Countless English + courses offer to combine language learning with sports, creativity, and all sorts of hobbies, the list of which is hardly thinner than a telephone book. In principle, you can choose anything your heart desires: from the simplest "English + beach holiday" or popular "English + business + sport" to complex options requiring special conditions and careful choice of place and time – for example, a language course combined with horseback riding lessons and attending the Royal Ascot races. Or a vocabulary course for those wishing to start a family and practice the language during the annual September "Brides' Festival" in the town of Lisdoonvarna in Ireland.
Here's the breakdown...
Most foreigners learning English choose something practical as the "plus." Applicants are interested in qualification language tests and immersion in an unfamiliar educational environment. The fair half of humanity wants to become even more attractive – to take a cosmetology course, learn to dance, dress elegantly, cook exquisite dishes, tend a garden, arrange flower compositions, and furnish a home with taste... and for everyone to know that these design finds are not from just anywhere, but from the London School of Design.
Successful representatives of Olympic sports are driven to courses by a conscious necessity: at international competitions one needs to communicate with journalists, not to mumble "no comment." At the same time, English lessons must in no way disrupt the training schedule.
Students of the "third age" prefer a school in the town of Totnes in southern England, where under the guidance of specialists one can become acquainted with the Japanese health system "Reiki."
There are also programs for those who do not chase an obvious benefit, but simply decided to go visit sharks, gorillas, big bad crocodiles... "English + exotic travel" is a general tonic that should be taken regularly – as a cure for the blues.
How does it work?
Classes on English + courses are suitable for those whose English level is not below Intermediate, otherwise there will be little benefit and no pleasure. True, a language certificate is almost never asked for upon admission. In extreme cases, based on the results of preliminary testing, they may suggest first studying for two or three weeks on General English courses.
The training scheme is approximately the same everywhere. In the morning, English lessons (reading, listening, translation, vocabulary expansion) on a topic ordered by the client. In the afternoon – practical classes. For example, you have become the owner of a dog (cat, parrot) of a rare breed and want to show it at an international exhibition. A two-week English + pets course is quite enough to learn how to walk your pet as required by international standards, communicate with a veterinarian, learn about preparing documents for crossing borders, quarantine service rules and the laws of the host country on owners' liability for damage that their pets may cause to third parties, etc.
Demonstrations and role-plays play a big role in learning. For example, in groups studying garden design, students are not only taught theory and shown agrotechnical techniques, but also given the chance to practice cutting and grafting cuttings, soil preparation, and shrub trimming.
The majority's choice
Almost half of foreigners coming to the courses are students. Therefore, English at a level sufficient for university study and for passing TOEFL or IELTS is taught everywhere. The second largest category is business people. As many professions as there are in the world, so many training programs are offered by language schools. There are courses for beginners and for professional managers. Here the task of English + business is, without delving into the vocabulary of a specific industry, to give students concepts common to all types of activities: demand, supply, negotiations, presentations, contracts, advertising, etc. Much in business is decided outside offices, and if a school offers English + business, then almost certainly you can also order English + tennis or golf there: European entrepreneurs are happy to move discussion of technical problems out onto green lawns.
With songs and dances
As a rule, a person is endowed with several talents at once. The chemist Borodin composed an opera in his spare time, French ex-premier Christian Pineau wrote lovely philosophical tales, physicist Nikitin sings on the stage, cosmonaut Leonov paints pictures... Do not bury your second talent: fluent English and additional skills give a person confidence that he will withstand any troubles. For example, the University of California offers its own and foreign students over 700 different courses, on which you can take exams and obtain a certificate of additional education.
Professionals who want to expand the scope of their activities give credit to English + courses. Businessmen, for example, study information technology to open a new online store. A cameraman with a diploma from the New York language school Rennert Bilingual has a better chance of getting a job abroad, even if the diploma is issued not after five years, but after eight weeks of study.
Finally, there is simply love for art, without any calculation – it is evidenced by the enduring popularity of the unique program English + Beatles Experience of the Liverpool School of English Language, or the Irish invention – Rock courses: English lessons in the morning, making music with famous Dublin rock masters after lunch. Literature lovers can combine classes with a pilgrimage to Shakespearean places or walk through Dublin pubs along the route of Leopold Bloom – the hero of James Joyce.
Plus exotic
As children we dream of traveling, but having become adults, we move only from home to work and back. Language schools in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa will help break this monotony and follow the routes of Captain Grant.
In Australia, a baby koala willingly poses for photos cuddled up with tourists. Students at Melbourne's English Language Centre at Hawthorn deliberately cross the Bass Strait to meet the Tasmanian devil, and diving enthusiasts are drawn to the Great Barrier Reef.
In New Zealand, only 200 years ago, the natives could easily have dined on an unwary traveler. But today the country has a British education system, and language schools offer everyone who wishes to learn how to shear sheep and jump into an abyss. "Until I came to study in Auckland, spending 33 hours on the road," says Elena Goryachaya, a student at an Auckland language school, "about New Zealand I only knew that meat with the stamp 'NZ' and Anchor butter are exported from there. My main goal was to learn English. And I also learned that in the language of the natives, New Zealand is the Land of the Long White Cloud, that the naked and unarmed Maori resisted colonization for 50 years, that they are magnificent dancers, and to this day many of them prefer to live in reservations, wear grass skirts and dance, dance... That it was here that one of the most 'adrenaline-filled' entertainments was born – jumping: leaping into an abyss on an elastic rope, which we call a 'bungee'."
In Africa, where we were not allowed as children, there is no longer Barmaley. Foreign students at the Cape Town English language school, having learned the names and habits of savanna inhabitants in their lessons, head to national parks and nurseries on weekends to put their knowledge into practice. There you can bottle-feed a little lion cub and take a photo with it. If you don't want to interact with lions, you can fly over the reserve in a hot-air balloon and look at a cheetah, an elephant, a hippopotamus, a giraffe, and a buffalo from a safe distance.
There are such islands...
The Gran Canaria School of English... Here the Canary Islands themselves are the 'plus' that so attracts students: the average annual temperature is +20 degrees, you can swim and sunbathe in any season, the nature is fabulous, the beaches are luxurious. If you add 20 English lessons a week, the carefree, lazy beach life becomes only a little more meaningful and varied. The conditions in language schools on Cyprus, Malta, and the Hawaiian Islands differ little.
The city-state of Singapore does not hide its interest in the influx of qualified personnel. Foreign students who have reached the Advanced level can, in just 15 months of study at the Singapore AIT TAFE Centre, obtain a relevant specialty: information technology, business, tourism, marketing. If a foreigner has studied in Singapore for three years and then managed to sign a three-year employment contract with one of the Singaporean companies, he can already apply for permanent residence. Therefore, the Singaporean option can be called 'English + new horizons of the Southern Hemisphere'.
Time and money
Usually, the duration of programs depends on the curriculum. If a student wants to obtain, for example, a web designer certificate, he must accumulate a certain number of 'credits' in theory and practice and complete coursework. Whether he spends 10 weeks or 12 on this is up to him. A shorter course may be just as intensive as a long one, but those who are not afraid of increased workloads and catch on quickly might save on this difference. The minimum course duration is also determined by non-academic circumstances.
Theoretically, language schools in Canada, the USA, and Australia could accept our student for 1-2 weeks, why not? But, as a rule, consulates do not issue short-term visas, and educational agencies, knowing this in advance, offer either a country with a more lenient visa regime or a longer course. However, when choosing a longer program, 'consolation' discounts begin to apply: after 3-4 weeks, the next week will cost 10-15% less.