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 — December 11
Alan has sent me a highly interesting article he came across in «The Independent Online Edition» which says that half the world's population will be speaking or learning English by 2015. Just imagine for a moment; it is estimated by the British Council that within the next 10 years two billion people will have started learning English and even three billion will actually speak it. Three billion people! That's an amazing figure, isn't? For further reading you should google the words «Global Conference on International Education» — that's an international event recently held in Edinburgh.
Can you imagine what three billion potential learners of English mean for us? Yes, we at english-test.net are willing to create a place where you can practise and improve your English and on top of all that you have the opportunity to share your learning experiences with people from around the world. If you want more information on the importance of the English language you can join our conversation here. Why is everybody learning English?

2004 — December 08
Are you preparing for the TOEFL? Do you need some advice on how to score higer marks in that English language exam? Now you can join our exchange of experiences on the TOEFL Prep Forum: How to prepare for the TOEFL?. The thread was started by Kenya, an American internist from Colorado who speaks Mandarin and is married to a Chinese woman. His wife Ming has taken the TOEFL several times in a row because her employer requires a score of 215 and so far she has always been below that. Kenya has described his wife's situation in detail and I'm sure you will pick some interesting information for your own TOEFL preparation program.

2004 — November 30
Do you also experience something like this sometimes: There are so many different events happening that you have a hard time following everything and you get somewhat sidetracked. As far as english-test.net is concerned we have been looking for areas on which to concentrate our efforts in 2005 and as a result you will be able to practise the vocabulary words you need to know when you want to take the GMAT or any other exam offered by ETS. Yes, there are a lot of abbreviations and acronyms related to English language tests and creating a comprehensive glossary covering all the various terms is one of our goals for next year. As you know we are working on english-test.net part time which means we have other jobs to do as well so please bear with us if the GMAT, SAT, GRE, and TOEFL vocabulary tests take a little longer to get up and running than we had initially planned. I'm currently preparing for a two day seminar for IT executives who are on an executive training program. The course started in September this year and has been conducted at the Intershop Tower in the city of Jena. I was there in Business Blog January 2004 and April this year running two three similar program and this time I'm facing a real challenge because in the current group there are 5 people whose English is at least as good as mine. Anke, a young woman from Jena even spent 7 years in the US because her husband worked in Silicon Valley as an IT specialist. Carsten who is originally from Stuttgart worked one year for an IT company in Calgary, Canada. Last week we I had the opportunity to work with that group for two days and I enjoyed it hugely because it was an effective exchange of knowledge and experiences rather than your usual business English course. The key to success in conducting seminars for executives is a mixture of proper planning, flexibility and diversity of methods. This time we are going to cover 3 main topics: Specialized TOEIC based communication training, self-management strategies and alternative online business models. Sounds a bit of a mouthful? Well, there is a lot of fun involved too...

2004 — November 22
Our latest interview with Jeff Hock reveals the story behind Phrasebase.com - a website where you can learn a lot about every country, language and culture of the world. Jeff started his project back in 1997 when he used to work for Autodesk, an international US based software company and he was sent to Tokyo. Because he didn't know one single word of Japanese, Jeff had to struggle with common, everyday tasks and the vast amount of books, tapes and CD's he had bought weren't of much help to him. Instead of trying to cram Japanese words and grammar into his head he started to keep a small diary book writing down everything he wanted to say when he needed to say it. This way, he built his own custom phrasebook and very soon an idea emerged: Why not create a tool that allows other people to learn new phrases at their own pace too? So he published the contents of his phrase diary on the Internet adding interactive features as well as cross-cultural information and learning methods and Phrasebase.com was born. Today more than 3000 users access his website and many of them sign up with the Phrasebase Forum where they can meet people from all around the world to share their language learning experiences and exchange cross cultural information. What I like about Phrasebase is that you can find almost everything about any country in the world. This is very handy because our english-test.net community is growing every day and it's always good to know some facts about the countries our members are from...