Build My English

Our focus is on giving students what they need to achieve their goals. Most of our students want to (1) speak better, (2) write better, (3) improve their vocabulary, (4) do well on the TOEFL, (5) or get a (better) job. Our classes are designed to help people in these areas.

To help people speak better, we offer courses in both conversation and accent reduction. In our conversation courses, students practice speaking on topics given by the teacher. (Students can also bring in topics). The teacher listens to what students say and corrects their grammar and pronunciation. Most classes are fun and all of them provide a lot of information. Our accent reduction class helps students improve their pronunciation by giving them practice on sounds, words, phrases, and sentences that give them difficulty.



Writing is probably the most difficult English skill to master. Our writing classes give students the opportunity to learn from an expert. First, we work on how to organize an essay. Second, we practice creating that organization. Third, we work on choosing the right words and putting them in the right order. Fourth, a lot of time is spent on how to use “transitions” between sentences and paragraphs. Finally, students review what they write for mistakes. Even excellent writers regularly find mistakes in what they write.



Our vocabulary courses focus on words and idioms that are frequently used in conversation. Classes use a book (Building Vocabulary Skills, by Sherrie L. Nist, $17) with 30 chapters and ten words per chapter. Each day in class, we go over at least one chapter. Students have the opportunity to do the exercises in the book for homework in order to practice using the words.  We then go over the answers the next day in class (if anybody did the homework!). In addition to using the book, the teacher also explains idioms and goes over the meanings of other words.



Our TOEFL preparation classes provide students with a lot of practice doing exercises that are similar to exercises on the actual TOEFL test. We do many speaking, listening, reading, and writing exercises, and review the answers that are not correct so that students understand them.