Summer camps – good idea for intensive language learning?

Breaking the record

One of the most popular summer language camps is hosted every year by the University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland. This year, the department responsible for teaching Polish announced that there has been a record number of participants signing up for the university’s camp in a lovely tourist town, Cieszyn. Over 200 people have enrolled to join the teachers and learn as much Polish as possible within the four weeks of August! Students come from different backgrounds: there are people from Azerbaijan, Argentina, Brazil, Indonesia, Russia, Japan, China… to name a few nations. Is Polish really THAT popular?

Choose your approach

All recent studies on education show that individual approach is the way to go when it comes to language teaching. This is why intensive summer camps choose to diversify their offer and apart from introducing strict grammatical rules, they like to include Polish culture and traditions in the syllabus. In the Silesian language school, students will have a chance not only to cram over their course books, but also to meet Polish artists, businessmen, academic teachers and journalists. Other summer schools also like to integrate teaching with discussing politics, social issues, history or art. Thanks to that the participants will acquire the language and culture without even realising it.

Your options

If this sounds tempting and you would like to give summer school a go, there are a few options to choose from. Most major universities in Poland host such language camps each summer:

• University of Silesia in Katowice
• Jagiellonian University in Kraków
• University of Wrocław
• Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań
• Medical University of Warsaw

… and more!

Make sure you check out the fees and the place your camp is taking place. Do you prefer to take part in a summer school at some popular tourist destination? Or do you want to stay in a big city and attend classes and short trips there? For obvious reasons, pay attention to the programme, its duration and the language level that you choose. And most importantly – have fun learning Polish.