Hah, the best language immersion one of my kids had was managing migrant farm workers. 5 years of middle - high school Spanish and summer with the farm workers and he’s all set and it didn’t cost me anything.
I’ll chime in with my experience. As a parent of a young teen, I know how scary it can be to send a child off to a distant camp and wonder about their safety.
Our daughter has spent the last 3 summers at Concordia in one of the more unusual languages. She learned a great deal each summer and had a lot of fun. She also felt very safe and was quite young at the time. The kids took the language pledge seriously at her particular camp.
DD did mention that the kids in the most popular languages tended to speak more English than at her camp. She has good language skills and could also tell that some of the teachers of these languages were not native. This may be fine if your student is a beginner, but if you really want the accent right, this may matter more to you.
Last summer, she took the 4 week credit program and was less enthusiastic about that. The teachers and program were great, but the kids, being an older group, seemed less motivated and rather lackluster… Sadly, she has decided she wants to try something else. I would still recommend Concordia highly overall.
This year, she wants to work on Spanish, her language choice in school. She is already fairly fluent and so she is hoping to fine-tune her skills rather than learn the basics. She wants to be with other motivated students who are happy to be there and make the most of the experience. Suggestions welcome!
Right now we are considering at Middlebury for Spanish. I see the positive review of one student in an earlier post in this thread. Are there others who can chime in on how Middlebury is for a popular language like Spanish? Are the kids interested in learning the language, or are they there because they were forced by their parents? How is the dorm environment? She is only 14 and I am hoping for a safe and fun experience for her. Thanks to anyone who can give their experience.
His vocabulary may not mesh well with that used in the better salons.
Middlebury-Monterrey (MMLA) is the program designed around the Middlebury language educational method but for younger students (grades 8-12 it says on their site). I think Middlebury College is only loosely connected to Middlebury-Monterrey but it is a very well-run program and can handle younger kids. My D did the program at Green Mountain College, and while she didn’t stick to the language pledge perfectly, she came away learning a lot. And the instructors seem to be mostly college language instructors who are moonlighting during the summer, so it’s high quality. I don’t know anything about Concordia, so I can’t say how they compare.
my 13-year old attended MMLA at their poultney campus last summer. she was brand new to overnight camp and the youngest in their german section (only two other 13-year olds). adding to that anxiety (for both parent and child), i flew her there as an unaccompanied minor, to navigate orientation and settle in all on her own. she was well-chaperoned from and back to the airport and reported that orientation went smoothly. the school was prompt in returning email messages throughout her camp stay, addressing and easing all my concerns. MMLA is a lot of money and i wouldn’t choose it again specifically for this reason. tuition with airfare was close to $6500 for a mere three weeks. i do highly recommend it though. she learned --and retained-- far more than i expected. both teachers and classmates (even the 18-year olds) she said were all very nice, and she truly enjoyed her experience.