WELCOME

Welcome to the Lydbury Newsletter for April 2011. We hope you find our news and tips interesting and useful - but we would always welcome a short article from you. Please use our contact form to send us your news and views. We cannot guarantee that we will publish everything and we reserve the right to edit.

NEW! CONTACT SERVICE

If you are trying to contact someone who was a student here, please ask us and we will publish your name (not email) and the name of the person you are trying to find. If that person contacts us, we will put you in touch.

PRIZEWINNER

Silvana Roatta from Dayco Europe SRL has now been here to enjoy her free week on our 50/50 programme. Please read more information below.

LYDBURY PEN

We sent out quite a few pens as a result of our February newsletter and we are very happy to continue the offer.

If you have been to Lydbury, you will know the triangles. To format the triangles properly, you need black, blue, red and green colours. We are pleased to have commissioned a very smart pen which provides all these colours - and you can have one FREE! Please follow the link at the bottom of this newsletter.

SOCIAL MEDIA

As you know, social media is a really powerful and helpful tool. Lydbury has a very strong social media presence - we can now be followed on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. We would, of course, be grateful for your comments. And please "like" us on our facebook page when you get there.

Click on the icons below to connect to us.

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LOCAL REPRESENTATIVES

Once again, we are looking for people who work with languages and communication skills in the corporate sector who could recommend students to come on a course at Lydbury. You might only be able to send us one or two students per year - but you might be looking for an entire company solution. Either way is fine - and we are here to help you find that solution.

If you know anyone who is having problems communicating effectively in English, please get in touch with us. You will be doing a service to your contact, to us and to you.

Please fill in the survey form or contact us direct.

LYDBURY TIP

Don't forget the monthly Lydbury tip - see the bottom of the page.

Our prize winner...

We were delighted to welcome Silvana Roatta from Dayco Europe SRL here last week. Silvana won our December competition for a one week 50/50 course programme here at Lydbury. We have worked with Silvana for some years so it was a real pleasure to welcome her here in March.

Silvana writes:

It is a pleasure to study in a serious and professional environment with a relaxed atmosphere. Come to L.E.C. - you will immediately feel at home and you will miss it when you go back home!

We are very pleased that Silvana enjoyed her time here at Lydbury and hope that she will find her training with us to be useful in her future career.

Best wishes to you Silvana, good luck for the future.

Lydbury English Centre as part of our family...

Recently I introduced you to our daughter Kate who is now working with us at Lydbury. This month I would like to introduce you to our eldest daughter Emma and her husband Philip who run Progression Partnership.

Emma writes:

Progression Partnership specialises in all aspects of change. Our core philosophies build on the work of Russell Ackoff, W. Edwards Deming, Peter Scholtes and Peter Senge.  We therefore provide a full-range of services related to change.  These range from ‘hard’ skills (such as Lean – and the use of process maps) through to the Psychology of change.

We are delighted to invite you to visit the Progression Partnership Blog.  At the moment, this blog is being written in English.  The latest article asks whether company reorganisations make things better - or just cause stress and waste.  

If you would like to write a short story about any aspect of change - at work or in your community - you would be very welcome to post a guest article.  If you send it to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or me, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , we will give you feedback on your English too.  This is a great opportunity to share your ideas and practise your written English at the same time.

Progression Partnerhsip can be contacted via their website or by This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Lydbury English Centre as part of the community...

If you have been to Lydbury English Centre, you will know that we are at the centre of our local community - both in terms of geography and in terms of the way we work. We are currently part of a very active campaign to save our village school from the threat of closure; and we also continue to work as part of our community shop.

As we are a major part of our local economy, I have been interviewed several time recently on BBC radio Shropshire. On the last occasion I was asked to give my views on the budget - thank goodness we had an economist here at the time.

This month I would also like to introduce Andrey Egorov, managing editor of the Moscow-based language services company "Emporium Linguae".

Andrey writes:

Our company was founded by three language experts. Together, we have professional command of Russian, English, Serbian, Croatian, Indonesian, Nepali and Hindu.

That's the first thing that makes us different from language companies run by lawyers, economists, programmers and doctors. Translation is in our blood!

Another difference is that we only do what we love and can do really well — translate complicated specialized texts.

Technical description of an aircraft? Definitely our topic! Sophisticated legal agreement? Can handle that! Grandmother's hospital discharge report? Will translate it quickly and accurately!

Our tech guy will concentrate on the aircraft, the lawyer will translate the agreement, and the medical expert will take the hospital paperwork. Then, we will thoroughly edit and proofread it. Then, and only then, will I approve the document. And I will be responsible to you for our job.

It will not surprise you to know that Andrey is very happy to recommend Lydbury English Centre.

You can contact him via his website in Russian or in English or via his This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Citylangues

We have worked with this well-established, Paris based, training establishment for several years now. Not only do they provide excellent and flexible English training face-to-face and by e-learning, they also work in several other languages. We have recommended a couple of our clients to Citylangues to learn French for business and professional purposes; we have been delighted with the positive feedback.

Stefan Wheaton is the director, and he writes:

You can contact Citylangues via their website or by email.

The Lydbury Tip...

The Lydbury Tip this month is to remind you about Business Spotlight. Both the website and the printed magazine provide an immense amount of useful material for trainers and students alike.

Business Spotlight is a language magazine for everybody who needs English at work. Read about international business and intercultural issues — and learn business English, too.

Although it is mainly geared to the German speaking market, there is a great deal of material which can be used by people learning or teaching English for business and professional purposes, whatever your language background.

If you have any more questions on how to progress your own English language learning, please contact us. Our advice is free - we are here to help.

The Lydbury Pen...

As I said at the beginning of this newsletter, if you have been to Lydbury, you will know the triangles. The triangles come in black, blue, green and red: so does the pen.

But you can use it for other things as well!

So, if you would like a Lydbury pen, please click here to let me know. It's free!

Conclusion

As you can see, Lydbury is helping many people to improve language, communication and cross-cultural skills.

If you feel you are not as good at any of these skills as you would like to be, please contact us now. Our advice is free but your results might well be worth a lot in terms of improved business for your company, promotion for you and, of course, personal satisfaction.

If you are happy with your own communication skills, please tell one of your colleagues about us now. You can do that using the form on our website or via the "share" button on our home page. Or just forward this email now. Your colleague will be very grateful for the information.

Finally, if you are interested in representing us on a commercial basis, please fill in the survey form or contact us direct.

We all send you our best wishes and hope to see you or one of your colleagues here very soon.

Duncan Baker
Director
Lydbury English Centre
5 April 2011

+44 1588 681000