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.

2004 — August 30
Before you get the details about who teaches English in the private language schools in the city of Leipzig you might want to see the latest feature of english-test.net in action: If you now take one of Alan Townend's English tests you can click on a link right above each question you will be taken directly into the forum where you have two options: you can either ask for an explanation of a word, an idiom or why a certain answer is correct and yours is wrong. Those of you who have been regular users of our site are probably familiar with the forum support button already. The real novelty is that from now on every time Alan or one of our team gives an explanation on the forum a new link will automatically be created. Maybe this sounds complicated but in reality it's rather simple. To date there are 89 tests someone has asked a question about in the forum. You can easily identify those questions with further explanations because they have a link called "topic + number" next to the forum support link. OK, I think it's best if you try out the system for yourself, for example, you can take a look at this test — it has quite a few forum entries:
ESL test Back Again

2004 — August 29
It goes without saying that a good command of the English language is an essential requirement if you want to have a successful career or run your own business. That's why the so-called «ESL» market (English as a Second Language) is constantly growing. In every medium sized town throughout Europe you will find a variety of education facilities that offer English language tuition.
Take the city of Leipzig in East Germany for example: With a population of about half a million there s enough room for the big players as well as a number of smaller language schools. Let's take a closer look at them. Right after the Berlin wall came down Berlitz corporation entered the East German market and they have had a branch in the centre of Leipzig since the early 1990's. A few blocks down the street there is the Leipzig branch of Linguarama, another international language school franchise. Into the same category fall Inlingua and the Wallstreet Institute. The latter opened their Leipzig school only in the summer of 2002 increasing competition dramatically. In addition to those global corporations you will find about 30 smaller private schools many of which were established by English native speakers who came to Leipzig as freelance English language trainers.
Almost all of those school claim that they employ «qualified native English speakers», but that's very often far from the case. First of all you have to define «qualified«. Does that mean that the teacher has a university degree in teaching English as a Second Language or is any university degree sufficient? How do those schools recruit their teachers and what kind of training do they offer them if any? As far as Leipzig is concerned, clients of private English courses are in a peculiar situation. You can book a course at various schools for different prices and conditions but your English teacher might very well be the same. How is that possible? Let me explain tomorrow...

2004 — August 28
English-test.net is a place for lovers of the English language and all the materials are free for you to use. So, you might ask, where is the catch? — after all there is no such thing as a free lunch as the saying goes. Well, first we should define the term «free». You do need access to the Internet and you have to invest your time to answer our test questions, read Alan's stories and take part in our forum. It's almost the same as using a search engine — you can turn to Google or Yahoo as often as you want — the service is free for you. But isn't Google a company? Aren't there almost 2000 employees who receive pay cheques every fortnight? How does Google earn money if their services are free? The answer is AdWords. Google has been pioneering the online advertising industry when they introduced a unique system for advertisers that is much more efficient than banners and pop-up ads. Google has managed to create a situation in which all involved parties benefit equally: You as the user of web pages, the advertisers who offer products and services on the Internet, web publishers and website owners who want to add to value to their pages and of course Google who deliver relevant search results. Coming back to our initial question as to why english-test.net is free to use. We are taking part in Google's AdWord/AdSense program which means we display text-based adverts on our pages. The ads are labelled «Ads by Google» so you can easily distinguish between adverts and usual hyperlinks.

2004 — August 27
What are the differences between having a job and building a business? Well, Americans call a regular job a «9 to 5» because that's your normal working day — it starts at 9 in the morning and ends at 5 in the afternoon. If you are self-employed or you have your own company, how long you actually work depends on a number of factors. As you are your own boss, you determine when and where you want to work. With a website it's pretty much the same. No-one tells you what you have to do — you have the freedom to make your own decisions. That's one of my main goals: being able to choose what to do, when and with whom. When you depend on your job as your only source of income you are bound to make a lot of concessions. You have probably been in a situation where you were thinking to yourself: «If only I could quit this job!» but your financial circumstances forced you to carry on. You couldn't see an alternative way of earning a living so you resigned yourself to the fact that once a year you can go on that fancy summer holiday with your family. I have had similar experiences and every time someone else took a decision for me I became more convinced of this: I'm going to invest my time and energy into running my own projects so if someone asks me: What company do you work for? I can advertise my own brand.