Also this year we supported a language education of our new generation. The pupils at Přibyslav primary school had an opportunuty to attend a language course abroad. Petr Adam, the school director wrote about the expedition:

Language & Malta 2018

This year, 10 pupils from the Přibyslav Primary School went to one week language course in Malta. This year the selection requirements were slightly higher than the previous year (the condition was to successfully complete certified exams at a required level A2, formerly known as Cambridge English: Key (KET).

And how did the whole week go? Our group met on Saturday at 9 a.m. at the Václav Havel Airport in Prague, we checked in all luggage and shortly after eleven o’clock we took off towards an adventure. Upon the arrival, everything went very smoothly. There was a representative from the Gateway School of English (GSE) ready to take us to the residence of the school where we stayed the whole week. We were lucky as the day of our arrival was the first Saturday of October, a day when the locals celebrated NOTTE BIANCA festival. On this day, all sights, state and historical buildings in Valletta are open until a midnight with no entry fee. On every square, even the smallest one, there were various musical or theatrical performances. Of course, we decided to go to Valletta that day. It was a great experience and a lovely start of our stay in the Maltese islands. The following day was the only day without any English lessons at school filled with one day sightseeing tour of the Gozo and Camino islands including a visit to the medieval citadele in Victoria and swimming in a romantic Blue Lagoon.

On Monday, the program was mostly filled with the language course. Based on the placement tests, our pupils were divided into several groups together with the other students. This nicely eliminated the possibility to speak Czech language between each other and everything was suddenly switched to English for them. In their groups, they had “classmates” from all over the world – from exotic Venezuela to Japan, Russia, France or Turkey. Certainly a great experience.

The afternoon program was filled with various activities. We made sure the activities were not too tiring (the school was the main priority) but of course we wanted to make sure that the pupils would be able to explore the area and enjoy the whole week. Besides few moments spent at the beach – the weather was lovely the entire time and the temperatures were reaching 25° C (water had one degree less), we went to Sliema for a trip on foot (we stayed in San Ġwann) by local transport to the former capital Malta Mdina including a tour of the suburb called Rabat, where we visited the catacombs of St. Paul. Probably the most popular trip was a trip to Popeye Village (Sweethaven Village). It is a town created by the filmmakers for a well known musical, Popeye (1980). This trip also included swimming in the bay just below the town.

And the result? At the end of the course, our pupils passed the school tests with a very motivating results. According to the tests of the language school the skills of the pupils corresponded C1 level in two cases, B2 level in three cases and B1 level in 5 cases. However, as the main result we consider the happy pupils committed to work on themselves and to further expand their horizons in many directions besides English language.

This project would not be feasible without a significant financial support provided by SC Metal, s.r.o. Thanks to this support we can create conditions allowing every pupil of our school to participate. We also thank for a collaboration of the endowment fund standing by our school.

Written on behalf of all enthusiastic pupils and teachers by Petr Adam.