Feedback: study abroad trip to Malaga
Tuesday, 24th March 2009
Year 11 student Jessica shares her experience of visiting Malaga as part of a school group trip arranged by Cactus for Tiffin Girls’ School.
Getting There
At about midday on the 10th of June we assembled at Gatwick; eight Y10 and two L6 girls and a teacher to keep us under some semblance of control, bound for a study visit to Málaga, a city in the southern Spanish region of Andalucía. Although looking forward to fun in the sun and experiencing some Spanish cultura, at that stage our primary concern was the fact that we would be staying in host families that is with Spanish people who would speak to us in Spanish.
Naturally, we were terrified. We spent a considerable portion of the journey revising what we considered to be a few key phrases, including ‘Can you say that again?’, ‘Help, the kitchen’s on fire!’ and of course, variations on ‘I’m sorry’; the assumption being that we were sure to make at least twelve grave faux pas and establish ourselves as idiotic foreigners.
Accommodation
Our apprehension dissolved, however, when my friend and I finally arrived at our host family’s home after a long evening of travelling, exhausted and nervous, and we were greeted with hugs, kisses and addressed as either bonita - pretty, or hija - daughter. We were given a quick tour of the house and then found ourselves, to our disbelief, chatting about our host family’s grown-up daughter, who lives in London. This mightn’t sound like much, but when it’s ten thirty at night and only two minutes ago you were positive that you couldn’t remember a word of Spanish - it feels pretty impressive.
The School
First impressions of our place of study were that it looked more like a hotel than a school, surrounded by palm trees with a large patio for the students to assemble. Our group was shepherded off to a room with a teacher who introduced herself as Yolanda, and was given a test. With only two years of Spanish lessons behind us we were panicking to find ourselves expected to know something called the subjunctive.
But, as so often is the case with these things, our panic was completely disproportionate. We were christened ‘el grupo especial’ - the special group, and sent off to complete our first few hours of language lessons. With the small group and the lessons conducted totally in Spanish, we found ourselves making great progress. You don’t realise how much of the language you know until you have to use it. Or failing that, charades is always an option. I still hope I may one day live down my attempt to portray a frog or miming stabbing in a discussion of London’s problems with crime. All in all, both our command of the language and our confidence advanced hugely, and by midway through the week we were all chatting away happily in Spanish.
Extra-curricular Activities
In the afternoons, having returned to the host families for lunch, we would usually rest for an hour or so and then do the only reasonable thing in that kind of climate - go to the beach. The warm weather meant that we could stay in the sea until late afternoon, by which time the locals would have finished their customary siesta and by about nine in the evening the area would come alive. The Spanish, it seems, are keen on a good festival, and the week that we were there happened to be during the celebration for the Blessed St Carmen. The celebration for the Blessed St Carmen, from what I could work out, seems to mainly involve splashing one another in the sea and then listening to some cheesy Europop!
Summary
To summarise? If you’re going on a similar trip this year, you are very, very lucky. It took the trip for me to realise that a foreign language isn’t something dreamt up by sadistic exam boards to make you panic; it’s a new way to express yourself and to talk to other people. Once you’ve realised that what’s paramount is what’s being said, the language that it’s being said in is a minor obstacle that immersing yourself in the culture makes you strive to overcome.
More about study trips abroad for school groups
Tags: school trip, study program, school group, malaga, spain, spanish
Posted by Laura Lippert 2009-03 under Experience Cultures, Case Studies,
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