When you have been working with anyone for six months, there is an inevitable sadness that comes with saying goodbye, but when you work with a whole family that feeling is only intensified.

We are not the kind of language company that doesn’t get involved in the lives of our families. We understand that relocating is difficult and an incredible transition in life.

Many of our team members have experienced this kind of transition themselves.

On Sunday, I met the family that I have been working with for 7 months downtown for one last goodbye. They had already moved out of their house and were in their final days in the States. They were ready.

I wasn’t.

This must be what it feels like to send your child off to kindergarten for the first time or send your teenager to college.

I know that preparation time that we have has been good. I know that the foundation they have in the language is sound. I know that they are going to love living overseas, but I also know how hard those first 6 weeks are going to be.

I wanted to hop on the plane with them. I wanted to help them drag their luggage from one train to the next.

But it was time.

It was time for them to spread their wings, stick together and fly.

One of the daughters looked at me and said, “Ich bin traurig und begeistert.” I was so proud. She just expressed her feelings perfectly in German.

They’re ready!

We have huge plans for this year!  In the month of January alone, we created new connections with AIReS resulting in close to 50% growth in our company as compared to 2011.  Of course, the greatest number is the amount we have been able to save the clients we are now providing services for.  That savings calculates to approximately 30%!  That is great news for everyone.  As we grow in our new role as culture and language provider to one of the regions great relocation companies, we are also looking at how we can provide a more well-rounded service over all.  To do that, we are making our destination services available to the entire Charleston area.

This move will make our already popular and tested destination services available to a larger customer base and will provide the kind of support that our clients expect for their associates entering the area.  We will be writing about what our destination services entail in one of our next postings…  For now, we are more excited about how this service will improve the service we already offer: Language Instruction, Cross-Culture Classes, Interpretation and Translation Services.

How will our destination services provide a better experience than other companies?  First of all, we are local to the Charleston area.  We know the best schools, the hippest places to live, the most family oriented attractions…  Even more importantly, those associates who typically use our language classes to improve their English, often complain about not really being taken care of once they enter the United States.  Often, it is not their employer’s fault.  The typical destination service company normally hires someone local without even knowing who they really are.  And so these agents do not feel a connection with their clients.  We are different, because we will continue to have a relationship with our clients long after they arrive.  This way, our services can provide a much more complete and nurturing environment for our clients wellbeing.

Like I said… check back soon to see what our DS (destination services) entail!

If you haven’t subscribed to the Charleston Regional Business Journal, then you should.  At least check out one of their latest articles from Jan 27th, 2012.  Congratulations and thank you to Continental Tires for their initiatives in South Carolina.  South Carolina is fast becoming an international hub for imports and exports via Charleston’s port.  It seems the rest of the state is quickly realizing the potential of the area.

Continental deal earns award for S.C. Department of Commerce

Staff Report
Published Jan. 27, 2012

Continental Tire the Americas’ plans to invest $500 million in a new factory in Sumter County, expand its U.S. headquarters and create 1,700 jobs earned the S.C. Department of Commerce second-place honors for economic development from Business Facilities magazine.

“It will be a huge shot in the arm for the growth potential of the entire region,” said Jack Rogers, the magazine’s editor-in-chief.

Earning the Silver Award for South Carolina, Continental’s investment in Sumter is estimated to have an overall economic impact of $1.82 billion over the next 10 years and lead to the creation of 6,000 jobs in the region, the magazine said.

In October, Continental announced it will build a 1-million-square-foot manufacturing plant on a 330-acre greenfield site along U.S. 521, south of Sumter. The facility is the largest industrial investment in Sumter County history.

Germany-based Continental, which makes tires and parts for motor vehicles, also said it was investing $4 million and adding 80 employees to its U.S. headquarters in Fort Mill, which opened in 2009.

Continental plans to open the Sumter plant in early 2014. In the first phase, the facility is expected to reach its production capacity of 5 million tires per year by 2017. A second phase is projected to increase the capacity to 8 million units per year by 2021.

Continental executives said they needed to build the Sumter plant to be closer to their U.S. market. Over the past two years, Continental has seen demand for passenger and light truck tires grow annually by 20%…

 

Apple’s announcement will certainly impact language learning, especially in regards to resource availability. As teachers and instructors, we are going to have to step our game to keep up with the innovation and shift in the future of education.

At CORE Languages, we knew the direction of education was headed this way and we have already been working with out students to not just be content users, but rather content creators. We are podcasting, researching relevant apps and even trying our hand at being e-book authors!

I have been amazed at how easily and quickly my students have taken up the perfekt tense.

They have done it…well…perfectly!

As a teacher, it is a great feeling when you watch your students succeed and watch their confidence grow!

Although we don’t know what the announcement will be, we know it will be big!

There is a lot to unpack here: whether Apple would work with textbook publishers or work directly with authors, if the initiative would be focused on K-12 education or extend to colleges and universities, and whether books would be sold or given away to route around educational bureaucracy — and ultimately, if Jobs is really discussing Apple’s plans or simply sparking off ideas about what in a perfect world, he would like to do in educational publishing. These are questions that should be answered at Thursday’s event.

 At CORE, we work with group classes at companies and we work with families that    are about to relocate to another assignment.

In a family situation, there is often not an extended amount of time to move from one level of a language to another through a systematic approach.

So when does advancement to the next level happen?

At the push of the instructor and the hard work of the student. For my students, leveling up occurs two or three levels at time. These levels include complicated grammar structure and a dramatic increase in vocabulary. Although we do use a book series, the book chapters don’t necessitate a new level.

It’s daunting to learn a new language, but pushing my students to level up (even when they don’t think they can) not only proves to them how well they are learning the language, but also results in students who is better prepared for the immersion they are about to encounter.

Our hats off to BWM who is bringing more jobs to the Upstate!

I have this bad habit of listening for German speakers.

It happened when I was teaching in Germany and I was desperately trying to listen and find a little English. My ears literally would start to turn off the German because of the immersion that I was experiencing, but if on the trains were my ears were normally set to off, I happened to hear English the volume would automatically turn all the way up!

Why does this happen?

It’s not that I couldn’t have understood the German that I was hearing, but the fact that I hadn’t grown up listening to as much German as my ears were taking in meant that my ears and internal translator needed a break.

Now that I am back in the states and teaching German, it works in reverse. My ears are tuning out English, but tuning in to any hint of German looking for an opportunity to start a conversation and interact with native speakers. Needless to say, more than once I have caused culture collision because the German people that were speaking to each other thought that no one around them spoke German.

Well that, and I’ve asked quite a lot of people who didn’t speak German if they did.