Summer Workshop for Teens!

By: Darryl Marie Zayco

Have you ever wondered how we all came to speak our native languages? I doubt if our parents put us through language lessons when we were less than a year old. We speak our respective mother tongues because, as unsophisticated as it seems, we were exposed to them at a young age. The best time to learn a new language is while one is still young. As a matter of fact the younger you start the better. A child's most receptive mental state starts as early as birth until he/she is 5 years old. At this stage of development a child's brain is like a sponge, it is able to absorb copious amounts of information. This is why, going back to the original question, we are able to communicate in our native tongues at a young age without having to undergo formal training or education.

It is, of course, highly possible to learn a new language past the age of optimum mental development. Perhaps not as easily or quickly as one would at the age of five, but it is indeed still possible. In the case of German-born American political scientist Henry Kissinger, he was able to speak both German and English perfectly. But since he learned the latter in his mid-teens, he spoke it with a German accent. This is, of course not to say that an adolescent's accent cannot be “repaired” or “corrected” later on in life. It is believed that a person can learn up to three other languages aside from his/her own native tongue.

Taking this into consideration, the International Language Academy Manila decided to hold its second summer workshop for teens - SWEAT: Summer Workshop for English Advancement of Teens from April 25 until May 9, 2011. Its aim was to make the students feel more comfortable with the English language in terms of both speaking and writing, and enhance their public speaking skills as well as their confidence. As the workshop's name implies, it catered primarily to young adolescents whose ages ranged from 12 to 16. Though SWEAT was essentially an English summer workshop, it strayed away from the typical classroom-type lectures and made sure that all its tasks were activity-based and would never be boring.

They did activities that tapped into their abilities to become successful English speakers and writers. The program taught the teens how to be better conversationalists, how to use writing as a creative outlet and how to engage in non-verbal communication. In fact, their culminating activity “Intertext”, helped them apply all three of these skills by making the students talk about their ideals, re-write their favourite fairytales and act them out as well. The said culminating activity took place in the ILAM conference room on May 9, 2011, where the students were able to showcase their newfound skills and confidence. The SWEAT workshop proved to be a success and plans for the 2012 summer workshop are already being made.