July 2010

A glorious day out!
1st July 2010

Teachers on the Summer Intensive in June took their classes out into the Sussex countryside to make the most of the summer sunshine. The group visited the typical English village of East Dean, went walking across the hills of the Sussex Downs and ended with a picnic on the beach at Cuckmere Haven. Some students and a teacher even went swimming!

“We didn’t want to stay inside the classroom on such a glorious day so we took the students out to experience a different side of British life, something that they would not necessarily do on their own”, said Teacher Patsy Dinc.

The students welcomed the break from their intensive English course, which normally only includes activities in the evening. The excerpts below are of their accounts of the day, written the following week as part of their diary project. These show what great progress the lower-intermediate group has made!

Timur Popov (Age 27, Russia)
This Friday we went to the countryside with other students from our school. We went by the bus, the double-decker, really English bus. The weather was very good, not hot, normally warm, so that we did not fry under the sun.
There were several interesting places we visited. East Dean, the small town near to Eastbourne with old-fashioned houses. One of them was named as Sherlock Holmes's house.

Rita Maastik (Aged 34, Estonia)
We started our walk over the hill. Nobody knew how long the trip lasted. Our path meandered between meadows of flowers and pastureland. We saw horses, cattle and sheep. We crossed some kissing gates but we didn't kiss there!

Conny Blum (Aged 27, Switzerland)
On the top of the cliffs we enjoyed the view and walked down to the sea. Some had lunch and the others went swimming. After we walked along the river to East Dean. Then we ate an ice-cream and took the bus back to Eastbourne.

David Stebler (Aged 22, Switzerland)
My next stop was the sangria party at the school. At 7.30pm I drank my first sangria and it should not be the only one! I don’t want to mention that Switzerland that evening dropped out of the World Cup. It was even a nice evening. In the end we ate a McFlurry from McDonald's and went to the beach. The sea was wavy and the full moon was shining brightly.

The students also took some great pictures, some of which you can see here!