- Website -- Annabella, 06:26:17 06/23/03 Mon
Is this supposed to be the same website as www.isunited.com because i realized u both have the same logos and trademarks.. I just thought to let the managers know because it can result in a lawsuit...
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- Hi -- Taysier Khattab, 03:21:56 06/05/03 Thu
Hi Ahmad
Hi Khattab
Really it is a good site & good efforts .
I hope in the near future all the international student will see this site & act with it .
take care
your father
Taysier
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- Re: IT foundation....rubbish!! -- Ahmad Khattab (G. Manager), 13:22:06 05/27/03 Tue
Really after reading what aisha has said, I don’t know what to say, I have lost the words. I totally agree with what she has said. And just I want to say thanx because really she has represented us perfectly.
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- Apology -- A Foundation Teacher, 02:27:19 05/30/03 Fri
Anyone who has been invited to ridicule my comments may be interested in an apology I have published on englishclub.com
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- it has been really good for me -- Oyinkan Joseph, 09:11:20 05/28/03 Wed
I know all international students will experience problems. But thank God, mine has been good.I guess i haven't experienced alot of problems because i go to an international school(Marymount International School in kingston, Surrey England)well, being an international student made me have a wider perspective and I got to understand and interact with people from other cultures and ethnic background. It is fun being an international student and you learn so much that you never knew before. I have one major advice for all internationals. Always be yourselves and ALWAYS ASK questions if you don't understand or find things difficult.
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Replies:
- Being an international student in england -- Yemi Shittu-Balogun, 09:03:30 05/28/03 Wed
To be honest, it felt strange to be leaving my country.i mean after 17yrs with my parents i was finally leaving them to become an Independent person,which i beleived at first would be very hard for me having gonethrough a process of being spoon-feed. I am doing a foundation course in oxford. My school tutors are very helpful and the international office is too. the main problem i had to overcome was that of being homesick (my friends and tutors are helping me overcome it). Aisha and Ahmed i thank you for giving all international students a means of expressing themselves be it good, bad or silly. Thank you
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- INTERESTING -- Ayo Ogunnubi, 08:46:23 05/28/03 Wed
Being an international student is not easy. When i first moved to my college in New York, it was not easy at first, i later on adjusted. I think this website will help all international students. I am glad there is a place where i can come and express myself freely. Thanx alot ISU
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- About the Foundation course -- Titi Doherty, 08:25:51 05/28/03 Wed
I'm really surprised at the number of people who feel strongly about this. There's an obvious lack of communication somewhere. What these students need is to be listened to. I do not doubt that there are some who are not prepared to work but they need to be motivated not discouraged.
Its a two way thing,teacher and student.Have a one on one and see what gaps need to be filled.Why i am not enthusiastic about the course,what can you do to help?
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- NICE IDEA -- Titi Bakare, 08:18:54 05/28/03 Wed
My friend told me about this site, and i think it is a really good idea. I am an international student in Canada. Being an international student is not easy and i hope this site will help us all. Asha and Ahmad thanx alot. Can i ask why a teacher is on here, dropping comments like that? Are you a teacher or a student? Please be mature enough to respect people
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- agree with wendy -- Wayne, 16:16:44 05/27/03 Tue
I totally agree with Wendy's opinion
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- My IT foundation course -- Wendy, 15:43:54 05/27/03 Tue
First of all I want to say is that before i mentioned my course is rubbish, it is really nothing do with English course.
The first time tutorial, Sue asked me that "which uni u want to go to ?"
I said "I dont want to go to uni I wanna study HND first." The reason is my poor English.
But now i am more worry about my IT skill instead of my English. My English is imporving but my IT skill still on the same level when I came to the UK.
My friends always asked me, hey what u gonna study in uni? I said maybe computer sicence or information system. Then they all asked me same question " Do u know programming? Do u know Java very well?" I cant answer anything.. cos the answer is NO, I dont understand...
I learnt too basic stuff.. and all the time we r in class jsut noting to do...
My attendance was very good in first term but now it doesnt. The only reason is that I know today teacher wont be teach new things, we probably just siting in the class checking mail and chatting that's all. So whats the point i go to school ...I am really fed up that sitting in class and nothing to do...
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- IT foundation ....rubbish! -- Aisha Aliyu (Deputy General Manager), 12:57:18 05/27/03 Tue
You know what, my problem does not lay with the English section of my course. It lays with the IT section. From the beginning of the course to the end, we have experienced nothing but problems. I feel like I have wasted one year doing nothing but basic stuff. Everything we do has to do with Microsoft. This leads me to ask does NCN have some form of contract with Microsoft(really this is an honest question). Can anyone really tell me the use of Microsoft project?!? Can someone please tell me how long it takes to learn programming (java, visual basic, c++ …) Another problem I will outline that I think is important to international students is student-teacher relations. This I mean talking and understanding our tutors. Some of you will agree that some tutors don’t have social skills!! The IT course is rubbish, who agrees with me?!?
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- An outraged international student -- Hadiza Mohammed, 12:31:16 05/27/03 Tue
First of all i would like to thank Aisha and Ahmad for coming up with a great idea. I was however quite shocked when i read the message posted by the foundation teacher. You should surely know by now that students are much more comfortable with their peers than with teachers and has it ever possibly crossed your mind that maybe it is your attitude that is keeping the students away?. Quite honestly if you were my teacher, which i thank God you're not, i would not approach you. What you wrote has to be one of the most discouraging things i have ever read in my life! if you're looking for the other foundation students they are probably hiding under their beds wishing that they had stayed in their countries had they known the teachers would be like you! Some of these students can not communicate properly in English and of course can not participate in class when they don't even know how to express themselves properly. They only time you will ever see active participation in class is when the course is interesting or the teacher makes it interesting and when the students find the environment comfortable enough to participate. Not everybody feels comfortable participating because they are afraid of humiliating themselves for example if an international student whose English isn't that great should get up infront of a class and make alot of grammatical errors while expressing him/herself, the whole class would start laughing and that is very humiliating and discouraging.Who would ever want to talk in class again after that terrible experience? If you really want to reach out to these students put yourself in their position and try feeling what they are feeling. Ever since i came to the States people have been telling me how brave i must be to leave my country and school in another, trying to assimilate as much as i can. You might think it is easy but it is very hard especially when you can not communicate well with the people around you. So don't just lash out at us like we are purposely passive in class, try helping us instead.
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- MESSAGE to NCN STUDENTS -- Aisha Aliyu (Deputy General Manager), 11:15:01 05/27/03 Tue
Hi guys. This is a message for ALL NCN STUDENTS. Please post messages here and on the englishclub website because an unknown teacher feels angry that you are posting here and not there!! :-P
The english forum website is http://forum.englishclub.com/projects/
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- higher education in England -- max, 10:54:14 05/27/03 Tue
hi there,
I would like to post my complain regarding the course I am following at the NCN. I am about to finish a course in Travel & Tourism Management. Generally I found my Teachers (2 full Time though) well prepared but we had to struggle because so many classes were canceled and so many teachers were part time on an hourly wage while working full time at other places. Therefore I think that probably not just foundation courses are suffering in England but also higher education as well.
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- I'm amazed -- sue gollagher, 06:09:30 05/27/03 Tue
Hello,
To begin, I would just like to say to Aisha and Ahmad that starting a website for International students is a really good idea. It should continue. If you are at uni next year, will you continue to administer it or will you pass on the responsibility to future students.
Next, I just want to say that I am amazed at the response to the web discussion I started. I want to repeat here that I had two goals when I started the discussion:
* The first goal was to be 'provocative'. However, I mean provocative in the sense that it would provoke students who never read and write in English or open their mouths in class to actually participate in an exchange of ideas.
* My second goal was to get students' feedback on the academic English course to help with planning for next year. You may not believe it, but we do take students' ideas into consideration when planning courses!
Unfortunately, I think it has been a failure. Why? For these reasons:
* GOAL 1.....the students who never express an idea in class are STILL not taking part in discussion. Aisha and Ahmad participate most actively in class and now they are participating most actively on the web. Where are the others????
* GOAL 2....we are not getting any real feedback that we can use to make changes. Comments like "my course is rubbish" don't help. What would help would be a list of areas that you think need improvement and suggestions to improve them. THAT would be helpful. In my first letter I wrote a list of problems that I am experiencing as a teacher. So far, very few students have actually responded to this. I would be really pleased if some one would.
Remember guys, all our lives we will give and receive criticism. We need to learn how to do it gracefully and respectfully.
Thank you, Sue
PS By the way, I agree with Denise that it's a little unfair to take quotes from teachers' letters out of context. What you should do is publish the whole thing and then break it down into individual points and respond to each one if you want to prove that they are wrong. Perhaps this is an exercise we could do in class.
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- OUR HOMEPAGE -- Aisha Aliyu (Board Administrator), 13:59:12 05/26/03 Mon
Hey guys i just wanted to tell you not to forget to check our homepage, the link is above in blue (International Students United) and yeah here it is again http://www.angelfire.com/ill/ncn
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- Congrats Guys ;o) -- Hani "HMS", 13:56:14 05/26/03 Mon
Weel, i have alot to say about my uni, but to summarize i will say one sentence only... "I`m graduating in 3 weeks!"
i hope that my MS study will be at a better uni...
Good Luck for all of us....
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- Biased international student -- Tinu Adesugba, 13:49:07 05/26/03 Mon
First and Formost with all due recpect what kind of a teacher are you?? How can you say that students cannot have "a meaningful and constructive conversation with others on the foundation courses". Infact i think the students would learn more from each other if all the teachers in the foundation courses were like you(no insult intended).I thinking setting up a web site for international student is not only a good idea and could also be used as an educational tool. If your talking about not learning or speaking english...well think again...dont you think it could help the non speakers(who are willing to learn).I mean if i did not know better i would think you were trying to supress student from coming together and discussing what was on their minds (or are you).
A perfect example of how useful this site is, is me.I live in France and i'm doing a foundation course . If u were useful to me i would probably post a message asking u something in your department that could help me. Tell me is that wasting time???
As a teacher, you should never generalise( you just learnt something from this site)
I rest my case!!!
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- RESPONSE TO A FOUNDATION TEACHER -- Ahmad Khattab(Board Administrator), 13:13:02 05/26/03 Mon
Really I can not understand where is your problem if we set up our web site , we just want to express ourselves. Any way, what you have to know is that this site was created just two days ago.I can not understand where the point in hiding your name is. Let us know who we are writting too and like Aisha said, this is not a site only for NCN foundation students. IT is international and any international student can put up messages.
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- In Addition -- Amaka Achebe, 12:43:21 05/26/03 Mon
In addition i HAVE been to the english club and read what is on display there so i am not being biased. I am also amused that this teacher cannot put their name down for refrence purposes but then again if i was you i would be ashamed as well. Speaking of understanding the grammar u used, if i were you i would check my spelling in the future because it must be embarassing for you to be corrected by an 'international student'.
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- Ludicrous -- Amaka Achebe, 12:32:15 05/26/03 Mon
Firstly, i feel that all foundation teachers that have their name affiliated with such derogatory comments about students they are supposed to be helping should all hide their heads in shame and stay at home at the end of the month when its pay day because you do not deserve to be collecting a salary for your stupidity and immaturity. Foundation classes are just as good as A-level classes, many students in university today have come from foundation classes and have no problem adapting to the lifestyle so if you are incapable of doing your job and getting these students out with the grades they deserve for university you should say so and stop blaming the students for your undoubtedly lackadaisical attitude. Students are complaining about teachers not attending lessons and someone writes back saying "why should you set up your own website?" well why do u think??? oh,i forgot you obviously dont know how to think judging from your earlier statements. I am a very proud international student and i am happy to be represented by two fine students. I attend a private school and feel that they have equal chances of getting into the same universities as myself. I do hope with time you will be proven wrong and then you can bury your heads in shame much to my personal delight.
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- Clarification -- Aisha Aliyu (Board Administrator), 12:12:28 05/26/03 Mon
I will start off by asking everyone to please STATE their names. Ahmad and I created this website as a means of expressing ourselves freely(all international students)! As you can see the banner says International Students United. This is NOT ONLY for foundation course students, it is for all international students! If Foundation Students want to come and comment/complain, we welcome it. This is still in it's early developmental stages. This is going to be more than a message board for students to put comments on. We are going to express ourselves and we are going to have fun doing it. You call that immaturity we call it expression. So please if you are going to post anymore messages, "kindly" state your name.
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- REPLY to a "FOUNDATION TEACHER" -- A "Foundation Student", 11:53:09 05/26/03 Mon
please who are you? Why should we take you seriously if you cannot even state your name?
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- students' website -- A Foundation Teacher, 10:40:09 05/26/03 Mon
Great work in setting up your own site. But the time you spent doing that could have been spent replying to sue gollagher's messages and encouraging other students to do the same. Why do you need yor 'own website' where students can say what they want? That was the whole idea of sue's web-chat. English forum is the place where teachers and students can talk together. Believe it or not, that's what a web-chat is!!
How can you possibly have a meaningful and constructive conversation with others on the foundation courses, if you set up your very own web-site, for students only?! what on earth can be the point in that?! Just another perfect example of foundation students passing by a good opportunity to actually do something useful, and deciding to spend the time doing something completely counter-productive instead. How typical!
Sue's brillaint idea to try to help everyone concerned has been thrown in the bin! Why did she bother wasting her time? IT students with problems about IT-- go to your IT tutors and sort it out!! Aren't you forgetting that there are about 60 Business students as well as Art students out there as well?
To my knowledge there have only been four diffrent people who have so far replied to sue's original message and the responses. Four students, from a possible 80!! Doesn't this say it all?!
I will have nothing further to do with any further messages, until someone starts to take the whole issue seriously and actually use the web-chat idea for what it was intended-- an evaluation open to everyone.
76 Foundation students, WHERE ARE YOU? Too busy playing on X_Box??
Respond to the messages on englishforum.com, and be helpful and sensible. Or have a good moan on this web-site instead and emphasise your immaturity. The choice is yours.
( If you can't cope with the vocabulary in this message, get your dictionaries out! And if you, Aisha and AHmed can understand everthing, well done. But remember you speak for yourselves, not for the other 78 students. 78 students who do not have the courtesy to reply to sue,in the proper place, which she set up to be YOUR place to talk, not ours!)
How sad that you choose not to accept the chance she gave you! How very sad that is.
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- Thanks -- Wael Suwwan, 21:42:44 05/25/03 Sun
Ahmad & Aisha ,,,
Really thank you for your efforts .
this site will be helpful for all the international students .
Good Luck
Wael
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- WHY THEY DO NOT CARE ABOUT AS..??????!!!!!!! -- Motaz, 13:10:02 05/25/03 Sun
first if all i'm so happy that i can say what ever i like here ..because i felt before that i can not say what i like ....
we have alot of problem in our study ..like teacher absent for another class &they bring other students for my class we was about 25 students...HOW CAN THE THINK WE CAN STUDY WE left everything in our country to come here to study not to loss our time &mony........
please we need some one stand with us&hear us .
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- denise.larsson@ncn.ac.uk -- Ridiculous?, 09:48:23 05/25/03 Sun
Hi Ahmad and Aisha
Like the site, but don't you think taking quotes out of context is a bit unfair?
Denise
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- My IT foundation course is rubbish -- Wendy, 17:11:39 05/23/03 Fri
I am on IT foundation course in New College Nottingham, i cant desribe how rubbish it is!! I cant believe that my lecturer are absent all the time and my tutor doesnt really care about us, compare with my sister, she is studying in this college as well and her tutor really care about them.For example, they have been applied uni as well, and if one uni reject them , their tutor will ring that uni ask them, ask them tell u reject my student something like that.. and my sis said she has been taught by her tutor nearly two years, she was just absent twice.. so compare with ours ha... i cant count how many lesson i benn wasted.. This course wastes my parents money and my time....
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- Thanks -- Carolina Duran, 13:45:57 05/23/03 Fri
Firstly I want to congratulate them to open this page, because it's going to be of much utility for all the foreinger students.
I think it is possible that all we have had a problem or can have it into the future in the course of our stay in this country.
Thanks for offer us your help and your support...
-GOOD LUCK-
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- INTRODUCTION -- Aisha, 06:50:52 05/23/03 Fri
hi people :-)
Ahmad and I created this message board after reading the messages the "teachers" posted about the international students on the foundation course. This is "OURS". You are free to post anything you want. You can definately post messages about your course and tutors! Our tutors are always talking about us expressing our opinions, well guys let's us talk and let us be loud and heard! Start posting!!
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