Language schools are turning from a resort pastime into a big business.
However, for all of Bournemouth's attractiveness, tourism in the city is, to put it mildly, not on the rise: the British have begun to prefer countries with more predictable weather, and for foreigners a holiday here is quite expensive. So residents had to develop another type of business, albeit related to tourism - language schools.
Student's Cell
Imagine you are retired, you have a small but not altogether tiny house in a pretty seaside town, your children have grown up and live separately, and the rooms are empty. Naturally, you would try to rent out the extra space. Back home you would rent it to holidaymakers; in Bournemouth they rent it to language school students. The difference is slight - but only at first glance. If you are, say, a misanthrope, you can reduce all your landlord duties to handing out and taking back keys. "With them," however, it is a constant service - two meals a day, maintaining order, and, ideally, talking with the lodgers, which supplements the school lessons.
Let me say right away that not all students enjoy living with a family: sometimes they feed you little and tastelessly, skimping on meat; sometimes the rooms are tiny - almost like Pushkin's cell at the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum; sometimes the hosts hint that you should use the shower less often - water is expensive. I can neither confirm nor deny this: students did tell many such stories, but my landlord and landlady were strikingly different from the average. Every evening during my two-week stay we spent together - over long dinners with the inevitable discussion of the weather, detective series, and looking at family albums. They even did my homework for me. "I'll write it all for you, just don't ask me why it's this way and not that – I studied at school a long time ago," my hostess, 60-year-old Mrs. Chave, would say. And on the day of my departure a surprise awaited me: a Chinese porcelain cup with a set of saucers and a touching card. Almost a real family idyll.
However, I like to think that Mr. and Mrs. Chave don't give souvenir gifts to every student. After making inquiries at the schools, I managed to find out that the educational institution pays eight pounds a day for each lodger. For comparison: just lunch at a fast-food place in Bournemouth will cost about three pounds. And then there is water, electricity, laundry, utility bills. So it is no surprise that to prepare her various dishes, Mrs. Chave used vegetables from her own garden, located on some outskirts of the city I didn't know. They say that for the hosts to get at least some benefit from the lodgers, there must be at least three of them. There were exactly that many of us: a newlywed couple from Hong Kong lived in the next room. Meanwhile, one bedroom was constantly empty. As was clear from a neat sign on the door, it was the room of Victoria, the hosts' daughter. Victoria is the manager of 120 boutiques on a huge American liner. She rarely visits her parents, but her place in the house is always free.
Eye to Eye
"Do you support the view that abortion should be banned? And can an unmarried woman really not be happy? Is it true that all Americans have a sense of national superiority?"
Not a single hand goes up. The teacher, Dorothy, who leads the conversation class at our school "Interlink," is clearly puzzled: "I am trying to find a topic that will spark a debate. I want to show not only the expressions themselves, but also the psychological techniques of discussion. How to make it clear that you have heard your interlocutor, understand their point, but... do not share it."
The classroom is ideally suited for discussions: it is small, like a seminar room, with desks arranged around the perimeter, so that the participants sit as if in a circle. In conversation classes, we also kept changing places, breaking into groups "by belief," and argued while looking our opponents straight in the eye.
Classrooms are arranged similarly in all schools; the only difference is in their number. Besides classrooms, the standard set for every school includes: a reception, a teachers' room, a language lab, a computer room, and, as a rule, a canteen (or a soft-drink bar). This is where any similarity between schools ends. Each has its own style, expressed both in the interior details - paintings and notices on the walls, lampshades, upholstered furniture - and in the very organization of the internal space. For example, at the "Aspect" school, right next to the reception there are computers from which you can quickly and free of charge send a message home during the break. They are there precisely for this purpose, as follows from an explanatory sign: "Don't forget about other students; stay on the Internet no more than 10 minutes."
"Aspect" is a huge chain school with branches throughout the English-speaking world. Its building in Bournemouth was constructed as an educational institution; all the other schools are converted houses. "A school building is always standardized. But in our huge old house, with a fireplace hall, portraits and carpets, there is the spirit of England," says Christopher Brent, principal of Bournemouth's largest school, "Kings."
"Interlink" is the complete opposite of "Aspect" and "Kings." It is a small, one might say family school - the day after I arrived, I already knew all the students, if not by name, then certainly by face.
I chose this school on the advice of a consultant from a domestic educational intermediary firm. I explained that I essentially know English and want to go for a short time with the aim of "getting to speak." For that, I need a relaxed atmosphere and not too busy a school day.
And so it turned out. There were seven other students in our group - two girls and a young man from Japan, a schoolgirl from Riga, and three boys from Venezuela - all spoke fairly freely. The lessons were conducted by two teachers who did not try too hard to adapt their speech to our still untrained ears. But if you strained, you could understand them. Our teachers took an informal approach to the compulsory program, did not torture us with grammar (though they gave tests quite often). Mostly we simply talked, which was easy since the topic was hot: the war in Iraq was about to start.
I seem to have achieved my goal and now speak, if not perfectly correctly, then at least briskly, and I can hear my own mistakes. But, as I said, I had a decent basic level. There were also students at our school who started "from scratch" - from Japan. They spoke well, but after an academic year at "Interlink". If you are going for a short time, it makes sense to prepare in advance, read more and listen to the radio. By the way, a course specially designed for the advanced level of language schools is called Inside Out ("From the Inside Out"). It assumes that a person already knows the vocabulary and grammar and just needs to learn how to use it.
Why they need it
However, as it turned out, language is not an end in itself for most students. "If earlier people came to Bournemouth to relax and learn the language on the side, today most of them have serious educational goals: preparing for admission to an English university, studying special disciplines in English, such as business, management, economics, law," says Christopher Brent. "Language schools have become a necessary step in a career. Therefore, long courses - six months, often a year - are increasingly in demand." The students say about the same. "Without fluent English, you won't find a good job here," says K., a student at "Interlink", who arrived in Bournemouth with her husband and two children from Germany. "So we will study here as long as possible." At home she worked as an accountant in a restaurant and continues doing it in Bournemouth - she receives data over the Internet, processes it, and compiles reports. Her husband also earns extra money from time to time - illegally, by organizing excursions for students in his own car.
Large, especially chain, schools quickly responded to the changed market, and not only by introducing special courses. Studying in England is expensive: according to the "Intens" center, at a good school the minimum cost of an initial English course is 125 pounds per week, an intensive course will be 170 pounds, accommodation in a private room with breakfast and dinner costs 60-70 pounds per week, and 2,500 per academic year. Obviously, such prices will not suit many. So schools began to practice part-time forms of study, while providing students with work in hotels and restaurants.
Gradually, language schools are in principle ceasing to be schools. "You ask if the school where I work resembles the one where I studied?" asks Janet Painter, director of studies at the "Aspect" school, answering my question. "Not at all. In our school, there were a lot of prohibitions and rules. That is very bad for language learning. If we compare, "Aspect" is closer to a university. Language cannot be given, so we do not teach, but rather show how to learn. We have a lot of independent work, free communication, and the average age of students - 22 years - is quite university-like."
There is, however, one common ban in language schools - on using one's native language. The Japanese sacredly follow this rule; those who speak Spanish almost never do. In my case, it worked out: no compatriots, no problem. They say that a few years ago there was a Russian boom in Bournemouth, but now there is nobody. "We are very interested in the Russian market and cannot understand why demand has dropped so much," notes Christopher Brent. I offered my own hypothesis: "Earlier, studying in Bournemouth was entertainment, and we don't spare money on rest. Now you turn your schools into universities. If so, then come up with grants - and our students will flock to you." Christopher promised to think about it.