5 reasons to take a language trip to Liverpool

Learn something useful during the holidays. So to speak, the fiver and the Weggli, as they say in Switzerland. That’s exactly why language trips are very topical in my circle of friends right now. Some colleagues treat themselves to longer breaks in which they not only indulge in idleness, but also refresh their rusty language skills or even learn a new language from scratch.

I, too, make far too little use of the foreign language skills I have learned and applied at school and on my travels in everyday life. So it’s high time to challenge the brain again with illogical grammar rules. That’s why I was thrilled to have the opportunity to spend a week getting a taste of Kaplan International Liverpool’s school life, working on my language skills and exploring North West England at the same time.

1. You brush up on your English skills

Normally, a language stay lasts at least two weeks. On the first day of school, the new students are welcomed together at Kaplan, take a placement test and then walk through Liverpool’s city centre together to get a first impression of the city. The school itself is centrally located within walking distance of Moorfields and James Street train stations and just minutes from the famous Waterfront. Since I only had one week myself, I took the placement test in advance and was able to start school life directly on Monday morning. My timetable consisted of four lessons of General English and one lesson of Business English. Class sizes range from 10 to 15 people. In General English, our classroom was well filled – in Business English, we were a small group of just under ten people.

In the run-up to the event, I had doubts about how I would get through the five hours. I mean FIVE hours – that sounds like an eternity! In retrospect, I can put that into perspective. The hours were so entertaining and varied that I didn’t look at the clock yawning every five minutes and the morning was over in no time.

If you join a class as a new student, you pick up where the rest of the class left off last Friday. This week, it was our turn to talk about “reported speech”. In addition to the normal lessons, there is an online learning course that is also based on Kaplan International’s teaching materials, and every noon there is a voluntary offer to participate in a discussion on a specific topic in the K+ Study Club. It is particularly popular with those students who find it difficult to speak.

I benefited the most from the grammatical inputs this week and was amazed at how many students have a perfect handle on grammar. My strengths lie in speaking freely. Grammar, on the other hand, I find more of a nuisance that I deliberately disregard. At least I would have the conditional rules back now. And overall, it’s really amazing how much I learned in one week and how quickly I felt totally comfortable in English again.

2. You get to know new cultures

Angola, Peru, Venezuela, Italy, Qatar, South Korea, Japan, Mexico, Brazil – and that’s just a few of the nationalities that come and go every day at Kaplan International in Liverpool. What surprised me in a particularly positive way was that I was the only German-speaking student this week. There is no need for rules like “English only”, because I was not even tempted to flee back to German.

In addition to English, you learn a lot of general knowledge in conversations with your fellow students. I now know, for example, that Portuguese is spoken in Angola and that South Korea has great beaches. Or that many of my fellow students with the aim of getting a good IELTS score and the associated opportunity to study at a university in Great Britain spent the whole afternoon after school with the additional learning opportunities in the Study Center.

I myself particularly appreciated the discussions in the Business English lesson. We often digressed from the actual topic and talked about South Korean and Mexican food or about English football and Steven Gerrard. This social aspect in particular was a big plus for me. I can also imagine that as a solo traveler, it is refreshing to meet new people in a language school. Like Pablo, for example, who is currently travelling alone through Europe and spontaneously decided to spend two weeks in Liverpool. “So I’m around people in the morning and there’s time to explore the area in the afternoon,” he tells me.

3. You have a diploma in your pocket

Every Friday at noon, the graduation ceremony is held for those students who have completed their last week at Kaplan. Of course, with hat and cape and to the cheers of all the fellow students present. Even if you are only on site for a week, you will receive a diploma at the end, which states what level you are at and what courses you have completed. Even though the diploma may not be needed for the current job, you never know when such skills and awards will suddenly be required.

4. You experience Liverpool as a local

If you study at Kaplan, you have the opportunity to stay with a host family or in a student house. I chose to stay with a host family to get to know Liverpool from a local perspective. When announcing who my host family would be, the first thing I was a bit shocked at was how far out my “home” is. My host family lives in a quiet Victorian side street in New Brighton, directly opposite Liverpool on the Wirral Peninsula. The door-to-door commute by bus, including walking, took an hour. On the other hand, the house is within walking distance of the riverside promenade of the River Mersey including a great skyline view of Liverpool. Beautiful and above all a place that I would hardly have visited as a “normal” tourist.

The evening conversations with the host family were also exciting, which gave an insight into everyday family life and from which I also received one or two excursion tips for the region.

As beautiful as the location is, if my stay had lasted longer, I would probably have moved to a more central student apartment after two or three weeks. Not just because of the daily commute. I’m used to being self-employed at home and it’s kind of strange when people suddenly take care of you again.

5. You’ll have plenty of free time to travel
around England

“Where have you been this weekend?” was the standard question on Monday morning. “Manchester”, “York”, “Birmingham”, “London”, “Oxford”, my schoolmates chatter together… and a short sigh escapes me, because of course one week is not enough at all to accommodate all these excursions.

Liverpool offers a great starting point to travel around England by train. Many national parks and historically significant cities can be reached by train from Liverpool in two or three hours. Of course, Kaplan also regularly organizes exciting day trips and offers a varied social program during the week. From a Beatles tour to wakeboarding in Albert’s Dock to bungee jumping, everything is included.

And where was I on the road? On the first weekend I went on a day trip to Wales and on the second weekend I went to the Lake District to the north. During the week I explored the eclectic districts of Liverpool, chugged to Chester on the suburban train and checked out all the good cafés in Manchester’s North Quarter. An intensive, but also an incredibly exciting week and it was certainly not the last time that I combine my holidays with a language stay.

Bonustipp

If “normal” English is too boring for you, you can devote your free time to the local dialect called Scouse. The Liverpudlians are communicative fellows. Rarely have I been approached on the street as often as in the Merseyside region.

Kaplan invited me to this language trip – thank you very much for that! As always, my readers can be sure that I always represent my views and enthusiasm.