Seattle Communication School |
Seattle Communication School is
a private communication and culture school located in beautiful
Seattle, Washington, home of the Seattle Mariners baseball team,
Microsoft and Starbucks. The focus of learning is on experience,
or Learning Through Doing. Learning takes place in the classroom
and also in the community during daily visits to various businesses
and cultural attractions. Seattle Communication School is not just
an ESL program. It is a fun and challenging process of language
and culture discovery and personal growth.
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Mission |
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To respond to the individual needs of each learner with a total
experience designed to challenge and grow each learner's English
communication abilities and multi-cultural fluency.
- To design and provide top-quality,
experience-based classroom and community learning activities that
reflect understanding of and respect for each learner's specific
learning and growth goals.
- To increase not just English language
skills as commonly tested by TOEFL or TOEIC, but the total English
communication abilities of all learners as measured in actual
communication situations.
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| Learning |
| Seattle Communication School (SCS)
learners meet Monday through Thursday at the SCS classroom, usually
at 10:00 a.m. Activities usually end by 3:00 p.m. Fridays are free
days for learners to explore the city, engage in hobbies or other
personal interests. Learning activities are very flexible, and are
designed to respond to the specific needs of individuals and the
entire group. Some days there will be a mixture of classroom learning
and outside activities, and some days all learning will take place
outside the classroom on visits to businesses, schools, private
homes or government offices, or cultural attractions such as parks,
sports and other community events or the zoo. One popular learning
experience is a tour of the State capital building in Olympia. The
focus at SCS is always on Learning Through Doing.
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Home-stay |
| All learners will live with home-stay
families not far from the SCS classroom, unless other accommodation
arrangements are made with SCS. Home-stay families are carefully
interviewed and selected by the official SCS home-stay company for
compatibility with the mission of SCS. This company also provides
home-stays for the University of Washington and has an excellent
reputation for professionalism. The home-stay company has native
Japanese staff to ensure that the needs of SCS learners are met.
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Programs |
| SCS has programs
to meet the needs of two different populations: |
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- Senior citizen (silver)
learners
- Adult learners age 21+
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Program length options include: |
- nine months
- three months
- one month (summer only)
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Classes never have more than 14 learners,
and there is a high-speed Internet connection and several computers
in the classroom. Learners can use the computers for email and Internet
access, or for other learning activities.
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Instructor |
| SCS's founder and principal instructor
is Daniel Dolan, Ph.D. Daniel supervises or directly teaches all
learning activities, and organizes and guides many of the community
visits.
Daniel received a doctorate in Speech Communication from the University
of Washington in Seattle, and has taught communication courses at
the University and also in Tokyo. He also teaches communication
programs for UC Berkeley Extension. Currently Daniel serves on the
advisory boards of two University of Washington business certificate
courses, and for a Japanese commercial real estate company in Yokohama.
Daniel lived in Japan for ten years, and has excellent personal
connections to many businesses, schools and government offices in
Seattle.
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