Young Learners

Now that the world has recovered from the Covidpandemic, more and more groups of young learners are travelling to the UK to doshort English language courses, many of them at ILC schools.

Most of these young learners are between 14 and16 years old, and they come to England with a school group during term time.For many of them, it is their first trip abroad without their parents, so it'sa great adventure for them. But what can they expect?

ILC young learner courses are organised incolaboration with the young people's school in their own country. They usuallytravel together by plane with group leaders to help and keep them safe. Uponarrival in their study town, they are collected by their homestay provider(often called a host family), who take them to their home - usually one or twolearners per home. This gives the young learners both a chance to speak Englishand the opportunity to experiance life in a real English family, which is anamazing cultural experience.

The school programme is fairly similar to thesummer schools organised by ILC. Young learners usually attend English classesfrom Monday to Friday starting at about 9.30am and finishing at 1pm. These lessonsare designed to give them a chance to use the language that they have beenpainstakingly learning in their own country, and to do this mostly by speaking.Young learners are often surprised by this and for the first day or two keepasking "Writing it down?" to which the techer replies "No, justspeaking." They soon get the hang of this and like the opportunity to talkabout subjects that are of interest to them such as fashion, shopping,friendship and music. They have a half hour break at 11am, and a differentteacher, and topic after that.

During the afternoon they take part in astructured social programme. These are fun activities using English as themedium of instruction and participation. The aim here is that the youngstersare so engaged in what they are doing, they hardly notice that they arecommunicating in English. Some people call this 'stealth learning'.

On the other hand, some learners have classroomlessons in the afternoon. These are usually 'project based' lessons where smallgroups of learners create a presentation or mini performance in English, andshow this to a large number of fellow young learners. These lessons buildfluency and confidence, and are often very clever and amusing – and alwaysgreat fun to watch.

Learners aged 16 -17 are allowed to dovoluntary work in the UK and ILC schools sometimes organise combined courseswith English lessons in the morning and voluntary work in the afternoon. Thisis very demanding, but when they go back to their country, they are certain to putthis experience on their CV.

No visit to the UK would be complete without atleast one daytrip to another town. Unsurprisingly, London is the most populardestination. These coach trips are carefully designed and implemented so thatthe learners get to see many of the main tourist attractions and have a littlefree time as well (depending on their age). You can be sure that they areitching to get away from their group leaders and explore with their friends.These are days they will remember all their life.

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