Category Archives: Learning Resources

Learning: Empowering Minds with Positive Knowledge and Growth

Eight Ways To Boost Your Online Learning In The UK

How To Do, Learning Resources, Ways To Do

Recent years have seen the rise of online courses that are more cost-effective and more flexible than ever before. If you’ve always wanted to learn how to program in Python, there’s no better time than now to do it. Just get online and start learning at https://www.coursesonline.co.uk/. 

Here are eight ways to make the most out of your online courses in the UK.

Join an online learning community

There are a lot of benefits to joining an online learning community, such as being able to share experiences with others in the same boat as you and getting advice from those who have been through what you’re going through. What’s more, with a community you can always feel supported no matter how hard things get.

There are many online communities out there for people taking courses online in the UK, and some of them offer different features that may be important to you or your needs. For example, some will only allow members who are currently enrolled in higher education courses or have certain qualifications while others let anyone join regardless of their background or experience level.

Use free online resources

  • Google Scholar – Google Scholar is a free search engine that indexes articles, books, and other materials from across the web. They have a scholar button on their search bar which will allow you to only see academic or peer-reviewed sources.
  • YouTube – YouTube is a video-sharing site that has videos on almost any subject imaginable. Not all videos are created equal, but many of them will give you a great introduction to the topic at hand and can be helpful for more visual learners.
  • Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) – MOOCs are courses offered over the internet by some of the world’s most prestigious universities with no cost to take them and no grades or credits given upon completion.

Get a tutor

If you need a tutor for a specific subject, then there are several services available to help you out. Some tutors will provide one-to-one sessions, others offer group classes, and some offer tuition by video call.

You may be able to find someone in your local area if you prefer that option. There is also the option of Skype lessons which are helpful if your tutor is in another country or even on the other side of the world.

Take advantage of technology

Online learning is a great way to learn new skills, and it’s only getting better. You can take advantage of the latest technology by using video, voice chat, and other multimedia tools to improve your learning experience. Plus, online courses are very convenient because you can work at your own pace from anywhere as long as you have an Internet connection.

There are plenty of sites that offer reviews on different courses. Find one that suits your needs and start reading their reviews to see what previous students think about them. Look for free trials or money-back guarantees.

Set realistic goals

The first step to take when you are looking for online courses is setting a realistic goal. You need to know what you want to learn and how much time you can spend on the course. If you want to learn something in-depth, then it may be worth investing in a more expensive course that will take longer to complete.

If you are just looking for a quick overview of an idea, then an introductory course might suffice. You will have less homework or projects but it will be shorter overall.

Take regular breaks

Taking regular breaks is so important to the success of your online course. You might get a lot done in one sitting, but it’s only going to be temporary. It’s better for you and your work if you take regular breaks, even if it’s just five minutes. This will allow you to focus on what you’re working on and not burn yourself out.

Be organized

The best thing about taking courses online is that you can do it anytime, anywhere. That doesn’t mean that you don’t need to be organized, though. Here are some tips on how to organize your learning in the UK:

  • Keep a notepad handy and make notes as you go. You will be able to recall information much better later if you write down your thoughts as they happen. This will also help for studying purposes, so try to keep a notepad with you at all times.
  • Stay organized by creating folders on your computer for each course or subject and save any related files there. Keeping track of where everything is will help things run smoother when projects come due or quizzes are given out!

Reward yourself

It’s important to reward yourself for the hard work you do. Give yourself a break and make sure you’re doing things that make you happy, not just what you think is expected of you. Create a playlist of your favorite songs, or buy something small to get into the holiday spirit. Make it a point to eat out with friends or family, even if it’s just once in a while. It’ll help boost your mood and re-energize you as well!

Conclusion

There are various ways that you can take courses online. You could take a course as an individual, or you might be able to form a team with others who are interested in the same thing. This means that you have more chances of meeting up face-to-face and discussing the subject in person. Studying online is cheaper than studying at university, but it can take longer to finish your course because of the lack of classroom time and group work. However, this does not mean that there isn’t any help available for you as an individual – many universities will provide some form of support for students on their courses. It’s really up to how much help and personal attention you want from your school when choosing which kind of learning environment is best for you!

Author’s bio:

Mari Salome Malagar is a professional English teacher in the Philippines who is also a freelance content writer and social media content creator.  She loves to write and edit content for businesses and social media platforms. She has over 3 years of experience in teaching as well as digital media management.

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/marimalagar

Technology Learning

8 Inspirational Words To Use To Support Friends Before Exam

Learning Resources, Motivate Me Now, Writing Skills, Writing Tips, , , ,

If you’ve passed your exams with flying colors, you definitely should feel proud, but it’s necessary to be careful of your friends who may face different challenges along the way. If you mention friends or classmates feeling down about exams, there are a few tips from expert psychologists that will help you to cheer them up.

1. Don’t be sneering

Even if you believe that some discipline is pretty easy and doesn’t deserve a lot of effort, you should understand that all people are different. Your mocking comments can be irrelevant; moreover, they are often hurtful. If you think that phrases like ‘Why don’t you understand this topic?’, ‘No pain no gain’, or ‘It is a piece of cake!’ are motivating; well, they are not.

Put yourself in your friend’s shoes and try to come up with words that will really help. Don’t remind them about your own success until it can really help, e.g., you know test answers or understand the professor’s expectations.

Words To Say Before Exam

2. Recommend professional help

When it comes to assignments like essays, term papers, or lab reports, a lot of students face difficulties. Some of them lack time to meet deadlines, and others doubt their writing skills. Your classmate might be a perfect mathematician, but it doesn’t mean that he or she can make the grade without case study help writing.

So, if you have some free time for research, you can look for a decent online paper writing service for your friend. Pay attention to the quality of writing, guarantees, student-friendly prices, and reliable customer support.

3. Lend your hand

Along with positive words and professional writing essay service, think about something that you can bring to the table. For example, you can offer a brainstorming session where you and your friends or classmates will work over different ideas for essays. If you’ve already done well with your assignments, you can surely share some tips that helped you.

Your assistance does not necessarily have to be related to the learning process. Ask your friend what will help him or her to focus on studies. You can walk with your friend’s dog, help one’s parents with households, book tickets, buy food, etc. This is what real friends do.

4. Give them time to be moody

It is absolutely normal if students are not that positive when they have to pull all-nighters trying to understand how to write a great essay and earn some brownie points with their professors. Sometimes all they expect from you is to listen. If you have enough energy, get everything off your friends’ chests so that they feel relieved.

5. Remind your friend about one’s goals

All exams that we face are for a reason. Even if your classmate doesn’t understand what he or she is doing right now, it doesn’t mean that one’s studies are useless. Surely, you should know about the final point, e.g., advanced diploma, brilliant career, trip around the world, volunteering project, etc. The day will come when all exams are over, and the more your friend works right now, the more he or she will get out of it. Be one’s inspiration, and your peers will appreciate it.

6. Go outdoors

It doesn’t matter how strict your deadlines are; our body and health require fresh air and some activity. So, if you think that your classmate has been cooped up for hours, try to go for a short walk. You can also install an application with interesting workout ideas. It would also be a good idea to offer essay writing help and get healthy sleep. On the day of the exam, it is important that your friend feels good, is fresh, and is concentrated.

7. Talk to your friend’s parents

If your friend experiences some difficulties in communication with parents, e.g., they don’t understand that the home environment should be silent, your friend can’t devote a lot of time to households, etc., you can become a kind of a mediator. Chat to your classmate’s family during the exam period and explain the importance of support. If you think that they should be more engaged, let them know that they should be there for their child. You can also share your own experience so that they understand your friend is not alone with his or her problems.

8. Don’t forget to stay in your own lane

It is amazing if you can be a good friend and provide quality support. But remember who is your first priority — yourself. If you don’t have time or energy resources, you shouldn’t burn the midnight oil just to be supportive. When your friends ask too much from you, tell them about your own feelings. Friendship is a ​​two-way road, and you need to know that your classmates are there for you as well.

Proper Ways to Seek Help With Homework and Assignments

Language Learning, Learning Resources, Writing Skills, Writing Tips

Whenever you are facing difficulties with your homework or assignments you should seek help, either from an online platform or your instructors. Whoever you reach out to, there is a proper way to approach them, and that is what we will look into today.

Explain How Well You Have Understood the Topic and Question

There is no point in asking for help if you have not gone through the material or question yourself. To understand the solution or explanation better, you will first have to understand the topic as well as the question.

Start by going through the topic; you do not necessarily have to learn everything at once, but try to get the gist of the topic or problem at hand. Then, since you are looking for a specific answer, skim through the text or notes for keywords. Look for words or phrases that match directly with your text or hand notes. Even if it is not a direct match, the content should at least be related.

After reading the materials a few times, highlight the parts that seem important or relevant to your homework or assignment. Try to formulate one or multiple solutions from those points, and take notes of what you’ve come up with.

Once you are done with all this, show what you have understood about the HW to your teacher or tutor, and then ask them for further assistance.

Looking at how you have approached the problem, your tutor or teacher can tell what is missing or how you might have gone wrong. It will help them clear your confusion properly, and allow you to learn better.

Try to Help Yourself First

Once you are done going through the material, you will have some idea as to what the topic is all about. Even if it is vague, you will at least know about a few keywords that can further help your cause. And with that little amount of knowledge, you proceed to find the answers by yourself.

Skimming through the text helped you understand the topic to some extent, but it did not give you the answers you are looking for. For that, dig further into the text. However, assuming that your textbook or notes are of no help right now, your only option is to look for answers online.

Do not expect to find an exact solution to the problem. However, you can find hints. For instance, if you are looking for the Python code for a computer science or engineering problem, you might not find the exact code, but can hope to at least come across the pseudocode or flow diagram for that program.

The same goes for subjects like maths, history, science, and so on; instead of the whole answer, you will probably find hints, formulae required to solve the problems, and references to other papers or books that can help you on this.

Your instructors will be pleased to see the effort you put into the problem. And all this research you did will help make their lives a lot easier.

Help With Your Homework and Assignments

Ask for Clarifications, Not Just the Answers

You tried everything but failed anyway. Now you need the help and support of an expert, preferably your course instructor. After all, they are experts at the subjects they teach.

These experts can provide you with direct solutions to your homework or assignments. However, that will not be of any benefit to you. When seeking homework help, your aim should be to understand the answer, not just copy it.

You can even try out different online platforms like HW answers to find what you’re looking for. The solutions they will give you are very detailed and are crafted in ways that can help you learn. For example, they will add comments with every line of code if you hand them a problem from your computer science course. They will even break down the algorithm for you and design a flowchart for better understanding.

These platforms provide assistance through academic professionals and experienced tutors. So when a student asks them for help, they know how to respond properly. Hence, instead of simply handing you the answer, they will guide you to it, so that next time you will not need to ask for their or anyone else’s help.

No matter how difficult the HW or assignment is, as long as you know how to seek help, you will manage to overcome those odds. Throughout all these steps, your ultimate aim should be to learn and understand where you went wrong, not just to grab the answer and be done with it.

Essay Writing is Best to Improve Your Writing Skills Today

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Essay writing and its significance have long been a hot debate among educational circles. Researchers have long researched its benefits and essentially have argued in its favor. Essay writing seems pretty boring and annoying unless you don’t partner with an essay writer or any other credible writing site. This is also probably the most frequently assigned assignment right from school up to the university level.

1. Essay Writing Importance – Breaking Student’s Delusion

Despite such a high frequency, every time we come across an essay, this irritates us anew and yet the teachers never feel hesitant in assigning essays over and over again. This implies that there must be something so important and substantial about essay writing that compels the examiners to test their skills and knowledge through this very common and useful tool.

Although the hammering and annoying nature of essay writing have even been discussed in the Geneva convention, still it’s one of the major tools to test your knowledge and potential as a learned student. Students are unfortunately quite delusional in this regard and they barely understand the core significance of essay writing. Most of the time they do it as an academic obligation and nothing else. In fact, a few of them consider it a mere wastage of time. Here in this write-up, we would briefly narrate the importance of essay writing and why this medium of testing knowledge has been followed for so long.

2. Essay writing evokes and polishes your analytical abilities

As mentioned earlier, essay writing is among the most common writing tasks in almost all your college admission, entry, and competitive exams. Moreover, each different subject comprises various essays related to the subject matter of that particular subject. Now the question arises, why exactly does an essay hold so massive importance?

Well, analytical ability and reasoning carve out a deciding personality of you. This very essay writing helps you enhance and polish your analytical skills through the arguments you coin during the discussion of the essay. This allows you to table your personal opinion backed by certain substantial reasons, facts, and figures. This enables you to take a principled stance on certain issues.

3. Improved presentation and writing skills

Well, apparently as mentioned above, too much essay writing may seem like a futile practice and a total waste of time but in reality, this isn’t even close or even contrary to this. Essay writing and its immense practice prune and polish your presentation and writing skills. Add more positive words and phrases in your essay to render positive vibes.

No matter which majors are you studying and which professional path you are to take in the future, you will essentially need to learn formal communication which is an integral part of every organizational culture. Essay writing carves out a better writer you. Your improved presentation and writing skills will help you throughout your professional life.

4. Better time management skills

Yeah, you read it right, when we say essay writing teaches you better time management skills, we literally mean each and every word of it. The massive practice of essay writing silently prepares you for better time management. Formal essay writing comprises multiple components that are essential to be followed. Right from outline to the introduction, body paragraphs to a comprehensive conclusion, each section carries a certain weightage.

During your practice, you learn to tag a certain weightage to each segment and accordingly allot time for each different component of the formal essay writing. Spending the same amount of time as allotted in your plan of action and achieving the desired results within time is nothing short of perfect time management. Now apply this very rule to various other affairs of life and you will never be disappointed.

5. It makes you a balanced & moderate personality

Again you might be wondering, how on earth a mere essay can make me a moderate personality if I am not already. Essay writing along with the presentation of knowledge, facts, and figures is also your personal expression where the writer very moderately narrates his personal opinion in the essay. In fact, opinionated essays largely consist of your personal thoughts and opinions, and presenting them in a wise and digestible manner is all that matters.

 For instance, if you are assigned a topic that is taboo, here you might be standing on another pole and the rest on the other pole. Through essay writing, you get a fairly sufficient chance to build your argument on the basis of solid reasons and facts and convince the rest in favor of your personal opinion. Meanwhile, a learned and professional essayist would never tend to hurt the sentiments of those standing on other poles. As Bacon famously quoted that “writing makes an exact man.”

6. Way better psychological analysis of the writer

Essay writing is a very major component of many competitive exams and admission tests as well. An essay reflects the overall personality of the writer and helps the assessors have a deeper insight into the writer’s personality and a closer psychological analysis of his personality. This helps better profile the writer whether he possesses the required set of skills for a particular portfolio or not. So in a nutshell, essay writing is a whole package for both readers and writers and benefits them in multiple ways.

By analyzing all of these benefits, we believe that we have been able to clarify the importance of essay writing both in academics and in exams as well. As a student, one must never take essay writing for granted or as a mere academic obligation; instead, one must use it as a helping tool to master all the above-mentioned skills which will certainly be pretty crucial in your practical life. Essay writing is an art and every student needs to master it not only to score high in academics but also to carve out a better human being as well.

Tips On How Design Thinking Positively Impacts Creativity

Emotional Intelligence, Learning Resources, Positive Thinking

Design Thinking positively impacts creativity. Design Thinking workshops empower business owners and staff in different ways to find new and creative solutions to problems. Let’s start by explaining what Design Thinking is.

What is Design Thinking

According to IDEO’s definition, Design Thinking is a human-centered, iterative approach for creative problem solving and innovation that draws from the designer’s toolkit to integrate what’s desirable from a human point of view, technologically feasible, and economically viable.

According to Wikipedia, Design Thinking is a term used to represent a set of cognitive, strategic, and practical processes by which design concepts such as proposals for products, buildings, machines, and communications are developed.

Design Thinking includes context analysis, problem-solving and framing, creativity and solution generating, creative thinking, sketching and drawing, modeling and prototyping, testing and evaluating. Basic features of Design Thinking include the abilities to:

  • Manage and resolve ill-defined or ‘wicked’ problems
  • Find and implement solution-focused strategies
  • Utilise abductive and productive reasoning
  • Use non-verbal, graphic or spatial modelling media like sketching and prototyping.

How can you impact creativity with Design Thinking?

First of all, Design Thinking will help you discover that all people are creative. Design Thinking will help you acknowledge the inside voice that says “you’re not creative”.

It is often said, almost 90% of people genuinely believe they don’t have a creative bone in their body. They also think that matters related to creativity or innovation are someone else’s job.

Therefore, Design Thinking will help you discover your abundant resources of creativity. With Design Thinking, you will design, create, test, experiment, connect with real people, and most importantly, stretch yourself to do things differently and embrace your very human traits of imagination, creativity, and curiosity. That leads to creative solutions to real-world problems.

One way to awaken the creativity within your team is through collaboration. Each team member can develop creative confidence and be comfortable in bringing their ideas to life. One of the ways is to understand the importance of and rebuild the human skills of creativity, curiosity, and imagination.

Design Thinking focuses highly on interaction and collaboration. It quickly builds skills like empathy, rapid prototyping, and iteration—igniting curiosity about the problems you need to solve and taking your creativity and imagination to the next level.

Over time as you build your creative confidence, you can nurture others and help them develop their creativity and enthusiasm to explore, develop and express their Design Thinking skill set.

Design Thinking Positively Impacts Creativity

Key benefits of Design Thinking

Design Thinking gives you a process to solve problems creatively. It’s a way of solving problems with a mix of rational, data and research, emotions, feelings, and intuition that data can’t measure. Design Thinking considers the user front and center, driving a completely different way of thinking rather than looking at everything through your perception and judgment.

Why are people fearful of being creative?  Simon’s creativity workshops address the number one problem teams face that obstructs their own Creative Ogre.  The inner voice promotes doubt and tells you how uncreative you are.

Creativity should flow in all aspects of someone’s life, not just at work. When you live a more creative and open personal life, you will apply that same approach to work. To truly fulfill your creative potential, learn how to use your creativity at all times in your personal life or career as constant use will positively shift your thinking.

The world’s leading brands such as Google, Samsung, Apple, and GE all use the Design Thinking process and are adopted by top universities such as Stanford, Harvard, MIT, and d.school.

The phases of Design Thinking

According to d.school, the five phases of Design Thinking are:

•          Empathise with users

•          Define the end-user needs, problems, and find insights

•          Challenge assumptions and creating ideas for innovative solutions

•          Prototype–transform your ideas into solutions

•          Test solutions

Conclusion

The core of Design Thinking is its ability to improve products or systems by analyzing and understanding how users interact with them through research, reiteration, and fine-tuning to meet the needs of your client or target audience.

Who is Simon Banks?

Simon Banks is not your ordinary keynote speaker. Simon is an international keynote speaker that has delivered over 1300 events across the globe. Simon speaks at and emcees conferences and events and facilitates many innovations and design programs, including innovation hackathons, visual storytelling programs, design sprints, and creativity and Design Thinking workshops.

Positive Words Research – How Design Thinking Positively Impacts Creativity

10 Ways to Spend a Weekend for Students to Distress and Relax

Language Learning, Learning Resources, Life Secrets, Ways To Do, , ,

Almost every system around the world functions with five days of work and two days of rest. This is because it is impossible to work without taking regular breaks from continuous efforts.

When it comes to college life, students need weekends to freshen their minds and bring back their focus for the weekdays. It is also the time when they can explore various avenues for adventure, entertainment, and growth. This helps improve their overall educational journey.

Today’s students also do not need to worry too much about completing every task by themselves, especially on weekends. For instance, there are several online services that can write a reflective essay within the stipulated deadline. Meanwhile, one can get their space and time to recuperate.

In no particular order, here are ten ways to spend a weekend for students.

1. Take an Off-Beat Hike or Trek

Most young adults seek adventure in their daily life. As students, they also need to maintain good levels of activity and fitness. Taking a hike or a trek can be doubly rewarding in this regard. Most colleges have interesting paths and trails to explore in their cities. But, with better planning, you can form groups and delve into more adventurous locations.

2. Attend a Music or Culture Festival

Everyone loves music while growing up. During college, exploring new and old music is one of the most common ways of getting to know one another. Today, there are various types of music and culture-based festivals to visit, especially for younger crowds. Such festivals are usually packed with multiple entertainment avenues like live music, interactive workshops, and tasty food.

3. Opt for a Movie Series or TV Show Marathon

Today’s screen models have replaced yesterday’s sports models. Streaming platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime have smoothened the screen entertainment game for everyone. Almost all students love movies and TV shows. Because of this, everyone seems to be watching something new every other day. Spending a weekend following good recommendations is an excellent way to avoid burnout and unwind.

4. Take an Educational Retreat or a Trip

While entertainment is necessary to keep the mind active and fresh, improving knowledge and skills cannot be overlooked. Students always need interactive educational systems to keep learning fun and steady. 

But this can even be undertaken to pursue a passion or hobby. For instance, if you like poetry, crafting a poem analysis essay will allow you to improve your writing skills. Taking an exclusive trip to learn a new subject or skill will help you boost academic performance.

5. Participate in Fitness Training Bootcamps

Several students develop goals related to activity and fitness during college. These can be anything from managing weight to increasing endurance or muscle strength. Professionals across various fitness and sports fields regularly organize training programs and workshops. Such programs are often focused on achieving specific predetermined goals. One should assess their fitness and seek suitable trainers in their field(s) of interest.

6. Reorganize Your (Dorm) Room

Everyone needs a comfortable and safe space to feel good. During college, a student’s room is both a space to ease into their duties, such as composing a critical lens essay example, or unwind after a busy day. 

Thus, pay attention to the finer details in your space. You should also try and keep your room clean and tidy to avoid a heavy feeling.

Weekend for Students

7. Visit Local Art Galleries & Museums

Weekends can also be reserved to explore the art and culture in and around the city where your college is located. Many students are interested in learning about history, art, culture, and their influence on the world. There are no better places than art galleries and museums to do that. They also offer a lot of insight into the upcoming art and crafts. This kind of pastime helps broaden perspectives and boost creativity.

8. Plan a Fun Weekend Getaway

A nice weekend getaway should have less screen time and more outdoor fun time. The best way to decompress and refresh is to drop something entirely for a short while. This increases creativity and brings better ideas to mind. Even the planning stage of a mini holiday can be exciting. Other appealing options include a trip to the beach, camping, and forest safari.

9. Attend Career Advancement Seminars or Workshops

Everything is fun and games until it comes to getting serious about one’s career. And while this may not come naturally to some, the process can be improved with some effort. There are several resources available for students to learn every step of pursuing specific careers. Taking a dedicated seminar or workshop in your field of interest would boost your passion and knowledge about it.

10. Create or Build Something of Significance

Nostalgia is doubly effective when one has a memento of good times. Students are often part of group experiments and projects during their studies. The process of crafting something requires patience and tests several skills at once. Think about creating a remote-controlled car, mural, sculpture, or anything else that will become valuable for you. The whole experience can be relaxing and enriching.

To Conclude

Even if it may seem like a lot of fun, students should learn to take their overall college experience seriously. Ensuring a healthy state of mind and body should become a part of their main agenda and be considered when choosing leisure activities. 

Taking the proper steps early on helps students create better habits and routines for the future. This, in turn, allows them to live their life to their fullest potential.

Positive Words Research – 10 Ways to Spend a Weekend for Students

5 Tips to Stay Motivated While Learning a New Language

Language Learning, Learning Resources, Marketing Tips, Writing Skills,

To stay motivated, we need to realize the importance of why we are doing something but also to find the process engaging and to feel that we progress along the way. Below, we list a few tips to keep your motivation alive while pursuing proficiency in a language.

Recommendations for Motivated Language Learning

1. Immerse yourself in the environment where this language feels at home

The most effective, pleasant, and memorable way of achieving this is to travel to countries that speak these languages. Living in a foreign country comes with complete immersion on all levels – one keeps learning non-stop, even when not intended. But this is obviously not the only way to get “exposed” to native speakers. You could opt for anything from listening to local radio stations broadcasting in the respective language to chatting with people from across the globe. If you have friends that happen to know this language well, ask them to use it when communicating with you. By creating yourself an appropriate environment, you’ll be paving the way towards efficient, multilateral, and regular learning.

2. Bring diversity to your learning process

Boredom is the path to inefficient learning or even a good nap. To avoid it, it is important to introduce diversity in your learning, which could be done by alternating several aspects:

  • Form of learning: formal courses, self-learning, live communication.
  • Sources – use audio, video, or printed materials, specialized software for language learning, memorization apps such as Anki (free) or SuperMemo with ready or newly assembled databases of flashcards, etc.
  • Practiced components of the language – one could learn grammar in certain circumstances (or on certain days), vocabulary – on others, etc.
  • Location – one could learn at home, while driving, while working out.
  • Social aspect – learning alone, with a partner, or in a group.
Stay Motivated While Learning New Language

3. Remind yourself occasionally why you need this language

Remind yourself from time to time why you need to keep learning it and what advantages it comes with. This article lists a few good reasons besides traveling that still make it worth learning a foreign language. This includes being able to form new contacts, developing a unique understanding/ perspective as a multilingual and multicultural person, training your brain and memory, becoming more open to the world, etc.

4. Reflect on the career prospects opened by knowing a language

Knowing a language could lead to a career on its own. Becoming a translator obviously requires language skills comparable to those of a native speaker, but there are many jobs that are less demanding: travel or customer support agent, marketing jobs, etc.

As for the level of remuneration, one way to get insight into this is to find the best translation agencies and to look at the rates they charge for translations. Obviously, this is the final price that includes many other expenses, but it can still be useful in estimating how much a translator is paid. Given that translators can often work as freelancers for foreign markets, such jobs can prove fairly profitable.

5. Contemplate your progress regularly

Looking back at the steps we’ve taken, the things we’ve mastered, and what they enable us to do feeds our requirement to feel competent after having invested time and effort. Feeling competent about something creates a positive feedback loop for motivation – the more competent we feel, the more we praise this quality of ours and the more time and effort we will be ready to invest. We can get this positive confirmation by reviewing our past progress, for instance, some older essays, our pronunciation, sentence structure, vocabulary back then.

New Languages

Conclusion

While we hope that you find our tips useful, learning a language is obviously an individual journey and depends on the learners themselves. Some people learn better with either auditory or visual input, many prefer to be taught by humans, etc. People need to identify and exploit the forms of learning that work best for them.

Bio:

Merissa worked for several content writing platforms and has written both creative essays and documented research for a variety of purposes. Another important domain of her expertise is content marketing. Having written different types of content, Merissa acquired good insight and experience that she now gladly shares with others.

Positive Words Research – 5 Tips to Stay Motivated While Learning a New Language

How To Change Your Occupation To Professional Translator

Career Goals, Grammar Check, Internet Skills, Language Learning, Learning Resources, Positive Terminology, ,

Many future translators start preparing for their jobs while being toddlers. Those who weren’t lucky enough to be born in bilingual families will need to spend years learning a foreign language. Some do this sustained effort with the clear goal of becoming translators. While others realize that they have such a career opportunity already after being proficient in a foreign language, even after building a career in another field. Below, we offer some advice regarding the steps and tools to be undertaken by those who contemplate or are in the process of making such a career transition.

Making the Transition

1. Ensure your language skills are sufficient for professional translation. If this is not the case, as an intermediary step, consider other jobs that would help improve your language. This is because a professional translator needs to be able to recognize and convey subtle notions and to be keenly aware of the context, whether it is related to the discipline, culture, etc.

2. Specialized training, including university programs, could also be an option to consider. According to the editorial team of Indeed.com, certifications aren’t necessary to enter the field, although they should be definitely considered since they can add credibility in the eyes of the clients or employers. Certifications can attest proficiency in a language or even in a particular field of activity.

3. Decide which industries you’ll focus on. Here, you could take advantage of your current work experience or previous academic training. Specializing in a limited number of industries or disciplines allows you to become familiar with the corresponding terminology – a time-consuming and error-prone step. This will result in more accurate translations, which will also take less time to complete.

Professional Translator

4. Work for an agency or independently. In the first scenario, it is a good idea to inspect the job requirements that top translation sites formulate when hiring translators, their rates, workload, work schedule.  In the second scenario, everything is up to you – despite the ability to set your own prices, you would have to take charge of promoting your services, building a reputation and a client base, ensuring a constant flow of orders.

5. Consider arming yourself with the appropriate digital toolkit, since it can greatly boost translation efficiency. There is a great variety of offline dictionaries, resources, and tools, most of which are free, despite their high quality. These include: 

  • digital dictionaries for specific language pairs
  • dictionaries of specific terminology
  • thesauri – to retrieve synonyms
  • context translation dictionaries – these are relatively new and can prove incredibly useful given that they show the translation of the desired word combinations in context. In practice, this helps to pinpoint much faster the appropriate meaning (out of many) or synonym of a word or word combination that fits best the context.
  • optical character recognition tools – to transform scanned images in a given language into text. Importantly, these can recreate tables and many formatting elements which would be very time-consuming to recreate manually.

If entering the field is a problem, consider internships and volunteering, for instance, translating software manuals, documentation, proceedings of a conference, educational materials. List your projects and include links to your translations so that everyone interested can conveniently evaluate them.

Translation Multilingual

Final thoughts relating to changing your occupation to a professional translator

According to the Indeed.com article mentioned above, translators are paid on average $20 an hour (ranging between $7 and $51). Consequently, depending on the level of proficiency, such a job can be highly profitable, especially for translators across the world with good knowledge of corresponding languages.

Translating is also a job perfectly suitable for freelancers and digital nomads. All these could serve as an additional source of motivation and help overcome the challenges associated with making the transition.

Bio:

Merissa gathered diverse experience working for several content writing companies in the field of academic assistance and marketing. Having a good understanding of the industry, she often shares her observations and thoughts with a larger audience. Besides, she gladly offers general advice on writing productively.

Positive Words Research – How To Change Your Occupation To Professional Translator

6 Key Benefits to Use Transcription for Your Business Gain

Business Ideas, Internet Skills, Language Learning, Learning Resources, ,

The audience nowadays is increasingly distracted and impatient given how flooded it is with information. We often open a video just to close it a few seconds later if we don’t like how it started or what we saw while skimming through it. Below, we argue that doubling the information contained in the video by means of transcripts/ captions comes with multiple benefits.

Why Use Transcripts?

1. Including full transcripts along the video enables the audience to locate the desired information instantly

Suppose your viewers are hoping to locate a very specific bit of information from your video. Extracting and pasting the full transcripts somewhere underneath the video under a structured outline could be an incredible time-saver. Additionally, your audience could simply use the search function to locate specific words or word combinations they are looking for and then, either read the transcript fragment or jump to the respective video timing.

2. Videos with captions are easier to adapt for multilingual audiences

Transcription files can be used directly to generate translations in dozens of languages without messing with the original audio. Translating captions can be performed with minimal effort – one just needs to translate the sentences in the original transcription file without altering the timings. In fact, video transcription is nowadays one of the standard services offered by professional translation services online and the latter already feel very comfortable approaching such tasks, having acquired the necessary expertise. Alternatively, if no translation is intended, making the full transcripts accessible can enable the audience to perform the translations themselves using tools like Google Translate.

3. Transcripts make it easier to disseminate the information embedded in the video

Accessing the transcripts alone would only consume a fraction of the traffic necessary to watch the video, which would make the latter easier to disseminate under certain circumstances. Text excerpts could be also embedded in emails or sent through other channels with limited attachment size, can be included in posts on social media, RSS feeds, printed media, etc.

Video Content

4. Videos with transcripts are better at attracting attention

Text is just another channel of information that can be exploited in an extremely competitive setting, such as when advertising. On many social media platforms, videos on the timeline start muted, therefore, videos with captions have a greater chance to attract the attention of the timeline scrolling audience. Just ensure that the video starts with a punchline, ideally, an explanatory one.

5. Captions make videos viewable by people with hearing impairment and by those who struggle with the language

As opposed to signing language, which takes training to learn, everyone can create captions and hence, could make videos viewable by people with hearing impairment. Besides, captions make it easier to discern speech for everyone else, including for those learning the language. This can be even useful for representatives of the same nation when dialects or strong accents are involved.

6. Captions enable watching videos discreetly

There are times when we only need to pretend to pay attention or times when we don’t want to disturb the surrounding people and also don’t have the earbuds anywhere nearby. Captions enable us to retrieve all the important information from the video without turning on the audio, be it at a boring unproductive meeting, in public transport, and so on.

Video Captions

Final Thoughts

To conclude, transcribing videos comes with multiple benefits. Fortunately, it is not too time-consuming and can be entirely delegated to third parties that deliver this as a service. Alternatively, you could do it yourself given the simplicity of the process.

For instance, if you need to transcribe a YouTube video, this article lists several ways to achieve it. Note that you could greatly accelerate your work by employing intelligent tools using artificial intelligence – while some errors are guaranteed, they might save you a lot of time.

Bio:

Merissa worked as a content writer for academic assistance and content marketing platforms. She wrote lots of creative essays, produced carefully researched and documented academic papers, and created inspiring promotional messages. Now, she gladly shares the experience acquired throughout this time.

Positive Words Research – 6 Key Benefits to Use Transcription for Your Business

Universities Are Adapting Admissions For Coronavirus Pandemic

How to Have Success in Life, Learning Resources, Ways To Do

The pandemic that unfolded in full force was not at all appropriate. After all, spring is in full swing. This means that there are only a few days left before the large-scale wave of final exams and admissions to educational institutions. How are things with entrance examinations, admission of documents, and passing of other tests today? Sorted this out in our material.

The Current Situation

A new dangerous and poorly understood viral infection has already made our world the way it was not before. Almost a million infected, tens of thousands of lost lives, the strictest quarantine regimes in almost all countries, the most powerful economic collapse, and thousands of canceled (or postponed) events, including:

  • All national championships and international tournaments in football and other sports;
  • Summer Olympics;
  • Cannes Film Festival;
  • Eurovision;
  • ExoMars Mission;
  • E3 Annual Gaming Conference;
  • The World Economic Forum;
  • Numerous premieres in the world of cinema;
  • Concert tours and music festivals;
  • Fashion weeks and shows.

The educational process is no exception. The coronavirus has made its own major adjustments. Now, most schoolchildren and students are homeschooled (thanks to modern technology). All educational institutions are closed. Each university or school can introduce its own additional precautions. For example, Harvard asked all students to vacate their dorms back in mid-March. And China, where the infection came from, developed a national educational online platform in a short time. Exams, tests, and even the defense of diplomas are also planned to be transferred online. While trapped at home, it’s possible to learn quite a lot, and not only your university program. Online courses open doors to a range of exciting career options (marketing course, for example).

In some countries, they have introduced long-term vacations and stopped the educational process altogether – Kuwait schoolchildren back to their desks only on October 4 (with the exception of graduates).

Admission to universities during a pandemic: entrance exams and admission to universities

COVID-19 also affected higher education institutions. All universities in the world have been quarantined and are trying to introduce new remote learning systems. As for the final and entrance exams, at the moment improvisation is read in almost all addresses to students. Administrations do not know how long the quarantine will last. Therefore, they are trying to come up with some convenient date on which all exams can be postponed.

The problem is that such a system fails since all events are clearly timed. All this action stretches for about three months. And now all this needs to be either postponed or greatly reduced in terms of time. Therefore, each university chooses its own model of overcoming the crisis. At the moment, 1 billion people in the world have switched to a remote learning system.

USA

Entrance exams in American universities were moved from April to June. The country’s most advanced universities, such as the Massachusetts University of Technology (MIT), are organizing full-length remote classes and, when the general quarantine is extended, are ready to conduct entrance exams over the Internet.

Otherwise, American higher education institutions are not yet worried about the cancellation or postponement of entrance exams, believing that the COVID-19 epidemic will end earlier. For example, Harvard University did not devote a single paragraph in its large-scale FAQ, which deals with the situation with the coronavirus. But they, along with Stanford University, announced that they would forgive students for any delay in tuition payments. And the president of the country, in turn, said that for students the interest on student loans…

How Universities Are Adapting Their Admissions During The Coronavirus Pandemic

Special exams

GRE

Graduate Record Examination is testing conducted in the US and UK for students entering postgraduate programs in all areas. Distinguish between General GRE and Subject GRE. The former is usually included in university-wide charters, while the latter is valid for specific specialties and faculties. The purpose of the GRE is to assess the general level of knowledge and to fairly compare different curricula around the world. The test is conducted entirely in English. The admissions offices of different universities are lukewarm about the GRE. However, his average score is taken into account if it is too low or too high.

In connection with the outbreak of the coronavirus, the development company GRE – ETS has launched an online format for its testing. To take the test at home, you will need to install two special programs on your computer: ETS Test Browser and ProctorU Systems Check. In one, you will take the test. The other will make sure you don’t cheat.

GMAT

Graduate Management Admission Test is a test for students wishing to study at a master’s degree or business school in finance, economics, business, and management programs. Typically used when enrolling in an MBA program. The test was developed in the middle of the last century. Its structure is undergoing massive changes up to the present day. For example, in 2012 a big new section (Integrated reasoning) was added.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, most tests around the world have been canceled. At the moment, on the official page of the GMAC organization on Facebook, it is noted that an online version of the GMAT test is being developed.

LSAT

The Law School Admission Test is a special test for law applicants created by Harvard and Yale graduates in 1943. Its results are used by admissions committees of higher education institutions in the USA, Canada, Australia, and several other countries. Hosted by LSAC. About 200,000 people undergo this testing every year.

The March LSAT test has been canceled worldwide due to the coronavirus epidemic. All those who registered for the test in March were automatically registered on April 25th. This is a new tentative testing date. 

By the way, after the February 2021 exam, more states plan to offer the bar exam remotely again (Connecticut Bar Exam, for example).

MCAT

Medical College Admission Test is a standardized exam for medical students who wish to study in the United States, Canada, Australia, and the Caribbean. Hosted by the AAMC, the Association of American Medical Colleges. It is one of the most difficult and longest examinations in the world. The last major changes to the test were made in 2015 to reflect all modern medical advances.

In connection with the coronavirus, the April MCAT exam has been completely canceled. The association has eliminated all additional cancellation and postponement fees until the situation stabilizes. The next testing date has not yet been determined. It is recommended to stay tuned for updates on this page.

TOEFL

Test of English as a Foreign Language is a well-known test of English language proficiency. Like GRE, TOEFL is developed by ETS. During the COVID-19 epidemic, it is possible to take the test online.

IELTS

The International English Language Testing System is the main competitor of TOEFL. Created mainly for admission to higher education institutions in the UK. Often used by various companies during hiring. At the moment, the IELTS test continues in some regions, if the admissions committees manage to create a competent isolation environment. But in most countries, the IELTS exam has been officially canceled. Its renewal depends on the quarantine rules of other states.

Final thoughts

The situation in the world in connection with the virus is changing not only every day but every minute. That is why everything, including studying in schools and entering universities, can change more than once. Follow the news on the websites of the educational institution you are interested in and on the news portals of the country where you are already studying or just planning to study. Take care of yourself and your loved ones!

Positive Words Research – How Universities Are Adapting Their Admissions During The Coronavirus Pandemic