EAP1 Starting Soon!!

 

Our EAP1 course is starting soon:

 

Please visit our website for further details http://www.dominion.school.nz/courses/eap/.

Competition Time!!!

At Dominion English Schools, we hold regular competitions and award our students with great prizes.  This month we had a "selfie" competition.  We asked our students to get out and about in Auckland and take some photos of themselves in front of some iconic Kiwi backgrounds, with a Dominion logo.  The winner would receive free tuition for one week!! The competition was run via our Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/DominionEnglishSchool).  The winner was the photo with the most "likes". 

We had some great entries, but Carolina Henao from Colombia won in the end with over 160 "likes".  Congratulations Carolina, we hope you enjoy your prize!!! Thank you to everyone else who entered. 

The best bits from the competition (including Carolina receiving her prize) are below: 

For more photos of our students around New Zealand or to find our more about our school and our courses, please visit our website www.dominion.school.nz.

‘Mum, Dad, I am not ready to go back home yet!’

 

When deciding to study in an English speaking country, there were plenty of destinations to choose from, but it was New Zealand that caught the eyes of Lucas da Silva Fontes, a young teenager from Brazil. Lucky us, as we had the opportunity to welcome him to the Dominion family – and what a great student Lucas has turned out to be!

Lucas started his studies at Dominion as a General English student. His dedication and commitment soon led him to our Cambridge course, which he successfully completed last week. The beautiful country of New Zealand alongside the high quality education and student support Dominion provides, made Lucas realise that his studies were bound to help him in his future goals and that he could count on us to support him.

‘Mum, Dad, I am not ready to go back home yet!’ The more, the better! After all, English is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world! From General English to Cambridge, Lucas is now part of our IELTS class and we are very proud of him and even happier to have him longer!

Studying English abroad is a big decision and requires a lot of work, but equally can be the best experience of your life. No matter what your goal is, Dominion will work with you towards achieving it and provide you with an outstanding language education!

 

Cambridge Course Testimonial

We have been running Cambridge courses for many years and it's always great to see a student successfully completing one, with a great opinion of the course and a fantastic grade!  Here is Irina's story about her recent Cambridge course.  She got a grade A in the end and was understandably thrilled! Our Cambridge FCE, CAE and CPE courses run a regular times throughout the year.  Please see our website for further details http://www.dominion.school.nz/courses/exam-courses/.

Talented Students!

Last week the students in Martin's class were studying current events. As part of their writing class, Martin challenged the students to write a class newspaper.  We were so impressed with their work that we had to share it with you here. 

This newspaper was prepared as part of an afternoon General English class.  Our General English course is structured so that students get time to practice all areas language learning.  Morning classes concentrate on grammar and vocabulary, whilst afternoon classes focus on key skills, such as speaking and writing, with a new topic each week.  For more information about our General English course, please visit www.dominion.school.nz.

Congratulations TESOL Class!!

Last week was the end of our 4 week TESOL course.  Please see our happy graduates above.  Well done everyone, you did so well!
Our TESOL course is designed for non-native speakers of English who would like to learn how to teach English to young adults and adult learners. It also prepares students to take the Cambridge TKT (Teaching Knowledge Test).  The course covers teaching methodology, learning styles, language analysis and, of course, lots of teaching practice!
Dominion's teacher training department is renowned for its skills and experience, and our courses are very popular.  We not only run TESOL and TECSOL/J-shine courses for student teachers, we also run teacher training sessions for our own qualified teachers and for teachers from other schools throughout Auckland.  In October, Dominion hosted an annual teacher training day open to teachers from all schools, which included sessions on the latest teaching techniques such as using mobile devices in the classroom.  The day was a great success and everyone learnt lots of great techniques that they can introduce to their classrooms.


Our next training course for student teachers is our TECSOL course (teaching English to children) starting on 3 February 2014.  Our next TESOL course (teaching English to adults) starts on 17 March 2014.  Book your space quickly to avoid disappointment!  For further information, please visit our website www.dominion.school.nz or email us now marketing@dominion.school.nz.

What students say about Dominion

 Yasir, Saudi Arabia

 

Yasir with Kirstin (our Director of Studies) and his brother Saleh (also a Dominion student)

 “I’ve studied for over 55 weeks (at Dominion).  At first I couldn’t cope with the way of teaching because it’s quite different from Saudi Arabia, but a short time later I got used to it and I liked it.  The teachers are kind and respectful, and the classes are enjoyable.  My English has significantly improved.  Going from level 3 to level 7 has meant a lot of study, but because of that I got my IELTS result that allows me to do my postgraduate.  I made a lot of friends, some of them have gone back to their country, but I’m still in contact with a lot of them.  New Zealand is a peaceful, enjoyable, green, lovely country and I strongly give my recommendation to visit it.”

Yasir Alzahrani is going to study Engineering at Auckland University of Technology.

Dominion Raises Money for Kiwi Charity

This Friday (23^rd August) was Red Nose Day in New Zealand.  Every year on Red Nose Day, people wear red noses and do silly things to raise money for Cure Kids.  Cure Kids is an iconic kiwi charity dedicated to finding cures and new treatments for childhood illnesses such as cancer and heart defects.  This year we supported this outstanding charity by selling red noses around school, wearing red to school for the day and having a bring/buy cake sale.  We were overwhelmed with the support of our students in this event.  It was amazing to see students from all over the world bring in such beautiful cakes to sell for charity.   A lot of them enlisted the help of their homestay families to help them bake, which must have been a special experience in itself.  During graduation there was a prize for the best red outfit.  The students voted and the best dressed prize went to Amy (top right in the picture above) – congratulations Amy!  After prize giving, the students went to the cake sale to start buying cakes and raising even more money for Cure Kids.  In total, the day’s event raised $450 NZD.  We are so pleased with this outstanding result, and we’d like to thank all our students for being so motivated and involved. Well done everyone!  To see more pictures from this great event, please see our Facebook page – www.facebook.com/DominionEnglishSchool.
 

Monday new students

This photo was taken yesterday 18th June. There are lots of teenagers and also Senior students ready to start our courses!!

This is another big group of new students. These students are from Brazil, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Taiwan, Korea and Tahiti. Welcome to Dominion English School!

International food festival

We celebrated our cultural diversity with our popular International food festival. Students wore their country traditional clothes and tried food from many different countries. Many said 'I’ve never tried this before!', everybody looked pleased to have such a chance. It is a good opportunity for all to get to know our cultures by tasting different foods. You can see the wide variety of foods here: feijoada (from Brazil), sushi (from Japan), stuffed celery (from our popular New Zealand icon Edmonds book), Pearl milk tea (from Taiwan), among lots more!

Dominion welcomes students from all around the world all year round. We have an international mix with students from more than 30 different countries coming every year.

Autumn in Dominion

The clocks went back one hour last weekend. We are now GMT + 12. It is officially autumn here now, even though the weather continues to be delightfully summery (dry, calm and clear skies) but slowly it’s getting cooler.

A good confirmation that it is autumn is the beginning of the rugby season. Our students have already been out to a local match. This is a must-do for all visiting our country as it causes GREAT EXCITEMENT.

Monday new students - April 2013

Happy Easter everybody! We hope you had a nice long weekend. In New Zealand Easter is quite a long weekend, we had a holiday on Friday - Easter Friday and another one yesterday - Easter Monday so that makes a 4 day weekend. Remember Dominion only closes on public holidays. Easter is the longest public holiday during the year so many New Zealanders take some days and travel somewhere with the family. There is a lot to do in the city too for the ones who are not travelling.

Talking about families, today we welcome one of the groups that are truly part of the Dominion family. This Thai group has been visiting us each year since 1986!!!!!  We are very happy to have them back!!

If you are reading this post and you are one of the Thai students that visited us between 1986 and 2012 please leave a comment here or send us an email telling us what was the best experience you have in Dominion English Schools Auckland.

Monday new students

It’s Japanese holiday time in Dominion, but we still have also a good supply of European students finding their way to New Zealand to enjoy our English courses and to experience the New Zealand summer, which is still going on. Even our Brazilian students find the sea warm enough to swim in now.

The school has a special atmosphere during these warm months. Many sign up on the notice boards for our after school activities around the city of Auckland. Plenty of things to do outside while the weather is so dry.

What do you like about Dominion? An amazing student video

Thanks all the students that made and were part of this amazing video, we feel so blessed! Working at Dominion is the best job we could ever wish for, if you are not convinced, watch this fabulous video featuring students from around the world sharing their experience in our school. Enjoy!!

Best Dominion photos

If you were wondering what students do when they are in Dominion, have a look at these photos! Remember you can contact us for any enquiry you have marketing@dominion.school.nz.

 

In the classroom

 Break time

 Friday Farewell

 Weekend trips

  Weekend trips

  Weekend trips

Monday new students

Welcome new students. Today we received students from many different countries and nationalities today: Netherlands, Japan, Germany, Saudi Arabia, New Caledonia, Taiwan, Poland and Nigeria and Brazil. We wish them all the best for their courses and we hope you had the time of your lives here at Dominion English Schools Auckland.

We celebrated Eid today

I was a big celebration in the school, not only for Arab students but for us all. We shared some of our favourite and traditional dishes. We even have the old favourite miso soup made by the school staff. Arab students sang and danced and we could even some of their typical clothes as well as their traditional henna hand tattoos. Thanks very much for sharing Eid with us!!

 

Happy New Year!!

As you probably know by now we only were closed on the NZ statutory holidays. That meant we had a short break compared to other institutions. Some of our students joined our North - South Island trip. This is a trip that Dominion offers students every year over the Christmas and New Year period. It is very popular and we already have a booking for next year's trip.Even though the school doesn't close, some of our long term students like to take a break at this holiday time and explore NZ with one of our teachers. The group left Auckland and travelled South to celebrate New Year in Queenstown. Have a look at the photos!!

 
Thanks Louise Young to let us use your pics from Facebook.

Merry Christmas!!

Here is our Christmas card, if you still haven't received it. All from Dominion hope you had an excellent Christmas. We certainly did have a good Xmas, our party was a success among our students. We are open now and waiting to receive 2012.

 

 

Dominion Xmas afternoon party - so many nationalities!

 Dominion Santa and helper

 Thank you!!! We received so many beautiful cards this year

Christmas in Auckland

You can feel the Christmas spirit everywhere in Auckland. If you happen to be here, there are so many places to enjoy. Every year the city looks so different with all the Christmas decorations, even for us. You might think that it is a little bit weird to have Christmas without the snow but we certainly make the most of it. Think about going to the beach on the 25th December! for example. These photos are taken just steps away from our Auckland school...

Auckland student by the biggest Christmas decoration you've ever seen

String puppets at Smith and Caughey - One of the shops in Queen Street

Giant Santa and reindeers at Whitcoulls

 Christmas tree - Sky Tower