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CONCEPT

Experience English the easy way

Kids enjoy both: playing games and learning. For this reason we keep Penguin Camps playful and active. Children dive into a new language while having fun and experiencing exciting new things. We call this: “learning with all our senses”.

The children can witness correct pronunciation while playing games, doing arts and craft, and engaging in sports and theatre activities. Moreover they can improve their English language skills with our diverse and motivational program.

Elements to our active English program can be:
•    Songs and nursery rhymes
•    Story time with subsequent discussions or role play
•    Writing small texts, interviews, reports or dialogues (see “projects”)
•    Quizzes, worksheets

With our age appropriate programs as well as artistic and creative group work, the Penguin Camps also want to support the aspect of “personal development”. A part of this consists of learning about new cultures and nationalities and experience their language.

The Camps

Penguin Camp offer day and overnight camps in and around Munich (see camps).

An overview of the activities can be found below. At the start of every camp the Counsellors and their group put together a list of rules to ensure a good camp environment. They also take a tour of the premises to ensure that everyone knows the main points of orientation.

These activities alternate throughout the day at Penguin Camp:
•    Activities and free time
•    Do-it-yourself and listening
•    Fun and concentration
•    Inside and outside
•    Games, sports and learning
•    Writing in a diary or workbook

The Counsellors are native speakers or bilinguals. They are specifically trained prior to the camps. At each campsite there will always be one senior counsellor with previous Penguin Camp experience, who is responsible for the overall organisation.

Group projects

In addition to the didactic and athletic activities that take place in- and outdoors, the kids will be working together on a camp project. This aims to encourage a creative and simultaneously focused atmosphere, where the kids are actively using the English language while having fun and being creative, true to the motto: “learning by doing”.

Such projects include rehearsing theatre pieces, planning little sketches, practicing acrobatics, learning magic tricks and many more. The objective of such a group project is to develop social learning skills, cooperation and teamwork while discovering creativity and at once using and improving their English language abilities.

It all comes together on the last day of camp – the big Penguin Show, where parents and siblings are invited to watch the rehearsed theatre pieces and little sketches. For the show the counsellors also prepare a few words on the highlights of the week, making the Penguin Show a wonderful way to end the week at Penguin Camp.

Immersion into English

The immersion-method allows the combination of the English language with the kids’ day-to-day life. The camp is held completely in English, starting from the morning circle, to games and projects and finally to the afternoon circle. This enables the new language to be a secondary thing, that will soon be taken for granted by the kids. Children are language geniuses and any child can learn them – the earlier, the better!

Language “is not a conscious learning process, it will develop from the language input of our environment”. (adapted from Henning Wode, prof. for English linguistics, Kiel, GER). Studies have shown, that learning a foreign language can also benefit the progress of the mother tongue. The success of this method is this big because “children will use the foreign language to deal with their environment”, similarly to how a new-born will experience its mother-tongue through seeing, hearing and imitating.

Polyglotism is a key qualification in a global (media) world. It is even more important to grow up with a positive view on other languages and cultures. Penguin Camps try to convey this feeling and want to support any motivation for learning a new language.