My daughter is really jazzed about summer. Because this summer she will be attending a foreign language summer camp! A foreign language summer camp is just what is sounds like: a place where kids and adults of all ages travel abroad to another country and study a specific foreign language while at the same time doing a little sightseeing and shopping and whatever else a person can squeeze into a typical session which can last anywhere from 1 to 4 weeks.
Imagine studying traveling to France to study French or Spain to study Spanish or to London or the US to study English. In my daughter’s case the language in question is English. That might seem odd, because I am after all American. But we live in Italy and my daughter goes to an Italian school. Sure, she speaks nothing but English with me, but I’m not a teacher and despite my best efforts, my daughter’s written English needs some work and her spoken English is far from perfect.
So this summer I’m trying to do things a little bit differently concerning a foreign language summer camp and I’ll toss this out to anyone else with children: being fully aware that the price of just about everything is going up I’m not necessarily convinced that flying my daughter all the way to the United States is going to improve her English language skills.
I am convinced that she needs to be in a full-immersion/24-hour-a-day environment where the spoken and written words are coming at my daughter fast and furious. That can happen just about anywhere so my efforts at finding a foreign language summer camp have been more local or at least European in scope. Why? Because it costs less to fly or drive to Northern Italy or even London (Ryanair for $12.00 – it can’t be beat!) than it does to fly back to the US.
That being said, I can tell you there are a lot of great foreign language summer camps out there to choose from. Concordia Language Village gets high marks – first because I’m impressed with their curriculum and secondly because the camp is located in Switzerland. Learning Languages Abroad is another program I’m considering because their English summer camp is in London.
Most foreign language summer camps share a common trait: the language never stops. From the moment you walk in the door you’re speaking and listening and writing and learning. In small groups or one-on-one with an instructor. A lot of the curriculum is fun and activity based – geared toward the age group and ability of the child. But at the same time there’s work involved.
Sure there are trips and free time but the bottom line is learning a foreign language. No summer camp in its right mind would promise that you’ll walk out the door being bi-lingual after just a few weeks. But if you have at least a rudimentary grasp of a language, a few weeks in a foreign language summer camp will make for significant improvement in your skills.
It’s a fact that trying to learn a foreign language in a classroom once or twice a week is close to impossible. Seriously, how much French or Spanish did you learn back in school? But several weeks in the right environment can yield the proper results.
Foreign language summer camps put a whole new twist on summer vacation and make learning a lot more fun.
I’ll give you an update in July.
