A round-up of news from LAL England.

We are very pleased to announce that Dean Jones, the General Manager of LAL Torbay became the new chairman of English UK South West at their recent annual general meeting hosted by Accent International at Bicton College in Exeter on Saturday 15th May.

English UK South West is a regional group of English UK and has been established to benefit member schools in a number of key areas, including: raising the profile of the South West of England as a study destination; lobbying regional and national government, and; encouraging the highest professional standards in the teaching of English as a foreign language.

Dean commented: 'Many students choose to study in the UK because of the academic quality of courses here, and it is vital for our school to maintain and promote excellence in language tuition.  Therefore, we participate fully with English language teaching organisations and other trade bodies in the UK. In addition to the benefits of membership in English UK and of being accredited and inspected through Accreditation UK and the British Council, organisations such as English UK South West offer our school the opportunity to develop our profile, courses, programmes and academic standards even further. I am delighted to have been elected chairman of English UK South West and to have the opportunity to support the aims of the organisation.' 

A number of key speakers were invited to lecture on the day of the annual general meeting on a range of managerial, trade, examination and pedagogical topics.  Speakers included Tony Millns of English UK, Graham White of UK Trade and Industry, and Henry Tolley of Cambridge ESOL amongst others and subjects ranged from best welfare practices for young learners to digital learning and teaching techniques to the future development of language tuition in the UK. Details of English UK South West are available on the website

www.englishuksouthwest.com

We're making changes to our adult residence in Torbay, and a new cleaning system comes into force this month.

Hunters Lodge is LAL Torbay's residence for adult students, and offers good value self-catering accommodation in a superb position overlooking the sea. We are committed to improving the residence further, and have several improvements planned for this year, including upgrading the wireless internet service and introducing new facilities.

As part of that process, and to allow us to improve the cleaning of the public areas of Hunters Lodge, the cleaning system which has already been advertised on our website has now come into force. Students' rooms are now cleaned at the start and end of their stay, including when either occupant of a twin room arrives or departs. During their stay, students can borrow cleaning materials to keep their own rooms clean. Clean towels are available twice a week, and clean bed linen is available weekly. In addition, every student is now issued with a set of crockery and cutlery for use in the shared kitchen at Hunters Lodge. This is to ensure that all students have access to these items and so that replacement items can be issued swiftly if breakages occur.

We are also trying out a small shop to sell essential supplies from the Reception at Hunters Lodge. Further improvements at Hunters Lodge will be announced later this year.