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Do you have any plan to pursue your further education abroad? Will you need English for your career or your education? If so, you may wish to investigate your options for learning, or improving, your English skills.   The TOEFL Test: TOEFL (Test Of English as a Foreign Language) is a test used by many colleges, universities, government agencies and exchange and scholarship programs in the US, UK and Canada as a means of evaluating the language skills of a person whose first language is not English.

 
You can find TOEFL study guides easily online with other recommended resources listed. You may be able to access some of the sample tests and prepare with personal study. Or you may look for a class with an instructor to help you prepare for the test.
 
ESL Classes: ESL classes are a common means for students to learn English with group of classmates. These can be in the form of an evening class with various individuals attending or may be part of a college program during the day. (more…)

To improve your English, we recommend you practice all the key skills of reading, writing, speaking and listening in English. In this article we will focus on improving your reading skills in English.   Practicing reading in English will help improve your understanding of English,knowledge of English vocabulary/phrases and understanding of English grammar.   Reading does not need to be boring. Below we look at ways of improving your reading skills in English - and we link to some top websites so you have instant access to authentic and interesting English reading material.

 
Newspaper articles are sometime difficult because they often use slang, idiom or specific cultural expressions which will be difficult for a low level learner to understand. For example, a couple of recent newspaper stories began: ‘How Leonardo DiCaprio scored big with Scorsese’(was immediately popular with) and ‘Iraq policy has lead to Blair’s downfall’ (decline in power, popularity or status.) (more…)

The Kentucky Consular Center in Williamsburg, Kentucky, has registered and notified the winners of the DV-2008 diversity lottery. The diversity lottery was conducted under the terms of section 203(c) of the Immigration and Nationality Act and makes available *50,000 permanent resident visas annually to persons from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States.

 
Approximately 96,000 applicants have been registered and notified and may now make an application for an immigrant visa. Since it is likely that some of the first *50,000 persons registered will not pursue their cases to visa issuance, this larger figure should insure that all DV-2008 numbers will be used during fiscal year 2008 (October 1, 2007 until September 30, 2008).
 
Applicants registered for the DV-2008 program were selected at random from over 6.4 million qualified entries received during the 60-day application period that ran from 12:00 AM on October 4, 2006, until midnight, December 3, 2006. The visas have been apportioned among six geographic regions with a maximum of seven percent available to persons born in any single country. During the visa interview, principal applicants must provide proof of a high school education or its equivalent, or show two years of work experience in an occupation that requires at least two years of training or experience within the past five years. Those selected will need to act on their immigrant visa applications quickly. Applicants should follow the instructions in their notification letter and must fully complete the information requested.
 
Registrants living legally in the United States who wish to apply for adjustment of their status must contact the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services for information on the requirements and procedures. Once the total *50,000 visa numbers have been used, the program for fiscal year 2008 will end. Selected applicants who do not receive visas by September 30, 2008 will derive no further benefit from their DV-2008 registration. Similarly, spouses and children accompanying or following to join DV-2008 principal applicants are only entitled to derivative diversity visa status until September 30, 2008.
 
The application period for the DV-2009 lottery ends at 12:00 pm Eastern time on December 2, 2007. Applicants must apply electronically through the form available at dvlottery.state.gov. Results will be announced in the fall of 2008.
 
From: www.state.gov
 
Statistical Breakdown of the winners. Click Here

It is Halloween at Palo Alto Adult School and Marta is dressed for the occasion in long black robes and a three-foot witch’s hat.   “Oh Marta, I love those shoes,” teacher Elizabeth Bales-Stutes exclaims.

 
Before replying, Marta appears confused. She moves her lips first to form the words, then measures them out.
 
“Yes, my step-daughter bought them,” Marta replies.
 
Marta, an elderly Eastern European woman, smiles.
 
She has performed her first task correctly. “ESL Advanced Low,” Bales-Stutes writes slowly on the board, signaling the class had begun.
 
English as a Second Language (ESL), the Palo Alto Adult School’s most popular class, attracts a variety of foreign students and immigrants like Marta. The class convenes each Monday and Wednesday night on the Palo Alto High School campus and aims to provide students with a better grasp of English, teaching the adults a variety of speaking, reading comprehension and cultural lessons. (more…)

BRUSSELS, Belgium: A plan to set up a European “Blue Card” workers visa program to lure skilled labor to Europe was met with skepticism by EU nations Thursday, many of which questioned the need for the bloc to take a bigger role in national immigration policies. Many EU justice and interior ministers raised reservations at talks here over whether the EU should be launching a global job advertising blitz when such plans to set up a U.S.-style “Green Card” workers permit were already under way in most EU capitals.

“The whole question of legal migration should remain the purview of national member states because they are responsible for their own employment markets,” German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaueble told EU officials who drafted the highly touted plan, which has been under way for more than three years. (more…)

The two main examinations of second-language-learners’ English-language skills are IELTS (created by the International English Language Testing Service) and TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language). The two are similar but by no means identical, and candidates for both tests regularly ask which is the better – and often which is the easier – of the two.

The similarities between the two are that both test writing, listening, and reading skills, in addition to one other skill area. In the case of IELTS, the additional area is speaking; for TOEFL, it is what the test-makers call ‘Structure’, which tests written expression from the standpoints of sentence completion and error recognition. One factor that makes many test-takers consider IELTS the more difficult of the two tests is its speaking module, which requires the candidate to participate in a formal interview with an examiner face to face.

IELTS rates candidates’ submissions with ‘band’ scores (0 to 9, including half-bands between), given first to each of the four skill modules and then averaged for one IELTS band score, which is the one university admissions programmes use as their determinant for accepting students. TOEFL, by contrasts, assigns numerical scores much like those of the SAT test to each of the skill areas and then totals them. The totals are the ones used to determine a candidate’s English skill level. (more…)

General Information: The Social Security system was set up in the 1930s to provide financial assistance to the disabled and elderly. Employers and employees are required to pay social security taxes to contribute to this fund. Each United States citizen and permanent resident (Green Card holder) has a unique social security number in order to maintain records of the funds being established, as well as to allocate benefits to those who are entitled to receive them.

Some temporary visitors, students and workers on non-immigrant visas are also allowed and sometimes required to obtain a Social Security number. The Social Security card is a very important document in the United States. (more…)

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Myusgreencard.com assists persons seeking US Citizenship to apply for the US green card lottery.

We are not affiliated with the US Government or US Citizenship and Immigration Services and do not guarantee applicants have a better chance of winning a US visa by applying for the Diversity Lottery using our service. We are well-versed in the terms and conditions for application to the US Diversity Lottery. Our service provides the electronic submit needed to enter the green card lottery on your behalf. You provide the information, and for a fee we review and submit your application.