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Holiday Hours

Our showroom is closed for the holidays and will reopen for business on January 3rd. However, customer service and shipping/receiving will be operating on December 28th, 29th and 30th.

Thank you for your business in 2016 and we wish you the best for 2017!

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Twelve Days of Sales for the Holidays!

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Season’s Greetings everyone! It is hard to believe another year has gone by (well, we don’t want to believe it but the increased creaking of the bones makes it impossible to deny). If it is any consolation, this is the one time of the year when we have a sale. We can help you get some awesome resources for a (festive) song; at the same time, you can help us lower the number of books we have to count during our upcoming end of year inventory. Everyone wins! Here is how it works:

  1. This sale is 12 days long, though it is 12 English Central business days, making it December 10th to 23rd with a time out for eggnog on the 18th.
  2. All teacher resource and photocopiable books in our catalog are 25% off during the entire sale. Use promo code hohoho25 if you are shopping online.
  3. There is a different super sale item (up to 60% off) each of the 12 days. Check the flyer for details. Quantities are limited so make sure you order/buy as early in the day as possible.(For anyone ordering online, the daily specials appear in the “What’s New Section” of our website. Also, our website will not stop you from ordering if we have run out of stock, so you will receive a confirmation from office@englishcentral.net about stock after you place your order.)
  4. 80% off a limited number of class sets!
  5. The sale is valid online and in person in our Toronto showroom.
  6. While quantities last, each purchase of $50 or more will receive a free mystery book. You might luck out and get something you would have paid hundreds for!
  7. A miscellaneous collection of stuff that has been here for too long and needs a nice new home for the holidays will be on sale for as little as $2! (In the Toronto showroom only.)
  8. Spread the joy! Let your colleagues and students know about our CHRISTMAS! Sale.

 

Download the sale flyer.

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Post-truth: Trump Influences Oxford Dictionaries’ Word of the Year

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Who would have thought that a man who can rarely string together a complete sentence would influence what got chosen as Oxford Dictionaries’ word of the year? Well, the unthinkable has happened again. Donald Trump’s electioneering, along with Brexit, have popularized the use of the term “post-truth”, which is an adjective defined as ‘relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief’.

The term has been around for a decade, but its usage has gone mainstream during the past year, and often collocates with “politics”.

Read more on the meaning and the rise of the term (and see the other words on the shortlist) on the Oxford Dictionaries’ site.

 

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International Student Numbers in IEPs Officially Down

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The Open Doors report was recently released and it shows that while the number of international students enrolled in undergraduate and graduate programs in the United Stated increased by 7.1% in the 2015-2016 school year, the number of students in intensive English programs (IEPs) decreased. Enrollment in IEPs actually decreased by a substantial 14.6%. A representative from English USA attributes the dip in numbers to the decline in Brazil and Saudia Arabia’s funding of students wishing to study English overseas.

For a full analysis, go to Inside Higher Ed.

The full Open Doors report.

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Academics Be Warned: the Alt-right is Watching

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Like there isn’t enough good news these days, a new website “Professor Watchlist” was recently launched in the United States. This website seeks to expose liberal professors who contradict Alt-right ideas in the classroom. According to its website,

“The mission of Professor Watchlist is to expose and document college professors who discriminate against conservative students and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom.

For a fuller picture, please read more on Inside Higher Ed.

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Trump Victory Causes Spike in Interest in Canadian Universities

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Immediately following the election of Donald Trump, the Immigration Canada website crashed because it was overloaded by traffic from the United States. Some Americans thought to escape to Canada by studying here. The day after the election, the University of Toronto saw ten times US traffic to its site than the day before.

Furthermore, Google searches in the US for “colleges Canada” and “university Canada” on the day after the election were over 200% higher than any day in the past five years.

Read complete coverage in The Globe and Mail.

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Canada Sweetens the Pot for International Students

honey

On November 11th, the Canadian government announced a change to the Express Entry system, which is the system in which most people immigrate to Canada.

Effective November 19th, applicants who completed a degree in Canada will receive up to 30 additional points (scoring the highest level of proficiency on a language test only gets the applicant 22 points). It is believed that this change will help boost the number of international students choosing to study in Canada.

Read more in Canadian Business

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California TESOL: November 17th to 20th

This year’s California TESOL conference is being held in San Diego at the Town and Country Resort Hotel. English Central will be there and we will be joined by one of the fine publishers we represent, Express Publishing. Aside from having great resources on display, we will ahve a number of great giveaways too, so make sure that you come by our booth and say hi to Carrie and Alex.

Californi Tesol Conference site

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MATESOL PLS / IEP Mini-Conference: November 12th

Some teachers in the Boston area decided that they needed a professional development opportunity that speaks to the specific needs of teachers working in private language schools and Intensive English Programs, and from that the MATESOL PLS/IEP Mini-Conference was born. We are pleased to support and attend this inaugural event being held at CELOP at Boston University.

More information.

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Welcome to Liz Lee: New Texas Senior ESL Specialist

English Central is pleased to announce that Liz Lee is our new Senior ESL Specialist in Texas. We are honored and thrilled that Liz is bringing her considerable knowledge and experience to our team.

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Elizabeth Lee graduated cum laude from Vanderbilt University and attended Vanderbilt-in-Spain.  Her educational career began as a teacher of Spanish and English in Florida, California, and Arizona.  She eventually joined the publishing world as a sales representative in California and Arizona and a trainer for the Western Region with NTC Contemporary Publishing.  When NTC became a part of McGraw-Hill, she became a National World Language Consultant traveling throughout the United States to train teachers in best practices for language acquisition.  Next, she worked for many years with Cambridge University Press as an Independent Consultant which led her to be very familiar with the needs of ESL teachers and students.

Working with English Central in the great state of Texas, she will be able to provide new opportunities for success in the ESL classroom.  She is dedicated to helping her customers discover materials to support their curriculum and providing the best service possible.

She resides in Dallas with two dogs and has two adult sons.  One son is studying communications at FIT—Fashion Institute of Technology in NYC, and the other, a Texas State University graduate and owner of one of the dogs, is teaching ESL in France.