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 — September 03
A neologism or neology is a newly invented word or phrase. As productivity in many industrial fields has risen dramatically over the past decades our vocabulary grows at an incredible rate too. You must agree that language is the most valuable asset we possess and at the same time it's a skill we have to develop and refine throughout our lives. That's why you have come to this website — you want to improve your English by learning new words and expressions. If you have joined english-test.net only recently you should subscribe to our newsletter — it is very pleasant to read and you will pick up a great number of useful phrases and their origins. When I started the newsletter in 2001 it was very similar to the netlog — it mainly contained information on Internet business and e-learning and each issue was rather short. The same was true of the list of subscribers. It takes a lot of experience and expertise to publish a newsletter that attracts and keeps thousands of readers from all over the world.
Alan Townend re-launched the English-test.net Newsletter in July 2003 and as of today we have more than 2300 subscribers. In addition the email based version you can also download each issue of the newsletter in PDF format and print it off for further study at home or at school. Alan's essays are also very informative and entertaining for native speakers of English. You can check this out for yourself by reading one of the back issues here: Newsletter

2004 — September 02
As english-test.net is all about «English as a Second Language» we can cover almost any topic here in our netlog because each entry is written in an easily understandable language. The idea is for you to read a short text every single day — a method that gradually increases your comprehension and vocabulary and on top of this you learn something new about the ESL market, Internet business and a number of related topics. Way back in the mid 90's one of my first email accounts was at bigfoot.com As far as I can remember Bigfoot.com was pioneering the free web based email market even before Hotmail and Yahoo launched their services. In Germany you were considered «cool» if you had an email address with a dot com domain because .de used to be standard. Almost 10 years later bigfoot.com offers various product lines one of which is Cleverlearn — software based learning tools for ESL students. One of their brands is called «Clicktionary» and I would say it's their flagship. As the name suggests Clicktionary is software that allows you to look up the meaning of a word by clicking on it. If you are familiar with Babylon — software that is very similar to Clicktionary and might have even served as some kind of prototype, you will get acquainted with Clicktionary in no time.
It seems that Cleverlearn follows the example of Babylon in marketing their product as well: When Babylon was released in the mid 90's it used to be free of charge for a while until it reached a certain level of popularity and then the company decided to make money from their product by selling it at a retail price. At this point Clicktionary is freeware too — you can download and install the program at no cost. This is what I did today and I must admit I'm quite pleased with the performance of Clicktionary. That's why I have contacted the company requesting more information on how we could possibly cooperate with them. English-test.net is going to be one of the most popular places for ESL students and the Clerverlearn products could enhance their learning process. You might want to know how I found out about Cleverlearn? Well, through Google's Adsense program — the adverts of Cleverlearn are frequently displayed on our pages, a fact that makes me like Cleverlearn even more...

2004 — September 01
On August 29 I announced that I would tell you something about the English language teachers in Leipzig and today I'm returning to the subject. ESL — English as a Second Language is an industry like any other area of business, which means that the «supply and demand principle» dominates the market. First, let's take a look at the demand side: Learning a language is like doing a sport — you can practise it for many years continually reaching a higher level of proficiency. More and more companies require a good command of the English language from their employees so there is an endless demand for English language courses. Now, Germany is still a country with an extensive social security system and as a result the government makes?a lot of decisions for their citizens. If you are out of work - and that's a typical situation millions of Germans are facing - you are likely to be offered a state funded education program often including English language tuition. This means you sit in a classroom with 15 - 20 other unemployed people from all walks of life and for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week you try to learn English. In most cases you are overwhelmed with information and instructions after the first 2 - 3 hours and on the second day you have a hard time to remember what you learned the day before. Chances are your teacher is a young person from the US or UK who came to Germany because they wanted to explore Europe and teaching English happened to be the ideal means of acquiring some income and getting to know the locals. Now, the vast majority of those English teachers are freelancers, that means, they have to find contracts with a variety of schools and education facilities to make ends meet. In addition to state funded schools there are also a number of private schools that offer English language courses to people who themselves pay for the lessons . A state funded school can only exist if it has a good relationship with the local authorities especially the powerful «Federal Employment Agency», which provides the funding for further education programs attended by unemployed people. Sounds like a complicated system? Well, that's how our society is structured and it's a rather different from the situation in other countries such as the US. And that brings us back to the native speakers who teach their mother tongue to Germans. Maybe, we should discuss those things later on?

2004 — August 31
Now you can read one new entry in the netlog every day at least until the end of this year. After all, this is what a diary is all about — a chronological report that covers every event connected with a certain topic. I've spent the last two days in a private language school in Hamburg observing a unique method of teaching English. It's called the Callan Method and I must admit I've never seen students making such progress with their learning so fast. As of now there is only one school in Germany that offers Callan method English courses but I'm convinced that within the next 2 — 3 years there will be lots of schools that apply this system because it has many advantages over the conventional way of learning English. First of all, you can save a lot of time if you learn English following the Callan Method. Second you gain self-confidence when you realize that you are actually capable of learning English. Thirdly you will probably save money too because instead of paying large sums of money on lessons you can acquire the same level of proficiency within A much shorter period of time and as result for much less money. In addition the Callan Method provides lots of benefits to English teachers who use the system in their classrooms one of which is you get all the materials you ever need to conduct your lessons in one set. If you want to teach English by the Callan Method it might take you between 5 and 30 days to learn everything you have to know to give your first set of lessons. With any other Teacher Training Programme you have to study for several weeks if not years until you are able to teach English as a second language and even then you have to do a lot of preparation. So, let's check back in say, half a year to see how the Callan Method has spread across Germany and Europe. In the meantime you can learn more about this system as well as other ESL and Internet topics here in the netlog.