Angelica is an Italian university student studying
to become an early years teacher, but don’t let that fool you- she is quite the
cosmopolitan world traveller. At just 20, she has friends in France, Poland, and
Australia and has spent three summers in London to visit family. Her ability to
speak English makes this all possible. However, she does not credit this to the
13 years she spent studying English in school.
“We only learned academic English,” she
said. “We studied grammar, learned vocabulary, but never learned how to
actually speak, to interact. It was pretty useless considering I could not
actually speak after all that.”
You might be wondering, “Well how did she
learn to speak then?” All it took was spending three summers in London as a
teenager. That does not quite tell the whole story though, as she spent her
summer days travelling around the city with Hi-London, an intensive English
immersion programme for all ages and ability levels.
With Hi-London, students spend a small
amount of time in the classroom learning concepts appropriate to their level
and for the rest of the time they practice these concepts in the real world.
Students practice with each other, the teachers, workshop leaders and those they
meet on their days out, making the entire city one big classroom. Angelica and
her classmates became such good friends that they even talked in the months
between her summers at Hi-London.
Not surprisingly, Angelica prefers the
Hi-London approach over how English was taught at her schools in Italy. “I
prefer Hi- London because it is more fun, and you learn more because you are
interacting with your friends, and you want them to know what you are saying.”
The notion that the more fun the
educational method is the more effective it is may seem too good to be true.
However, Angelica swears that she learned more in three summers with Hi-London
than she did in 13 years of studying English in school. To anyone looking to
improve their English, Angelica has a message for you: “I would recommend
Hi-London to everyone because you get to go around London and meet different
people from all parts of the world.”
Angelica also appreciated her “classwork”
which included performing in plays with her classmates and even going to the
theatre to see a Shakespeare production. “I liked how the teachers had us put
on plays. It was fun to be somebody else and also a great way to learn
English.”
Angelica is glad she found Hi-London, as
she formed many strong friendships and had a lot of fun. She is also looking
forward to the cultural, academic and professional opportunities that fluency
in English provides. She is thinking about studying in London and once a week
teaches an introductory English class for nursery children: “I just really want
to say thanks to Hi-London,” she said. “It has given me lots of opportunities.”
