Dear Dr. Stevens, teachers, tutors, classmates, and friends of the ELI,

　　First I want to give thanks for this award to the graduation committee, but especially I want to give thanks to my teachers and tutors. They are great! They are always very interested in helping to motivate and encourage us. For example, every time that June says, "Yes!" or "Good job!", that motivates me, because I know it\'s a sincere comment. On the contrary, if you do not do a good job, she will tell you: "Guys, I will be honest with you…" (then you better be prepared…because a bomb is about to fall down). It seems like they never get bored of teaching the same thing and they want you to take advantage of this time. They are much more than teachers, they are friends like Leslie or Rika, tourist guides, like James Slater, they are also advisors and sometimes we see them like part of our families.

　　I also want to thank my classmates and friends because I have learned a lot from them. I think everybody deserves recognition because while we are here studying English we have to overcome many difficulties.

I admire all the young people who came from countries that are very far away, and probably it is their first time traveling alone to an unknown country. Like Joyce who came from Taiwan. Beside this, there are other people who are not used to do some chores like cleaning and cooking or doing the laundry. There are couples who are here with their children, like Enzo and Janet, from Venezuela, who have to take care of Daniel, on the contrary, people like Josephine from Brazil who is alone and misses her husband and children. There are also people that have to keep in touch with their jobs. I remember Cristina, from Italy, who graduated last session. She was always worried about all the things that her boss told her to do via e-mail. And with all these responsibilities, they have done a great job.

I have tried to follow the steps of my friends, like Meric, from Turkey, because he was always studying by himself doing exercises for the TOEFL; or the adapting to new cultures like Radek the tall guy from Poland has. The first day of class he looked so serious, he was so uptight, but you should see him now. If you ask him: "Where are you from?", he will tell you in perfect Spanish, "Yo soy de Colombia", and you also should see him dancing the merengue. You can see that here you can learn many things besides English. I also admire Nestor, from Venezuela who always had his homework ready before the deadline, this encouraged me to hurry up with mine.

If you are a new or continuing student, I want to tell you few things that helped me during this time to improve my English. The first recommendation is, don\'t feel afraid of making mistakes. I learned this from my mother, she does not speak English very well but she doesn\'t care, she talks to everybody and she knows how to be understood. You have to tell yourself, ok, I made a mistake, so what! If we knew how to speak English, we would not be here. We have to accept that we are going to make mistakes, in this way we will be able to look at them and to learn from them. It is important to have confidence in ourselves, and that confidence grows with time and practice. To learn a language is not easy. Our teachers will give us the rules and tools for learning, and will help us during the process, but most of the work is from our side. It is not enough to go to class. It is necessary to practice what you have learned, to make sentences with the new words, to do "pleasure reading", as Barbara Gillette would say. You have to speak, to listen, to think, to dream in English all the time

In order to practice the language, we can take advantage of the facilities that the university offers to us. I am always reading the newspapers from the university, to practice English and to know what is going on. For example, one day I read that there were some free computing courses at the university, and I told Nestor, to take an HTML course, because he has a very nice web page with all his pictures from the ELI. It was great, because we learned something new and we were in a class like regular students. I also went to a class as a listener and it was a good opportunity to participate in a class.

　　Another good way to practice English is with a language partner or a host family, who want to meet people from other cultures. For us it is a great opportunity to talk to native speakers and to know more about the culture of this country. With my host family, the Gangemellas, I went on a picnic, to an ice cream festival, and I was glad to share with them Amy\'s birthday, the oldest daughter, and in general to talk to them and to know more about their life. Another thing that I liked to do is to go on Tuesdays to the Scrounge coffee shop, to see the shows. Usually they have comedians and it is a very good listening and comprehension exercise, especially to understand slang and informal talking. And as a plus they give you free coffee in very nice mugs.