong with the best.Find a copy of the lyrics online by Googling [song name] lyrics in your target language.Choose an excerpt from the song you want to focus on, then go through it with a dictionary to make sure you understand everything the song is saying.Listen to the song, following along with the lyrics. Repeat until you get to the point where you can understand in real time what the song is sayingâ€"first with the written lyrics, then without.Listen to the song a few more times. You can do this passively while youre doin g some mundane task like you would with any other music. The idea is just to get it in your head.Try singing the first line of the song from memory. If you cant remember it, play the first line of the song, then sing it back.Once you get the first line, do the second line. Then put them together. Repeat with larger chunks of music until you can sing the entire excerpt.Youll find that by the time you get to the last step, the first step where you make an effort at memorization, you already have a lot of the song stuck in your head just from going over the lyrics in detail and listening so much.This exercise is a fun way to add new words to your vocabulary and plant new grammatical structures firmly in your mind. Itll also give you some cultural literacy to go with your new language skills.5. Do One-sentence SummariesWhen youre working on becoming bilingual, it can be easy to put in an intense language learning session, then go about the rest of your life totally forgetting about ever ything language-related once you finish studying.You could theoretically learn a language this way, but youll find your language studying goes much more smoothly if you occasionally remind yourself what youve been working on over the course of your day.In particular, your memorization will go better if you take a minute every now and then to put your brain back in language learning mode and keep everything fresh in your mind.One way to do this without taking much time is to do one-sentence summaries. Of what? Of anything and everything.Just had a good sandwich for lunch? Describe it in a single spoken or written sentence, using vocab youve learned in the language youre becoming bilingual in, or looking up new words as necessary.Just watched an interesting movie? Do the same thing.Just finished a meeting? Do a one-sentence summary.Read a news article? One-sentence summary.By using the language at regular intervals throughout your day, even if only for a single sentence, youll get eve rything youre studying to stick in your mind better.You dont need to have a killer memory to become bilingual.Doing a 70-day language learning warmup, using music as a memory aid, setting concrete goals you know you can meet and regularly using new words in context with four-line dialogues and one-sentence summaries will take a huge burden off your memory and let you pick up a new language even if everything that happened more than five minutes ago is mostly just a vague blur in your mind.But even if youre the kind of person who remembers not just what you had for breakfast but what you had for breakfast on this day three years ago and what day of the week it was, these techniques will still make your life easier if you give them a whirl.The truth is that no matter who you are, the amount of memorization involved in learning a language is daunting.The whole point of language is to make it possible for people to express anything they could ever want to express, so that gives you an i dea of just how much stuff there is to memorize.Make these tricks part of your language learning routine, though, and youll remember everything except why you ever doubted your ability to become bilingual!

American United School of Kuwait

American United School of Kuwait American United School of Kuwait American United School (AUS) is located in the Sabah Al Salem Area of Kuwait at the Intersection of 6th Ring Road and Fahaheel Expressway. American United School is a modern, 12,000 square meter facility. The Founding Director came on board October 2012. Support staff which included a finance office, an admission/registration office, purchasing office, and administrative assistants began work in early 2013. The first phase of the facility, the elementary building opened September, 2013. Gaining approval/license from the Kuwait Ministry of Private Education required a name change and, therefore, American University School became American United School. The teaching staff of 24 teachers, 11 co-teachers and 39 staff members were on board to support grades Pre-K through grade 5 and the 68 students for SY 2013-2014. The end of year enrollment was 103 students and the student population represented 11 nationalities. The second year (SY 2014-2015) saw 270% growth and the addition of the Middle School operating on the upper floor of the Elementary School Building. That second year, the teaching staff increased to 52 teachers, 23 co-teachers, 52 staff members and a student enrollment of 383 students. There were 28 nationalities represented in the student population. Additional personnel to assist and reinforce teaching and learning were added: Middle School Principal and Assistant Principal, Elementary Assistant Principal, Curriculum Specialist, Swimming Coaches, Information Management Officer, and other administrative support staff. American United Schools third year, Fall 2015, represented a facility milestone as the Middle School building opened for the 137 students in grades 6-9. Grade 9, which was called at the time Freshman Academy, occupied space in this facility awaiting the finishing touches of the High School (HS) building. With a total student population of 524 students representing 34 nationalities, staff requirements increased to 112 members of faculty. For SY 2016-2017 the High School building opened to grade 9-10 students. The student population reached 769 and the AUS faculty increased to 133. The enrollment for SY 2017-2018 is 901 with the addition of grade 11. During that year, the faculty enrollment increased to 165. For the current school year 2018-2019 grade 12 is added, faculty increased to 174 and the enrollment reached 1045. AUS achieved International Accreditation by the Council of International Schools (CIS) on February 2018, and by the Middle States Association of Colleges Schools (MSA-CESS) for the period May, 2018 to May 2018.