Autumn- Winter ESB News Version 1 PDF v1

We are always interested in finding out about personal stories behind the learners who take our ESB assessments. Viktoriia’s story below highlights the positive impact that ESB has had on her life. I came to live in the UK in November 2017 with my husband Daniel and our beloved cat, Duncan. I am very proud to say that we are a family of international members! I am Ukrainian, Daniel is Scottish, as is Duncan too! We lived in the Ukraine for 4 years before moving to Cyprus. It was exciting to experience a different culture, but we made the decision to build our life in Daniel’s country of birth. I fell in love with the UK from the very first moment I arrived. It was the month of November, the beautiful gold Autumn season which reminded me so much of my homeland. I had missed this so much in Cyprus, so I am happy to be here, creating a new life together with my dear husband. There are several reasons why I want to improve my English skills and why I need to have improved communication skills. Firstly, I want to feel comfortable in my daily life and be able to communicate better. Secondly, I’d like to be able to use English in my job. I am presently a certified life and business coach and a trainer of American Academy of professional coaching. I work with Russian-speaking students and individual clients so I don’t need to use my English skills to communicate with them at present. However, in the future, I hope I’ll have the opportunity to work with English speaking clients, so it’s important for me to improve my skills.

With this in mind, I decided to take the ESB Entry Level Award in ESOL Skills for Life Speaking and Listening) (Entry 3) assessment. I completed the assessment in June and was overjoyed with my achievement! It was the first step of my plan to speak better English! Also, I have a dream. I’m very excited to say that I’ve written a book, “The Stories of Joy”. One day, I want to be able to translate my book into English. That would be my second proudest achievement! I am really happy with my ESB experience. I loved learning with our international group and Amanda is a great teacher. The assessors and everybody who works at Harrogate College were all amazing! Today, I feel much more confident and am progressing with my English studies with a new fantastic group on the Level 1 Award in ESOL Skills for Life (Speaking and Listening) course. I am very grateful for this opportunity to develop my English Language skills and to ESB which is supporting me on my journey. It has given me the ability to go about my daily life with more confidence. To find out more about our ESOL Skills for Life assessments, please visit our website https://esbuk.org/qualifications/ .

PHOTO - Viktoriia McAlister and her husband

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