Most of school teachers are on vacation in the summer and school children are on summer holidays which are the longest in Russia – from end of May to end of August for junior school students. These kids can stay at home and sleep longer hours or go to see their grannies and relatives who live far from their home place. 

There are still those kids who go to summer camps to have some fun and entertainment. A few teachers and  vozhatys (group leaders) keep an eye on them and involve them into multiple contests and challenges to make their stay at the camp more fun and useful.

There is another option for kids in Zlatoust though – they can join their school teachers in June and make more use of the three weeks of immersion into a school subject they may have chosen for their future.  The options offered last year were History, Science and some more subjects. One more has been added to this range this year – the English language.

32 kids from Zlatoust and Chelyabinsk, 5 counselors, the ACCESS English teacher from the USA, the group tutor and English teacher from Zlatoust who were on the Lingua-2011 team had a great time at the Gorny summer camp in the outskirts of Zlatoust. A few more visiting teachers used to come to the camp to assist the core crew making the immersion program more school like.

The product of these three weeks is a DVD disc with videos, hundreds of pictures and a series of the Lingua daily newsletters that may be used as an insider’s view for those who were not so lucky to join our LINGUA-2011 team that was nominated as’ the most creative’ by the municipal Board of education. 

For us who were part of the team under the motto ‘English helps make friends’ the best outcome were tears and hugs everyone shared saying ‘Good-bye’ to their new friends and an open group on VK for everyone who wants to stay in touch.