Happy Fall! And almost Halloween…

Fall always brings new beginnings here at the Intensive English Language Program at MIIS. This year we have 24 new students representing The Netherlands, Iraq, United Arab Emirates, South Korea, Chile, Turkey, Japan, Korea, China, El Salvador, Vietnam and Argentina. Some of our students are returning and others are new with many experiencing their first time in America, how exciting! This year we have 7 teachers teaching a range of classes like Oral Communication, Reading & Writing, Test Preparation for the GMAT/TOEF/SAT, and fun electives such as Weird World, Media Literacy, International Politics, Accuracy in Spoken English and Pronunciation.

To complement their studies, the IESL program also offers activities and events. Just recently our Activities Coordinator, Lindsey Brown, set-up a Jack-O-Lantern Carving event for our students during their lunch hour on a gorgeous Friday afternoon. Along the tables outside of the Holland Center, pumpkins, carving knives and stencils kept our students busy. I asked a few students if they had ever seen a Jack-O-Lantern before and most of them said, “No!” Or maybe they had but never in person, nor had they  ever participated in the annual American tradition! Many of them have never tried pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread and all the other sweet pumpkin confections that this time of year brings.

Nowadays our offices are colored with orange and black, spiders, cobwebs and goblins and ghouls. It must be an interesting spectacle for them but something they are sure to enjoy. Thanks for reading, and maybe our students will come Trick-or-Treating to your door with their newly learned phrases to get some candy!