Free Intro Course Now Open

Apologies to all who tried to register for our new and free introductory course (Becoming an Accent and Pronunciation Instructor – The ILP Approach) over the past few weeks. A new user registration system was implemented during the month of August, and the implementation did not go as smoothly as expected. The bugs and quirks have all been worked out, however, and registration for this course, as well as our core certification course, is now open and functioning properly. PLEASE NOTE: To get in on the free course, you must first register (for free) as a user for this site. You’ll find the Register page link in the Courses menu,… Read More

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Amazon

Amazon for Video Conferencing?

Yes! Amazon has a video conferencing service. It has the same features as the other popular platforms, but it may cost you much less to use it. Amazon Chime is a pay-as-you-go video conference service that runs on Amazon servers. There is no up-front cost. There is no long-term commitment. You could even start using it without a credit card. Amazon Chime is part of a much larger platform of services known as Amazon Web Services (AWS). Anyone can sign up for AWS and use the services for things like file storage, building and hosting websites, developing applications, and even telephone service. Most of the available services are well known… Read More

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Updates and improvements!

The login/logout process has been creating a frustrating environment for some users of this site. Users were not seeing a clear pathway to the courses they paid for after logging in. In some instances, they weren’t seeing anything useful at all. This has been fixed! These issues have been addressed in recent maintenance, updates, and improvements performed on the site. Upon logging in with your email address and password, each user who has paid for ILP Academy access should be brought directly to the Account page, which displays a list of accessible courses, a progress bar for each course, and a link to the certificate of completion if it has… Read More

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March 2021 Updates

The ILP Academy website is receiving some major updates to the registration process and site navigation. It’s possible that registered users may stumble across an unexpected result while these updates are being implemented. We want to minimize the site “downtime” and cause as little interruption to your access as possible. Bear with us – the updates will improve your site experience.

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Revisiting the Orientation Session – The Origin of Accents

The Perfect Starting Point A good way to kick off your orientation session is to present the handout titled The Origin of Accents and ask questions such as, “Ever wonder about why you are speaking with an accent? How do accents happen?” The best answers or explanations to those questions include: An accent “happens” to any adult who learns a second language. Your American English is accented because you are using the pronunciation rules of your first/native language. Everyone, EVERYONE, speaks with an accent. There is no such thing as unaccented speech. An accent can “happen” to any adult regardless of age, education, or cultural background. You might tell your… Read More

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Updates to our membership tracker software

Updates are being installed for the membership management software used at 800-language.com. Active members may have trouble logging in or accessing some features while these updates are being performed, but active members can still use their membership discount benefit when purchasing trainer materials by phone (800-526-4824, ask for the Research Division). This brief inconvenience will ONLY apply to this web site (800-language.com), and no effect on the PESL Practice and Assessment sites.

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800-language.com Security Settings update – January 2020

Just a quick technical note here to reassure you about your safety and security using this site… SSL Certificates are small data files that activate the little padlock icon up near the web address in your browser. That padlock tells you your browser (Chrome, for example) is securely connected to the servers we use to host and store our website data. Personal data stored on the server for this site is extremely limited – your payment information is handled by Paypal or WePay servers, not ours. I bring this up because the SSL certificate for this site recently expired (January 22, 2020), and a few users tried to access the… Read More

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