MEXICO SUMMER SPANISH LANGUAGE IMMERSION
CAMPS FOR TEENAGERS IN MEXICO:
We work with the schools
in the following locations with summer immersion
Supervision level: Moderate-High: Teens are allowed to walk to and from school, in this small village of 1,200 inhabitants, and also have a couple of hours of time in the afternoon on their own if they wish. they have a tight 10pm curfew. The La Catalina Spanish School has been in operation for several years. For more information, click here!
. INFORMATION PACKET . TEEN SPANISH CAMP PROGRAM
June 19th - August 15th, 2010
La Catalina Natural Language School’s Teen Spanish Summer Program offers a complete cultural and Spanish language immersion program for adventure-minded teens, where students can learn Spanish, live in our small tropical beach community of La Manzanilla, and participate in exciting excursions in the surrounding areas. This is truly a once in a lifetime experience that teens will remember forever. We are accepting up to 14 teenage students in each week-long session from various parts of the United States and Canada. Participants in the Spanish camp should be mature individuals (ages 14 - 17) entering or enrolled in high school for the upcoming year. No previous experience with speaking Spanish is necessary for participation. Students must demonstrate outstanding behavior and a commitment to learning and will be admitted to our program through an application process including a letter of recommendation from a teacher or employer.
La Manzanilla is approximately three and a half hours south of Puerto Vallarta and one and a half hours north of Manzanillo by car, with the Manzanillo’s airport (ZLO) only 45 minutes away.
Our Spanish program consists of:
Spanish classes meet daily for two hours, Monday through Friday, in our beautiful outdoor cool and breezy Palapa classroom overlooking La Manzanilla’s beach and oceanfront. In addition to the classes, there are daily homework assignments that require a minimum of 30 minutes outside of class time. As part of their homework, students will be guided to keep their own travel journal throughout the course of the trip, which they will be provided with upon their arrival to Mexico. These journals will not only serve as a tool to develop their Spanish writing skills, but also allows students to reflect upon and record their experiences and discoveries on the trip. At La Catalina, we have integrated the latest research and findings on language acquisition, along with a holistic mind/body/emotion approach to learning. Our methodology puts very little emphasis on cenceptual grammar with speakers who are not at a fluent level. Instead the emphasis is on familiarization and usage of Spanish. Our approach helps student see and experience first-hand that they can learn Spanish quickly and naturally through right practice and encourages students to take risks with the language and just “blurt it out” initially. Lots of games, songs, and age appropriate activities are used to create a fun and engaging learning environment when teaching classes to young learners.
During their stay with the family, students can participate in daily conversations with family members, join them for meals and receive assistance with homework and other questions they may have. It is also encouraged that the students participate as a family member, which might mean helping prepare meals or assisting with miscellaneous tasks around the house. To facilitate students learning experiences, it is a requirement that the Mexican families only speak Spanish in the household with the foreign students. This is an important component of the program, which allows students to truly “experience” the Mexican culture, develop life long friendships, and strengthen their Spanish acquisition skills.
Areas of Volunteer Work
TEEN SOCIAL
NIGHTS & LANGUAGE EXCHANGES WITH
LOCALS Teens come together with their trip leader for fun and lively evening events, which may include game nights, movies, dancing, bonfires, moonlight hikes, a talent show, etc. The local Mexican teens may also be invited to some of these events to create a cross-cultural experience where new friendships can be forged. CULTURAL AND RECREATIONAL EXCURSIONS In addition to Spanish classes, we offer local excursions every Saturday, which will provide insight into Mexico’s culture, history, art, and local ecology, as well as plenty of recreational opportunities. Below you will find some of the highlighted weekly excursions that the group will participate in during their stay in Mexico. (A more comprehensive list of excursions with the dates they will take place will be included on our website soon!)
Sea Kayaking & Eco-Tour
Barra de Navidad Excursion
Tenacatita Beach Excursion & Riverboat Tour
Colima Overnight Excursion Students will travel 3-hours by bus to arrive to the city of Colima, known for its sacred volcano, ancient ceremonials ruins of the Nahua’s people, and beautiful colonial downtown area. DAY 1 - Students will spend their first day exploring the small city and its cathedrals, museums, parks, and fashionable storefronts.
Victor Amezcua and Julie Catton, former teachers from San Francisco, California, founded La Catalina School in 2002. They continue to be the Directors and work with a small, but tight knit staff which includes our experienced trip chaperones and Spanish teachers. Close communications, meetings and check-ins between the students, the Directors, their trip chaperones and their Spanish teachers will take place on a daily basis. Our supportive staff at La Catalina will work together to carefully oversee the students and help make every aspect of their trip a safe, fun, organized, enriching and educational experience.
La Catalina School hires very experienced bilingual trip leaders, who have traveled or lived in Mexico. We look for leaders with lots of positive energy and who genuinely love working with teens. Information will be posted soon on who our 2008 trip leader will be.
As our premier concern with this program is that our participants are safe, the school has a very strict drug and alcohol free policy and curfew that will be strictly enforced by the directors and trip leaders. In the event that a student violates this policy, he or she will be expelled from the school and the parents will be responsible for arranging immediate return of the student and will forfeit all unused tuition. Students with prior history of drug and/or alcohol abuse will not be admitted into the program.
TEEN SPANISH PROGRAM WEEKLY
SCHEDULE:*
*Schedule is subject to change There are two options for participants to travel to Mexico:
Option 1: Escorted Travel Option – Available from Los Angeles, CA $950 per week + $890 one time cost for round trip airfare and escort services. Includes::
Option 2: Independent Travel Option:- Departing from any location
$950 per
week.
(Does not include airfare & escort services to and from Mexico.) STUDENTS STAYING 4 OR MORE WEEKS RECEIVE A 10% DISCOUNT OFF OVERALL TRIP TUITION & FEES Costs do not include: Student's personal expenses, including: shopping, e-mail use, telephone calls, postage for mailings, food eaten at airports or outside of the food pre-arranged by school (i.e. snacks purchased at the stores.) Estimated student personal expenses budget per week: E-Mail $ 5 - $ 10 Telephone $ 5 - $ 25 Postage $ 5 Shopping/Souvenirs $ 25 - $ 40 Food & Snacks $ 20 - $ 30 Misc. Expenses $ 5 - $ 20 $ 65 - $ 125 ESCORTED TRAVEL AVAILABLE OUT OF LOS ANGELES, CA (LAX): La Catalina School will provide an escorted trip to and from Mexico every two weeks during the 8-week program, when 2 or more students request this service on a given departure date. The students and our school escort will depart from the Los Angeles (LAX) airport. Families who would like to send their children with our school escort should arrange to have their child meet our escort on the designated departure date at LAX three hours before the group’s departure time. Students will then leave LAX with La Catalina School’s escort who will deliver them safely to the designated Mexico airport (ZLO or PVR) and escort them back at the end of their stay. Scheduled escorted departure dates from LAX are as follows:
Students can be escorted back from the designated Mexico airport (ZLO or PVR) to LAX on the following dates:
(Escorted travel arrangements from other centralized locations, including the Houston airport, can potentially be made upon request for large enough student groups. Please inquire for the possibility of making such an arrangement.) Students may opt to purchase their own ticket and fly independently to and from the Manzanillo, Mexico (ZLO) airport, on any Saturday or Sunday from June 19th – August 8th, 2010 and depart any Saturday or Sunday from June 26th – August 15th, 2010. La Catalina School will pick up students upon their arrival to ZLO and escort them back to ZLO at the end of their stay, seeing them on to their plane to their home state. While in Mexico, students are fully chaperoned. IMPORTANT NOTE FOR ALTERNATIVE TRAVEL DATES: If it is not possible to book your flight on one of the scheduled arrival/departure days specified above, you can make special arrangements with La Catalina School for an alternative arrival and departure date. You will need to check with us before booking your tickets to confirm that your proposed date modifications will work. (There will be an additional cost for making these special arrangements.) EARN $100 OR MORE OFF YOUR TRIP BY:
La Catalina Natural Language School Victor Amezcua, School Director Julie Catton, School Director
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![[Aventuras: Educational Travel Adventures Image]](pict71.jpg){kind=small}
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Students will spend an exciting half-day sea kayaking in the
Tenacatita Bay with Immersion Adventures, a local kayaking
company. The group will receive prior instruction and be
accompanied by an experienced guide as they paddle out from La Manzanilla
to a secluded beach where they will snorkel (optional) over a fringe coral
reef, do some beachcombing, and learn about the coral reef ecosystems. 
Students will travel by bus to the picturesque beach town of Barra
de Navidad, located 30 minutes south of La Manzanilla. There they will
spend the morning body surfing or swimming in the ocean, followed by a walking
and boat tour of the area. The students will finish the day shopping
at a number of the arts and crafts shops and enjoying a very special authentic
Mexican lunch. 
The
students and their trip leaders will travel to the beautiful Blue Bay Resort
located 15 minutes north of La Manzanilla for a day of fun and
luxury. There they can lounge around the beautiful crystal clear pools
overlooking the beach, have access to a galore of recreation activities,
including horseback riding, volleyball, boating, snorkeling, tennis and more,
and enjoy tasty meals at the resort. 
DAY
2
enjoy a beautiful hike in the tropical forest and
reach the rim of the crater of an extinct volcano, where they’ll enter
it using rappelling technique (easy, even for beginners). They continue hiking
and discover the regional organic coffee, and its culture, and finally reach
a beautiful crater lake. On the return trip, the group will enjoy a typical
Mexican lunch accompanied by a Mariachi band in the quaint town of Comala,
nestled at the foothills of the volcanic mountain, six miles from Colima.
Everyday the group will have an activity
time where the trip leaders will plan a fun recreational activity, which
may include swimming at the beach, playing volleyball or soccer with the
locals, going on a group hike, gathering to do their homework and journaling,
and other activities. This will also be a time for the students to
debrief with their Trip leader and share their feelings and experience about
their trip experience. In addition to day time activities, there will
be evening social activities including ice cream socials, movie nights, game
nights and more!!!