For students
A. Introduction
Established in October 2008, Rainschool is in continuous development, with around 200 English grammar and writing training exercises – most of them free - already available (written in December 09).
· In the future, we intend to offer a live online lesson service, both for groups and 1-1 tuition.
· Here are the contents of this ‘For students’ page:
A. Introduction
B. Information for students:
1. What you can find at Rainschool
2. How to use the Rainschool site
a) understanding the file code number
b) making the exercises interactive
c) free files and paying files
3. Rainschool quality guarantee
C. Information for teachers
B Information for students
1. What you can find at Rainschool.
Rainschool exercises are on five levels:
Elementary / Pre-intermediate
Intermediate
Upper Intermediate
Advanced
Proficiency
[There are no exercises for beginners on this website, because beginner-level students need a teacher with them to help them with their English. If your level is elementary or above, you can use the explanations and exercises on this site without regular help from a teacher of English.]
There are 4 types of file on Rainschool: Reference, Explanation, English Practice exercises and Answers to exercises.
The Reference files are special ones, such as verb tenses, which you will keep, like a dictionary, and use from time to time when you need to check something.
The Explanation files tell you how one piece of grammar – for example phrases, active & passive, conjunctions – works, and gives examples.
The English Practice exercises give you the chance to test what you have studied in the explanation files.
The Answer files are for you to check if you did the exercises correctly.
2. How to use the Rainschool site
Here are some simple instructions to help you get the most out of the Rainschool site.
The site is divided into two sections, and the one which you want to use is called the School of English. If you click go to the home page of http://www.rainschool.com/ and click on the School of English link, you will see this:
Click on any of these links and you will find a number of links, all with code numbers, which take you to the individual files.
a) Understanding the file code number
As you can see by following the links, all Rainschool files have a code number, for example: E4-01G, P507W and so on.
The first letter tells you the type of file: R= reference, E= explanation, P= practice, A= answer.
The first number tells you the level of difficulty
1=elementary, 2=pre-intermediate, 3=intermediate, 4=upper-intermediate, 5=advanced, 6=proficiency.
The last letter tells you what type of English work it is:
W=writing help, G=grammar
This means that every file has its own unique code. If you save the code and type it into the ‘search’ box next time, you can get back to that file.
b)
Making the exercises interactive
You can highlight the text you want to use, then right click and click print to get a printed copy.
Better, however, is to select, right click, copy, open a word document (PC) - or Mac equivalent - and paste.
You then have the document in a form in which you can work on the text of your answers as much as you like.
c) Free files and paying files
You can use all the files on the site free of charge EXCEPT for the answers.
3. Rainschool quality guarantee
You can find plenty of free English on the web. But BE CAREFUL. I do not think that you will get, for free, explanations and exercises of the quality of the ones on this site.
The exercises on this site have all been used and tested in the classroom with actual students, sometimes over a number of years. In many cases, I created them because my students were having problems learning by using only the normally available grammar books. In order to get a small financial return from these years of work, I am therefore making a modest charge for the answer files, for those who want to use them to check their work.
Also, I have tried to use my many years experience in order to write the explanations in simple English. This is not so necessary for advanced students, but it is very important for intermediate and below. I have made every effort to write explanations which you can understand, using a good dictionary to help you, of course.