ESL Programs in Seattle, Washington

Seattle Learning Academy:
Located in the center of Seattle, Washington, Seattle Learning Academy offers ESL programs with a difference. Communication is essential, and SLA students often find themselves speaking more during meetings, writing more emails, understanding more in the media, becoming more confident on the telephone, and connecting more with their communities. SLA teaches intermediate through advanced English as a Second Language (ESL) skills that other schools often don't address. In our pronunciation classes we address the ever-difficult r sound, and all the other vowels in English while in our Meeting and Presentation Class we show you how to direct a meeting, how to steer it into a new direction when it is necessary, and how to receive input from everyone involved. SLA's students benefit from this curriculum focus by becoming easier to understand, comprehending more, becoming more accurate in English, and increasing their confidence in every aspect of their English communication.

ESL Pograms:

Pronunciation 1:
You aren't sure what it is about your pronunciation that keeps people asking you to repeat yourself. Maybe you know you don't say 'th' or 'r' exactly like Americans, but you know there is more to it, and you want help figuring out what it is and how to make it better.

In the Pronunciation 1 (Accent Reduction 1) class, we identify every sound of American English. We teach you about common (and not-so-common) problems and offer solutions to help you break life-long speech habits. We help you understand the way Americans actually talk. We help you improve that ever-difficult r sound, and study all the vowels in English, teaching you to perceive them, then speak them.

Pronunciation 2
Most people realize they don't understand the use of pitch (called intonation) when everyone around them laughs at a subtle joke that they never even know occurred. And it seems like everyone around you is talking quickly, but when you talk at the same speed, suddenly people understand less of what you said. What is going on?

Our Pronunciation 2 (Accent Reduction 2) class covers the rhythm of spoken English. We talk about linking (speaking quickly AND understandably), sentence stress (how we create the songlike effect of English) and pitch (how we change the meaning of a sentence by raising or lowering our voice).

Intermediate Grammar Review:
Maybe you have given up using the word "the" altogether, when to use it and when not to seems to make no sense anyway. And you know (or knew at one time) that there are 12 aspects of verbs, but you have thrown away about half and get by with the safe and simple (even if not quite accurate) verb aspects you have grown comfortable with. You keep more formal emails safe, short, and simple as well, even if they are not as friendly sounding as you would like.

The intermediate Grammar Review class is meant for the person who hasn't had an English class in a while and can't find the right one to take because you've forgotten some of the beginning stuff, but you certainly don't need a beginner class. You need a reminder class to fill in the blanks of grammar topics you learned long ago, probably before you needed them as badly as you do now.

Advanced Grammar:
You've got pretty good English. You can get your ideas across pretty well. But you know you are using simple, short sentences. You don't know how to say exactly what you want to say, but you can get close. But sometimes you don't know if a word should have "to" before it, or if it should end in "ed", or in "ing". For example, "Mary saw John looking out the window," but "Mary stopped John to ask him a question," and "Mary hoped John wanted cake for dessert".

The Advanced Grammar class goes over some rather tricky and specific information. In addition to infinitives and gerunds and participles, we cover all the different ways of creating a conditional (an if... then phrase) and get you comfortable creating sentences made of multiple clauses. We also continue the battle with tricky verb aspects from the Intermediate Grammar Review class.

If grammar terminology is new to you (or so old you've forgotten) don't worry, we will ease you back into the world of nouns and verbs and clauses and punctuation. It is highly suggested taking the Intermediate Grammar Review class before this Advanced Grammar class if it has been more than 2 years since your last formal grammar class.

Meetings and Presentations:
The business world if filled with meetings. Whether you are in charge during the meetings or if you just need to attend them, this is a helpful class for the non-native English speaker. If you are conducting the meeting, how do you break free from your notes and slideshow, look up, and encourage participation from everyone? If you are attending a meeting, how do you politely cut into a dialogue to make you ideas heard?

The Meetings and Presentation class is filled with scenarios of everyday professional life in America. Your boss wants to send you to a meeting feeling confident that you can communicate in a way that represents the company well. PowerPoint and Keynote are great presentation tools, until they take over and the presenter depends on them too much.

As a good leader, it is important to bring teams together during meetings, getting ideas from everyone. This class will teach you how to direct a meeting, how to steer it into a new direction when it is necessary, and how to receive input from everyone involved.

Learn the vocabulary to begin meeting and presentations, to transition to a new topic, and to conclude a session. Gain confidence in your leadership skills, even when you need to lead native English speakers and English is not your first language.

Email Communications:
Once the "send" button is hit, there is no going back. Email is one of the easiest ways to hurt feelings and anger our coworkers. How do we remind someone of that important deadline in a friendly fashion? How do we follow up with a person we haven't seen in a long time, or have never met?

SLA's Email Communications class's purpose is not as much about proper grammar as it is to help you choose the right vocabulary in an email to send the message you intended to send. Much of email is about etiquette and culture. There are ways to start emails, to transition between topics, and to end an email. There are times when a one-sentence email is appropriate, and times when it is not. There are also times when an email is not appropriate at all.

We supply you with the tools and formats for different situations that require written communication. Learn how to write formal emails as well as casual. Creating well-written emails is a skill that can be taught and learned.

Corporate Professional Training:
Invest in your foreign workplace population by offering an on-site class to help them with their English written and spoken communication skills. SLA students find that our classes help them improve their level of communication as well as their confidence and motivation to participate more in their own professional development. All of SLA's classes can be brought to your workplace on a schedule that works best for your corporation and your employees' schedules.

Corporate classes are usually taught in an "intensive" format. Classes are usually conducted in 16 hours (instead of 20 hours) and in larger groups, sometimes with a teacher's assistant. Classes can be completed in as little as 4 days, or spread out as long as 5 weeks.

How will my foreign employees react to classes like an "Accent Reduction" class?

This is a valid concern. Nobody wants to offend their valued foreign workforce. One major company we teach for told us that their employees had been asking for the class for quite some time, but it seemed like a touchy area. When the 20-student class was offered, it filled in less than a day, with the students asking for more at its conclusion. This article in the Wall Street Journal also tells about the great reception such a class was met with at Bank of America. Employees felt more confident to speak publicly after taking the class.