BRÉTÉCHÉ Morgane 1L
Report on my language course with LEC in the Giovanni Curmi School in Malta – June 19th to July 2nd 2019
I did my school attendance for the end of tenth grade in Malta in a language school with LEC, an organization for language stays, for two weeks: from June 19Thto July 2nd.
I got the idea of doing a language course in Malta by Lea Sidler, a friend of mine who had done one in her 2nde year too and had enjoyed it. I chose to do the language course in Malta instead of the United Kingdom because the weather in Malta is better than in the U.K. and Malta’s also cheaper.
On June 19thI flew over to Malta with two facilitators from LEC, about 40 other students my age and my friend, Pauline Pastré, from 2nde SBC. Those 40 students were divided in two: the ones who would stay in host families and those who would stay in a residence. Pauline and I were going to stay in the residence.
As we got to Malta by plane, our group was driven to the “University Residence” in Lija by van, which is the place we lived during our stay. There were rooms of 3 and 4 and I was in one with Pauline and two other girls.
The next morning at 9 o’clock we were brought to the language school. This academic institution is named “Giovanni Curmi school” and is based in Naxxar in Malta.
First, every LEC student (also the other group of students who lived in host families) had to take an English level test so the group could be divided into 3 classes with different levels. We had an hour to take the test and afterwards, the teacher wanted to get to know us.
At 12h50, class was over and it was time for lunch. The residence had given us lunchpacks and we ate on benches next to the school.
After lunch the vans picked us up for the afternoon program- visiting Malta’s capital city Valletta.
After this first day of discovery, we had dinner at the residence and then an activity to get to know each other in the group.
The day after, we drove to school again at 9am. First, the 3 teachers divided us into 3 groups with different English levels following the results of our tests and Pauline and I were put in the “upper intermediate” class which was the one with the highest English level. My teacher was the director of the academic institution, Ms. Catherine Mifsud. I was in the professional body “English as a foreign language” in the upper intermediate class.
And that’s how a day in my stay in Malta with LEC looked like: We would get up at 7h30, have breakfast at 8am, and leave the residence at 9am to go to English class from 9h30 to 11h30 with a twenty minutes break. Then we would eat our packed lunchs and the afternoon program would begin. It was different every day: we went to visit different places like the fortified city Mdina, the National Park, the town Sliema, different beaches, different clubs and a bowling place.
We would come back to the residence in the late afternoon and stay there until the next morning. There, we could swim in the pool and afterwards we would have dinner. Sometimes there was also an evening activity to get to know each other more in the group.
During class we would do all kind of exercises: we did grammar, vocabulary, conjugation, writing but also fun activities like doing a class-bingo. Ms Catherine Mifsud also asked us what were the most important issues each of us would like to focus on and get better at, so she had a general idea of what the students wanted to improve about their English skills.
We would often do group exercises like writing a story in a team of four students.
Altogether, the English classes I took in Malta were comparable to those in LFA.
Overall, I liked my stay with LEC because it was varied and I got to see Malta (and even learnt a few words in maltese).
However, I would advise future candidates not to do that language stay if they already have a high English level because even the upper intermediate class is probably not going to be challenging enough for them.
It was a bit surprising and disappointing that we didn’t speak English outside of the classroom, because the facilitators were French so they talked to us in French.
Something that was really shocking to me was how much plastic waste there was in our residence and how unimportant the ecological aspects like waste separation
were for maltese people: in our residence we ate in polystyrene plates with plastic cups and a new plastic bottle for every single meal for every single one of the 20 students of our group.