As our site grows every day we want to share some information with you on the way we are operating the project. We call this section «Business Blog» as it is similar to doing a log book where data is recorded in a chronological order. «Blogging» is gaining popularity with more and more people picking up the habit of publishing their experiences and thoughts on the Internet. Our Blog covers various topics — from TOEFL, TOEIC, MBA, GMAT, ESL/EFL test preperation to cultural traditions and current political events.
There will also be some Internet marketing terminology and if you have any questions regarding the information simply let us know.

The Business Blog is written by Torsten Daerr and edited by Alan Townend.

2003 — October 20
I'm really looking forward to the upcoming weeks as they promise to be very interesting. Alan has now written 146 tests each one containing 10 questions that are related to one topic and make up a mini episode, dialogue or story. This is one of the unique features of his tests — «contextualization» is the term that linguists use in this case. As you know from your own language learning experiences it is most effective to learn new words and phrases within a given frame, a context so that it is possible to guess the meaning of the unknown words. That's exactly the way you learned your mother tongue. You didn't know the words for the things, emotions, actions and all the situations you were experiencing. First there was the context — the situation and then someone — your parents and other adults delivered the appropriate words. You can do the same with any language you want to learn...

2003 — October 17
New jobs will be created predominantly in such industries as the media, training and education, entertainment and telecommunications. That's why we are working on a second project that is closely linked to english-test.net — leipziger.ru
There are more than 30.000 people in our area whose mother tongue is Russian and the majority of them are looking for ways of integrating into society,which can at times be difficult. Belonging to a nation means you have to speak the same language and this is crucial as far as the Russian speaking community in Germany is concerned — a large number of them regard Russian as their mother tongue and use it for almost all their communications.
Language training and integration programs organized and run by the state are inefficient and in some cases outright counterproductive: 20 and more participants representing various skillS and knowledge levels are thrown together into one group. Because the language courses are funded by tax money, the framework is set by state institutions. Usually these courses run Monday through Friday from 8 to 3 with one teacher for 6 to 12 months throughout.
What do you think is the effectiveness of such courses?

2003 — October 16
Sometimes I get emails from people asking me where Alan Townend and Slava Gromov live because on our website it just says «Europe» and there are quite a number of European countries. How right you are!
As you know Alan is British and that's where he lives — in Great Britain. Slava is from St. Petersburg near the Baltic Sea where he grew up and went through a number of experiences. Then he moved to Germany and now we are connected with Alan through our website. It still amazes me how a message can travel from one corner of the world to another within seconds. If used properly the internet can be the most powerful communication and training tool ever invented. Think about the tremendous potential for education and business projects: Professionals from different countries can work closely together without being forced to sit in an office from 9 to 5. Through the internet it is possible for the individual to maintain their own pace and working habits while at the same time being part of a team.
There are even more advantages to working online, wouldn't you agree?

2003 — October 15
Claudia from Italy has posted a very interesting issue on our forum — her question is how Spanish will develop in terms of being an internationally spoken language and whether it could reach the same popularity as the English language. This question raises a lot of talking points such as why English is the most widely spoken language worldwide and how this dominance will influence our economy and other parts of our society. Will other languages lose or maybe even gain importance through the spreading of the English language? I think many people use English as a means of international communication not just for the sake of the language but in order to learn more about the other person's culture and mentality. You can even start learning another language using English. Our forum has been around for about two weeks and our members already represent more than 10 different languages as their mother tongue. For example, there are many common words in English and Italian as both languages have the same roots. «Umbrella» for example is the same in Italian — just the pronunciation is slightly different…