In Canada and many other countries anyone can use the title education agent, counselor or consultant without any prior training, education, certification or registration. This is a completely un-regulated industry with no standards and no policing associations. The internet is full of "agent complaints" from students, teachers, schools, homestay and service industries.
Many students and their parents will sit across the desk from a convicted criminal in a fancy suit, expensive looking office, who is using a false name, a new business agency name which sounds like an established agency, and is falsely representing his agency contracts and licenses from schools, universities and institutes.
Eliminating the obvious frauds is not that difficult. Prospective customers should ask to see personal ID, business registrations, business licenses and references from the schools they represent and references from previous students.
Prospective customers should ask to see what education or training or experience qualifications the agent has. Did they finish high school? college? university? Did they study abroad? Have they ever traveled overseas? to that school? been to that homestay? Why are they recommending that school?
Local discount agents describe all schools as the same and then try to place students based on discounts. Any school advantages of professional programs, curricula, teachers, or systems are completely lost using price only discount agents. I have seen many agent whiteboards with the "price du jour" - just like the fish market. Some of these prices were falsely high then "discounted" to make the price appear better.
Students are also increasingly aware that most of the larger agencies are promoting their own schools located in Canada, USA, Australia, and New Zealand. Many Canadian ESL schools do not know that they are competing with "foreign agency owned" ESL schools. The foreign agencies have the market presence in the local markets and simply place the students into schools where they have an ownership interest. The MBA's call this vertical integration. The mega agencies would rather make 40 to 50% than the regular commission of 10 to 25%. When the 50% is transferred internationally the "Canadian Schools" run at a loss and do not pay taxes. The "Mega Agencies" located internationally pay from 3.5% to 25% income taxes.
Prospective students should investigate the agent and agency before giving them any money.
There are honest, hard working and professional agents who have visited the schools they represent, post actual student testimonials and continue to offer good advice based on years of experience. Students who work with professional agents and consultants actually save the most money and time going to the right school the first time.
Original Post: ESL in Canada directory
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ESL in Canada Blog URL
http://eslincanada.blogspot.com/
Saturday, June 10, 2006
Wednesday, May 10, 2006
Collocations and Machine Language Translations
The tendency for words to occur together is called collocation.
The mathematicians that study language and have lots of computing power are forming English language databases. These databases can be used for machine language translation, formulas to rank collocation, most used priority word lists, word grouping tendencies and other linguistics research. Using simple research the text is analyzed for collocations by counting the occurrences of a word and then all of the preceding or accompanying words.
If we take a simple formula approach it is easy to understand collocations. Unique collocations occur with only one set of words in combination. An example of a unique collocation is shrug shoulders. It does not appear in any other combinations.
Strong word collocations occur in use at over 70 percent of the total uses. Example: “Comment on” is considered a strong collocation at 75 percent and "comment about" would be considered a weak collocation at less than 20 percent of the combinations. Other examples of strong collocations: a vivid imagination, problem child, bosom buddy, or dead serious.
Fixed phrases are sometimes considered an extended collocation.
Examples: at the time of writing, it is interesting to note that, to be taken into a account, rather you than me, not on your life, all's well that ends well, under the weather, not for love or money, as far as I'm concerned.
Collocations and Connotation
Not all co-occurring items can be counted as collocations. The following are not considered as collocations: phrasal verbs, idioms and compound nouns.
One factor in the difference between collocation meaning is connotation. Polysemy is a term for words with more than one meaning. Sometimes a word may collocate with one of the word's meanings but not with the other meanings.
With some exceptions collocations are usually a more literate interpretation of the words used together. Phrasal verbs, idioms and compound nouns will have totally different, partial or variable meanings within context to the literate interpretation of the actual words.
Example Collocation Combinations
adjective + noun (light drizzle)
adjective + preposition (big of)
adverb + adjective (very pretty)
adverb + verb (boldly go)
noun + noun (designer collection)
verb + noun (cover ground)
verb + preposition (apply to)
Altavista's Babelfish or Google by Systran allows for so-called gist translation with an error rate of 20 to 30 percent. The large error rate is due to how a word's meaning varies with context. One example: "The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak" translated from English to Russian and back again only to yield "The vodka is good but the meat is rotten." So far Babelfish has only 19 language pairs available and it has taken decades to develop language-pair rules for each of the 9,900 language word pairs.
Newer statistics machine translation systems eliminate the old rule-based gap-filling solutions and depends entirely on a statistical solution by looking for overlaps between sentence fragments and collocation tendencies.
With this new statistics machine translation system it knows what it doesn't know, however the core database may prove to be unwieldy consisting of hundreds of gigabytes and using huge computing power.
Some observations for language students and language teachers is the translation pool for just average translations is 9900 words. The big variable is context, which means that a word can be used in various formats: "formal, industry specific jargon, slang, idioms, act a different part of speech performing a different function within that particular meaning. If every word has an average of five context variables then the student really has to learn 50,000 items.
As final conclusions: second language learning takes time and effort and there should be plenty of translation jobs for the next 20 years if you are willing to invest the seven to nine years to be proficient.
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ESL in Canada Blog URL
http://eslincanada.blogspot.com/
The mathematicians that study language and have lots of computing power are forming English language databases. These databases can be used for machine language translation, formulas to rank collocation, most used priority word lists, word grouping tendencies and other linguistics research. Using simple research the text is analyzed for collocations by counting the occurrences of a word and then all of the preceding or accompanying words.
If we take a simple formula approach it is easy to understand collocations. Unique collocations occur with only one set of words in combination. An example of a unique collocation is shrug shoulders. It does not appear in any other combinations.
Strong word collocations occur in use at over 70 percent of the total uses. Example: “Comment on” is considered a strong collocation at 75 percent and "comment about" would be considered a weak collocation at less than 20 percent of the combinations. Other examples of strong collocations: a vivid imagination, problem child, bosom buddy, or dead serious.
Fixed phrases are sometimes considered an extended collocation.
Examples: at the time of writing, it is interesting to note that, to be taken into a account, rather you than me, not on your life, all's well that ends well, under the weather, not for love or money, as far as I'm concerned.
Collocations and Connotation
Not all co-occurring items can be counted as collocations. The following are not considered as collocations: phrasal verbs, idioms and compound nouns.
One factor in the difference between collocation meaning is connotation. Polysemy is a term for words with more than one meaning. Sometimes a word may collocate with one of the word's meanings but not with the other meanings.
With some exceptions collocations are usually a more literate interpretation of the words used together. Phrasal verbs, idioms and compound nouns will have totally different, partial or variable meanings within context to the literate interpretation of the actual words.
Example Collocation Combinations
adjective + noun (light drizzle)
adjective + preposition (big of)
adverb + adjective (very pretty)
adverb + verb (boldly go)
noun + noun (designer collection)
verb + noun (cover ground)
verb + preposition (apply to)
Altavista's Babelfish or Google by Systran allows for so-called gist translation with an error rate of 20 to 30 percent. The large error rate is due to how a word's meaning varies with context. One example: "The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak" translated from English to Russian and back again only to yield "The vodka is good but the meat is rotten." So far Babelfish has only 19 language pairs available and it has taken decades to develop language-pair rules for each of the 9,900 language word pairs.
Newer statistics machine translation systems eliminate the old rule-based gap-filling solutions and depends entirely on a statistical solution by looking for overlaps between sentence fragments and collocation tendencies.
With this new statistics machine translation system it knows what it doesn't know, however the core database may prove to be unwieldy consisting of hundreds of gigabytes and using huge computing power.
Some observations for language students and language teachers is the translation pool for just average translations is 9900 words. The big variable is context, which means that a word can be used in various formats: "formal, industry specific jargon, slang, idioms, act a different part of speech performing a different function within that particular meaning. If every word has an average of five context variables then the student really has to learn 50,000 items.
As final conclusions: second language learning takes time and effort and there should be plenty of translation jobs for the next 20 years if you are willing to invest the seven to nine years to be proficient.
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ESL in Canada Blog URL
http://eslincanada.blogspot.com/
Friday, April 28, 2006
New Canada International Student Work Permits
Off-Campus Work Permit Program Launched
Ottawa, April 27, 2006 — Foreign students studying in Canada can
apply for off-campus work permits effective immediately, the
Honourable Monte Solberg, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration,
announced today.
Foreign students contribute approximately $4 billion a year to
Canada's economy. There are about 100,000 foreign students in Canada
who could be eligible for work permits under the Off-Campus Work
Permit Program.
The program is not intended to take jobs away from Canadian students.
Each applicant will be required to compete for employment on an equal
basis with Canadians.
Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) has signed agreements with
most provinces to implement the program, and agreements with New
Brunswick and the Yukon are currently being finalized. The agreements
allow eligible foreign students at public post-secondary institutions
to work off-campus for up to 20 hours a week during the school year
and full-time during study breaks.
Eligible foreign students can apply for an off-campus work permit
immediately, and may be able to work off-campus as early as this
summer. The work permit is valid for the duration of their study
permit.
"CIC is working in cooperation with the provinces and territories to
make Canada a destination of choice by making it easier for foreign
students to work in Canada during and after their studies," said
Minister Solberg. "Off-campus work agreements will make it easier for
students to gain work experience in the Canadian labour market and
earn extra income while studying," he said.
The Canadian Federation of Students, the Fédération étudiante
universitaire du Québec, the Association of Universities and Colleges
of Canada and the Association of Canadian Community Colleges, who
have all been consulted on the initiative, support efforts to make it
easier for foreign students to work in Canada.
"With Canadian work experience, foreign students will be able to
integrate into the Canadian labour force more quickly. This will help
address skilled labour shortages in Canada," said Minister Solberg.
ESL in Canada Internship Preparation Program
The internship preparation program is open to new Canadians, LINC
graduates, international work/study visa students, students preparing
for business school, students preparing for career training,
graduates preparing for work in English speaking workplaces, job
seekers who need to improve their business English, job candidates
who need Canadian work experience or Canadian work references.
Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC)
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/press/06/0601-e.html
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ESL in Canada Blog URL
http://eslincanada.blogspot.com/
Ottawa, April 27, 2006 — Foreign students studying in Canada can
apply for off-campus work permits effective immediately, the
Honourable Monte Solberg, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration,
announced today.
Foreign students contribute approximately $4 billion a year to
Canada's economy. There are about 100,000 foreign students in Canada
who could be eligible for work permits under the Off-Campus Work
Permit Program.
The program is not intended to take jobs away from Canadian students.
Each applicant will be required to compete for employment on an equal
basis with Canadians.
Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) has signed agreements with
most provinces to implement the program, and agreements with New
Brunswick and the Yukon are currently being finalized. The agreements
allow eligible foreign students at public post-secondary institutions
to work off-campus for up to 20 hours a week during the school year
and full-time during study breaks.
Eligible foreign students can apply for an off-campus work permit
immediately, and may be able to work off-campus as early as this
summer. The work permit is valid for the duration of their study
permit.
"CIC is working in cooperation with the provinces and territories to
make Canada a destination of choice by making it easier for foreign
students to work in Canada during and after their studies," said
Minister Solberg. "Off-campus work agreements will make it easier for
students to gain work experience in the Canadian labour market and
earn extra income while studying," he said.
The Canadian Federation of Students, the Fédération étudiante
universitaire du Québec, the Association of Universities and Colleges
of Canada and the Association of Canadian Community Colleges, who
have all been consulted on the initiative, support efforts to make it
easier for foreign students to work in Canada.
"With Canadian work experience, foreign students will be able to
integrate into the Canadian labour force more quickly. This will help
address skilled labour shortages in Canada," said Minister Solberg.
ESL in Canada Internship Preparation Program
The internship preparation program is open to new Canadians, LINC
graduates, international work/study visa students, students preparing
for business school, students preparing for career training,
graduates preparing for work in English speaking workplaces, job
seekers who need to improve their business English, job candidates
who need Canadian work experience or Canadian work references.
Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC)
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/press/06/0601-e.html
***********
ESL in Canada Blog URL
http://eslincanada.blogspot.com/
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