This week we welcomed 6 new starters to Lexis Byron Bay; from Japan, Chile, Brazil and Germany.
Mika from Japan is going to study here for 6 week and has a combined Intensive English and English and Surfing enrolment. She told me that she lives near the sea in Japan and bodyboards a lot but has only tried surfing once. When she returns to Japan she hopes that she feel confident enough to go out on her own. She already has an Upper Intermediate level of English, which isn’t surprising as she actually teaches English to children in Japan. Her ambition is to open her own school and she hopes that studying here will give her the confidence to go out and achieve that goal.
Mami is also from Japan and also has a very interesting reason to be here. She is a nurse and wants to be able to use her nursing skills in Australia. She needs to get an IELTS 7 for this so has enrolled for 4 weeks in order to learn about the IELTS exam and gain the skills and confidence she needs to take the test. She has already passed CAE so, hopefully, we can help her realise her goal. Another interesting fact about Mami is that she is currently here on her boyfriend’s sponsorship visa. She met him while in Australia and he is from France so they have to speak to each other in English. They have recently moved up to Byron Bay for his job as a chef.
Eva from Germany wants to improve her English for her job. She manages a planning and logistics team, which involves communicating with customers from all over the world. She said that the everyday basics, such as dates and specifications of orders are easy enough for her but she doesn’t have enough English confidence to run meetings or to deal with more complex issues. Her goals are to learn more vocabulary and to become more confident in speaking, which hopefully we can help her achieve in her 8 weeks here.
Martina from Chile has just left school and didn’t want to go to university straight away. Instead, she decided to follow her brother to Australia to improve her English and to enjoy the Australian way of life. When she was a child, she studied at an English speaking school for 9 years but later went to a Spanish school so now feels like she has lost her fluency and particularly needs to improve her vocabulary and pronunciation. When she returns to Chile, her goal is to study Physical Therapy and to work with athletes.
Raquel from Brazil is a fashion buyer and needs to improve her English for her job. She will continue to work part-time for her company in Brazil, which means that her work day will start at 10pm at night! She is currently only at Elementary level but she said that she finds grammar rules quite easy to learn and that speaking is the most difficult for her. In her free time she enjoys going to the gym and going running and is also a pretty good kite surfer.
Bruna is also from Brazil. She has just finished her studies in Psychology. She said that she needs to improve her English because so many psychology papers are only published in English. She will stay in Australia for 8 months and chose Byron Bay because she said it fits her dream lifestyle exactly. She is planning to work while she is here and is looking for work as a nanny as she has worked with children during her studies.
It was so nice to meet all our new starters today and we look forward to them settling into life in Byron and their classes.
Learn English in Byron Bay. Lexis English students study General English, IELTS, FCE, CAE, and English plus Surfing in a friendly and professional school right in the heart of Byron Bay and only 15 minutes from the beach.
