Spanish is spoken by almost half a billion people! With more schools including Spanish as part of their Modern Foreign Languages offering, we spoke to Inge Hol, Director of Spark Spanish, about Spark Spanish’s school trips to Spain.
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Organizing any residential school activity off site away from the “safe zone” of the controlled school environment is a challenge. A great way of off-setting both a lot of workload and filling the experience gap is to work with a skilled and experienced tour company. However like any competitive field of work, there are those companies who are good at tours and should be trusted and those who aren’t so good.
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The challenges of first organizing and then taking a primary or prep school on a school trip abroad can at first seem overpowering. The prep work is time-consuming and arduous, the difficulty of taking kids through the airport is real and the worry that accommodation or activities might not fit required safety standards is constantly in the back of the mind of any trip leader. However it is not all doom and gloom, and most challenges can be planned for and overcome by working with quality language trip providers, and there are even more positive reasons than challenges that more than justify the workload. Here are 10 TOP reasons why it is worth it:
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When children learn their native language, they do not see it as a subject nor a chore, it is communication. It is the means to interact with their peers and parents and their mechanism to let the world know: who they are, how they feel and what they want. It is an integral part of their identity. However when most British children learn a second language, their relationship with that new language is often similar to that which most children have to mathematics. It is a subject to study and often a chore to learn. The new language is frequently only experienced as a collection of phrases to memorise and rarely are children able to see the new language as what in the long run it should be which is the way of interacting with people from a different country.
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School Trip to Spain: Andalusia and El Puerto de Santa Maria
We were delighted to have Emanuel School with us for their first school trip to Spain in El Puerto de Santa María. All students stayed with our fantastic local Spanish Families and enjoyed their various excursions and activities, as well as their Spanish classes.
We at Spark had a fantastic time with the group and their teachers, Anabel, Sarah, Mike and Rita, and were impressed by how well behaved and full of energy the students were. The students were also motivated with using their Spanish, and it was lovely to see how well they all integrated with the Spanish families. We hope all the students had a great time and we hope to see Emanuel again next year!
Inge Hol – Director of Educational Programmes
Pues ya se van nuestros estudiantes de Emanuel School , que estuvieron alojados con familias de nuestra ciudad, para experimentar la verdadera cultura española. Hemos hecho muchas excursiones y visitas interesantes. Fuimos a Cádiz, el tiempo no nos acompañó mucho, pero hicimos cosas divertidas como comer nuestros deliciosos churros o visitar la Torre Tavira. Más tarde el tiempo cambió a mejor y tuvimos buenísimos días de playa.
También, visitamos nuestro Castillo de San Marcos, donde los alumnos estudiaron un poco sobre la historia de El Puerto y de Cristóbal Colon. Disfrutamos también mucho del kayaking en San Fernando incluso los estudiantes tuvieron rato de compras y helados.
Y por ultimo como siempre, visitamos la gran Sevilla con su catedral y Alcázar. Los estudiantes aprendieron sobre la cultura andaluza y sobre nuestros antepasados musulmanes. En líneas generales fue un viaje muy interesante, los estudiantes tuvieron contacto directo con nuestra cultura y practicaron su español como nunca. ¡Os esperamos veros pronto por aquí!
Mario Baez – Chaperone y Profesor de Español
Programa de Emanuel
Want to do a similar programme with your school? Why not Request a Quote
The students are really happy and so are we with the whole experience.
Anabel – School Trip Organizer
Relaxing and good weather. I would recommend this trip to friends because the lessons are fun, the towns are interesting, the activities are enjoyable and the beaches are very nice.
Ivan – Student at Emanuel
Student and Teacher Overall Evaluation of Trip
School Trip to Spain: Andalusia and El Puerto de Santa Maria
We were delighted to have Tudor Hall School with us on their third school trip to Spain in El Puerto de Santa María. All students stayed with our fantastic local Spanish Families and enjoyed their various excursions and activities, as well as their Spanish classes.
We at Spark had a fantastic time with the group and their teachers, Holly and Monica, and were impressed by how well behaved and full of energy they were. They were also motivated to practice their Spanish, and it was lovely to see them integrating with the Spanish families. We hope all the students had a great time and we hope to see Tudor Hall again next year for a 4th time!
Inge Hol – Director of Educational Programmes
¡Ha sido una semana maravillosa!
Todo nos ha acompañado; el tiempo ha estado genial por lo que hemos disfrutado de las preciosas playas de Cádiz, La Caleta y La Puntilla en El Puerto de Santa María. Además de español, hemos aprendido mucha historia gracias a las visitas guiadas de ciudades muy antiguas, ¡más de 3000 años de historia nada más y nada menos! Todo ello recorriendo varias civilizaciones: romanas, árabes y cristiana. ¡La semana ha pasado volando!
Por otro lado, lamento decir que, las chicas de Tudor Hall ¡se han vuelto adictas a los churros con chocolate!
Ha sido un enorme placer conoceros, chicas. ¡Y espero que hayáis (subjuntivo?) aprendido mucho conmigo! ¡Hasta pronto!
José Ruiz-Herrera Hernández – Chaperone y Profesor de Español
Programa de Tudor Hall
Want to do a similar programme with your school? Why not Request a Quote
I would highly recommend Spark. They always endeavor to tailor our trip exactly to our requirements and collect feedback throughout the week so they can immediately remedy any issues. The trip provides and excellent balance between academic and cultural enrichment so that the student can get the most out of their experience.
Holly T – School Trip Organizer
I would recommend this trip to friends because you feel so much more confident speaking Spanish and learning lots of new things about Spanish culture (in particular this area of Spain).
Sasha – Student at Tudor Hall
Student and Teacher Overall Evaluation of Trip
School Trip to Spain: Andalusia and El Puerto de Santa Maria
We were delighted to have Headington Girls School with us on their third school trip to Spain n El Puerto de Santa María. All students stayed in our Spark residence during their time with us, and they enjoyed their various excursions and activities, as well as their Spanish classes.
We at Spark had a fantastic time with the group and their three teachers, we were impressed by how well behaved and full of energy they were.. They were also extremely motivated to practice their Spanish, or so it seemed! We hope all the students got a chance to appreciate Spanish culture and history and that they had a fantastic time together. See you next year!
Inge Hol – Director of Educational Programmes
Bueno!, las chicas de Headington School de Oxford nos visitaron en plena Semana Santa para tener unos maravillosos días de aprendizaje de nuestra lengua.
Como siempre, disfrutamos de nuestras excursiones por tierras andaluzas; Cádiz con su torre Tavira y su playa o Sevilla con su gran catedral y Alcázar y también nuestro Puerto de Santa María, donde visitamos el histórico castillo de San Marcos con Cristóbal Colon como invitado.
También tuvimos tiempo para nuestras clases de español, donde las chicas practicaron y aprendieron cosas nuevas o para adentrarlas en la Semana Santa, algo muy cultural y típico de nuestra comunidad. ¡Incluso tuvieron clases de flamenco! Sin olvidar el ansiado desayuno de churros con chocolate o los helados en la playa J
Fue un placer tener a este grupo con nosotros, esperamos que les vaya todo bien y que ¡vuelvan pronto!
Mario Baez – Chaperone y Profesor de Español
Excellent communication in the run up to the trip. We have had a wonderful stay here, thank you so much for the organising you have put into this!!!
Primrose Wood – School Trip Organizer
The Spark experience was superior to all my previous French and Spanish language school trips with KS3/4 students – much more personal and attentive.
Louisa Orr – Spanish Teacher
Student and Teacher Overall Evaluation of Trip
We have a new banner ready for going to educational fairs. It is focused on school group programmes and designed by David Navarro Hope you like the look of it.
We pride ourselves in providing high quality bespoke tours to Spain for schools throughout the world. We have summarized some of the great points of our school tours in the slides below. We hope you enjoy! Don’t hesitate to contact us if you need anything.
A great revision game for the language classroom that a friend of mine once showed me on a summer camp is the Spider Game. It’s extremely easy to set up but will allow for lots of revision and fun of either grammar or vocabulary items and will add a Spark to your lessons!
Preparation
- You need some cards (I usually work with 12) with whatever language items you’d like the students to revise.
Set up in class
- Stick the cards on the board with some blue-tac and underneath each card (so that students won’t see) draw a picture. I usually use three or four different pictures:
- a spider = 5 points
- a present = 3 points
- a lightning bolt = -1 point
- 1 tornado or whirlwind = -3 points
How to play
- Divide the students into groups of 3-4 students.
- Create an area on the board to score points and ask the students to come up with a team name. (If you have a lot of students, you can divide the students into teams of 6-9 students and then divide them into smaller teams of 2-3 students. They then compete as three small teams against each other).
- Select a person from the first team and ask them to pick one of the cards on the board.
- Give them a set amount of time to complete the task (say 20 seconds), after that time you ask for their answer: they either write it on the board or on a paper that they then give to you or to team B.
- If the answer is incorrect, move onto the next team, there are no points for anybody. If the answer was correct, remove the card to reveal what is underneath the card to find out how many points they won or lost (depending on the picture, i.e. if it’s a spider they won 5 points, if it is a lightning bolt they lost a point).
- Keep track of the points on the side of the board. Winner is the team with most number of points at the end of the game.
Examples language points:
- Spelling: flashcards (if you have any) or pictures to review vocabulary or spelling. Students have to name and spell the word correctly.
- Grammar: using flashcards or a picture you give them a grammatical structure they have to use along with the word in a sentence. e.g. you have a picture of a whale and would like them to use the past simple: “George the big blue whale ate a buffalo on his way back from school.”
- Grammar: instead of pictures, write a grammatical structure on the card and tell them to come up with a correct sentence including at least 8 words or ask them a question or gap fill related to this grammar point.
- Idioms: using pictures, key words or a description, ask them to tell you the idiom you are looking for.
Conclusion
It’s a very easy game to play and requires very little preparation time, but the fact that the points are hidden (and could be minus points!) adds to the excitement of the students, which makes it a very motivational tool to review the language points.
Inge Hol is the Director of Educational Programmes at Spark Languages in Southern Spain. Originally from the Netherlands and with a degree in Clinical Neuro Psychology, she decided to follow her passion and become an English teacher in Spain in 2007. After teaching for many years, she moved on to teacher training, language programme management and conference speaker until in 2010 she started Spark Languages together with her partner Douglas Haines. Spark organizes Spanish and English courses for children, teens and adults as well as school trips to various areas in Spain.
Two ways to make any cultural visit fun and engaging for your students
Although most students love the idea of visiting a new city during a school trip, some might find the idea rather less exciting, whereas others might just dread the idea of having to listen to hour-long stories by the tour guides.
Here are two quick and simple ideas to make any visit more exciting for the students (and making your job of having to deal with unmotivated students easier!).
Quiz
A fun way of getting students more involved during a trip, is to do a quiz where students are given say 10 – 15 questions that they need to find the answer to throughout the visit. Some answers they might find by reading information, other questions might be answered by the tour guide of the sites visited, while other answers they might need to actively find by asking the chaperone or others. Make sure to check answers at the very end and award a prize to the winners. Some example questions could be:
- What are the colours of the Andalucían flag?
- Which of the Bond films was partially filmed in Cádiz?
- What is the name of the famous Plaza in Sevilla that was built for the 1929 Expo? What is represented in the different tiled alcoves?
(All of the examples above are based on the quizzes run at Spark for our School Trips to Spain).
Photo scavenger hunt
Students nowadays nearly all bring digital cameras, mobile phones or other devices with built-in cameras, so this activity is very easy to organize and it lets the students use their devices in a fun yet educational way. The idea here is to divide students into groups of 3 or 4 and give them a list of 10 items they should take a photo of. These items can vary in complexity, they can be concepts instead of simple statues, and some can even be challenges in the form of acting something out or asking local people for information (in the local language). Some ideas:
- At the Plaza de España, take a photo of the statue of the famous inhabitant of the city and in the same photo, act out what he was famous for.
- Including all of your team members, take a selfie at the place where Christopher Columbus once lived.
- Ask a local to write the answer to the following question on a piece of paper, then take a photo of that person, the answer and at least one of your team members: “What does one call the inhabitants of the city?”
(All of the examples above are based on the photo scavenger hunt run at Spark School Trips to Spain for the tour of El Puerto de Santa María).
At the end, the students can either present their photos to the rest of the team, or send them to the chaperone’s mobile phone who could award points based on completion and originality of the photos.
Any activity we participate in is much more enjoyable and fun when we’re engaged, and these two examples are great ways to motivate students and make them feel excited about specific parts of the trip.
Inge Hol is the Director of Educational Programmes at Spark Languages in Southern Spain. Originally from the Netherlands and with a degree in Clinical Neuro Psychology, she decided to follow her passion and become an English teacher in Spain in 2007. After teaching for many years, she moved on to teacher training, language programme management and conference speaking until in 2010 she started Spark Languages together with her partner Douglas Haines. Spark organizes Spanish and English courses for children, teens and adults as well as school trips to various areas in Spain.
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