Spanish summer camp, Alicante

Suitability

This course is suitable for students of any nationality aged 15 - 17. Tuition is provided at all levels, from complete beginner right up to advanced. Classes cover a range of skills, including grammatical fundamentals, practical communication, and language comprehension. Dynamic group activities help to strengthen students’ speaking ability and develop their cultural understanding of the Hispanic world.

This programme offers young students almost complete independence. While teachers and school staff members are on-hand during the day to assist as needed, there is no supervision after the activity programme has finished. Teenagers attending this programme are treated like the young adults they are and are given the freedom to experience Alicante as they choose. This level of autonomy allows teenagers to gain a sense of independence and cultivate key life skills; we find that this is highly beneficial for personal development. This programme is therefore only suitable for students who are mature and comfortable with personal responsibility.

School

Lessons for teenagers take place at our general language school in the heart of Alicante’s Old Town. It is within easy walking distance of attractions like Santa Bárbara Castle, which is so important to Alicante that it features on its coat of arms. This Moorish fortress overlooks the bay below from atop Mount Benacantil and is one of the largest castles in Spain. Below this is Playa del Postiguet, the most popular of the city’s many Blue Flag beaches. At just 15 minutes’ walk from the school, this beach is easy to get to after lessons have finished! Running parallel to this beach is the Explanada de España, a wide palm-lined boardwalk made from a whopping 6.5 million coloured tiles. It’s common for locals to take a relaxing paseo down the Explanada of an evening. Even closer to the school is the iconic Mercado Central, a large and popular food market in an eclectic building that looks like part of a film set. Also nearby is the Museu de Fogueres, which focuses on the annual Bonfires of Saint John festival, for which Alicante is famous.

Our city-centre language school has 4 air-conditioned classrooms, each with modern audio-visual equipment. The facility’s small size makes it perfect for young students, since the staff can provide personalised care and attention to all pupils, as well as focused language tuition. Juniors will also benefit from access to the school’s library, which contains a selection of multi-media learning resources to complement the classroom tuition. After lessons, students can relax, study, or socialise in the student lounge, which contains food and drinks vending machines. Wi-Fi is available throughout the building for free.

As part of a group of teaching facilities that was founded in 1956, this school benefits from a huge wealth of collective experience in teaching Spanish to international students. It’s therefore perfectly equipped to cater to the needs of students of all ages and backgrounds. The school is accredited by the Cervantes Institute and the National Federation of Schools of Spanish for Foreigners (FEDELE), which demonstrates the high quality of tuition provided here. Its location in the heart of the city and proximity to its beaches makes it a sought-after location for Spanish language courses.

Alicante

Alicante is a popular port city on Spain’s eastern Costa Blanca (‘White Coast’). Though known today for its sandy beaches and blue waters, the city actually has quite a lot of history. It was a major Greek trading port around 1,000 BC, thanks to its strategic position on the Mediterranean Sea. Relics from this time, the later Roman settlement called Lucentum, and the even later Arabic city of Laqant can all be found in the Archaeological Museum, which is just a 15-minute walk from our Spanish language school. With a collection that spans hundreds of thousands of years and includes cultural artefacts from as recently as the 20th century, it’s a hugely interesting place and often features on our school’s activity programme.

Like many cities on Spain’s shores, Alicante was ‘put on the map’ during the tourism boom of the 1960s. Visitors from around the world took advantage of easier-than-ever travel to enjoy Spain’s sun, sea, and sand. Alicante Province is perhaps best-known for its beaches: it boasts 244 km of wonderful coastline, and the city itself has over 10 beaches and numerous hidden coves for visitors to enjoy. Though many come simply to soak up the sun and relax, the area is popular with water sports enthusiasts, particularly sailors and snorkellers. It’s not just the beach that brings people to Alicante, however. The city has a dynamic and youthful atmosphere thanks to its popular university - this also means that there’s lots on offer for young people to see and do. Alicante boasts numerous green spaces and public gardens, including Palmeral Park - which was once a palm grove and now has its own waterfall and boating lake - and Parque Lo Morant, which is home to tennis courts, recreation areas, kiosks selling drinks and snacks, and an amphitheatre that’s often used for outdoor music and theatre events.

As well as regular small-scale events, Alicante plays host to a colourful calendar of annual city-wide celebrations, the most famous of which is the Hogueras de San Juan (‘The Bonfires of Saint John’). Held around the summer solstice, this festival is characterised by huge, cartoonish displays made of wood and papier-maché called ninots. Some of these displays are so large that they have to be put together with a crane! Like most Spanish festivals, the Hogueras features plenty of music and revelry, as well as colourful traditions like the ‘Laying of the Flowers’, where hundreds of thousands of flowers are laid beneath a statue of the Virgin Mary that adorns one of the city’s churches. The festival ends with the burning of the ninots and a monumental firework display which lasts until the early hours of the morning.

These are just a few examples of what’s on offer in Alicante. As a small city close to the sea, with various interesting and colourful attractions, it’s the ideal study location for young students looking to expand their language skills and gain a bit of independence before moving on to higher education or the world of work.

How to get there

Alicante-Elche Airport is around 20 minutes’ drive from the city centre and is easily accessible from many international locations.

This programme includes a transfer service on arrival and departure at the airport. Students will be collected on arrival and taken to the school; from here, they will either be collected by their hosts or taken to the student residence. Students will be collected from their accommodation on the last day and taken to the airport in time for their departing flight.

Teenagers should plan to arrive in Alicante on the Sunday before their lessons start and leave on the Saturday after their lessons finish. Because of the nature of the transfer service, students should - where possible - arrange to arrive in Alicante before 19:00 and to depart Alicante after 12:00. Transfers outside of these times are possible, but they will incur a supplementary fee. We may be able to organise additional nights on arrival and/or departure to fit in with students’ travel plans.

Location of our school in Alicante