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Summer Courses
Dates
At the Clare Language Centre we will offer 4 two-week Summer Courses in 2009. The first week begins on 6th July and courses run in sequence every two weeks from that date. The start dates are: 6th July & 20th July, and 3rd August, 17th August 2009.
Cost and details
The Summer Course includes tuition, half board accommodation, excursions and airport / bus transfers. The course lasts for two weeks and costs €990. A four-week block costs €1,900.
Tuition
The Summer Course offers students 15 X 60 minute classes per week. The class size is limited to a maximum of 8 students per class.
Excursions
Students can also avail of one afternoon excursion per week. These excursions include places of natural beauty, and places of historical or cultural interest. Activities such as pitch and putt, hill walking and swimming are also included in our excursions programme for those students who prefer to be more active. Horse-riding and sailing are also available, but at an additional cost to the student.
As 6th August is a public holiday there will be no tuition on that day. Instead there will be an all day excursion for students on 6th August and no afternoon excursion in that week.
Accommodation
The Summer Course includes host family accommodation. Families provide a single room, breakfast and evening meal. Students can book their place with the family from Saturday to Saturday, or from Sunday to Sunday. Rooms with private shower and toilet are available at an extra charge of €100 for two weeks.
We take great care to place students with families where the only common language is English. We also have detailed questions on our registration form to find out if students have any preferences with regard to the type of family or any dietary needs.
Academic Guidelines
Placement
We establish our class groupings on the basis of the English language levels of the students in the school for that particular fortnight. Placement is a sensitive issue with adults and we conduct the Oxford Placement Test in a relaxed and informal atmosphere. We give the student their results and then suggest classes/levels to them. This is done in an open manner and students are clear that they have the right to move class if necessary.
The Summer Course provides for five levels – Elementary, Pre-Intermediate, Intermediate, Upper Intermediate and Advanced. There is no class of Beginners.
Methodology and materials
We believe students are more capable of learning when they are relaxed and open to processing knowledge, so the creation of a pleasant learning environment is vital to successful training. In this environment we aim to meet the three essential conditions for language learning
Exposure to rich but comprehensible input
Motivation stimulating interest in the subject in question
Use of new material presented in the performance-relevant tasks
To this end we draw from a wide range of training methods but with the principal emphasis on individual, paired or group tasks in order to stimulate interest, enhance performance and gain confidence in the target language. We create tasks through the use of newspapers, magazines, radio cassettes, television and video. We exploit language from song and story, drawing on the students’ own culture and tradition and we include play with puzzles and board games. We also use formal textbooks and grammar exercise books.
Goals and focus
We believe an effective course is created through dialogue between the teacher and learners. So the agenda for the Summer Course, as with all our non-examination courses, is set by the students themselves and the students’ agenda and language needs are the focus of the course.
In this course we ask students to keep a learning diary and we also hold frequent feedback sessions where we ask students to assess the effectiveness of their course to date in meeting their needs. These sessions also examine where improvements on content and methodology can be made. This feedback is invaluable for maintaining the language learning efficiency of the course.
Benefits of our Summer Course
Size
This is a small programme with a maximum of 40 places on the Summer Course. This means learners have more individual attention and better opportunity to learn.
Location
The fact that Clare Language Centre located in the small town of Ennis is a decided advantage for our Summer Course students. Our students always comment on the friendliness of the Clare people and they have ample opportunity to practise their English outside of class. People in this part of Ireland have time to talk to you.
Mixed Nationality Groups
The Summer Course generally has a good mix of nationalities. Last summer for example, we had Spanish, French, German, Korean, Italian, Belgian and Swiss students. The small student numbers combined with the international mix of nationalities means that students are able to communicate in English outside of class, which is vital for practising the language.
Social Life
There is a good range of ages on the Summer Course (from 16 to 65) and students usually have a good social life sharing lunches, picnics, pub visits, weekend trips and of course, discos for the young. We assist students with planning evening and weekend activities. Students often visit Irish music pubs, Irish dancing sessions and classes. At weekends students often travel together to visit the Aran Islands, Galway, Cork or Dublin.
Week one
Monday 09.30 - 13.00 General English
Tuesday 09.30 - 13.00 General English
Wednesday 09.30 - 13.00 General English
14.00 - 17.00 Excursion
Thursday 09.30 - 13.00 General English
Friday 09.30 - 13.00 General English
Week two
Monday 09.30 - 13.00 General English
Tuesday 09.30 - 13.00 General English
Wednesday 09.30 - 13.00 General English
14.00 - 17.00 Excursion
Thursday 09.30 - 13.00 General English
Friday 09.30 - 13.00 General English
There is a 30 minute break every morning