- The teacher speaks as little as possible in the class, and encourages students to speak instead.
- The teacher briefly presents the lesson material (vocabulary and grammatical rules), encourages the students to speak using THIS material, and corrects students’ mistakes.
- The number of students per class is very small; never more than 8, and usually 3 -4. During 3 hours of class per day, this gives plenty of opportunity for students to talk.
- Usually contact with the language does not stop after class hours. The teachers and the students live together on campus – or very nearby – and create a community. Many of the after-the-class-activities are organized in order to encourage contact between the members of this small community.
- The environment is friendly and relaxed. There is no reason for stress or formality, as we believe that learning should be a game and a pleasure.
- We always try to make our lessons as intensive, challenging and interesting as possible. In this way even our beginners reach a fairly advanced level after only two weeks.
The following video is a “performance” created by a beginners’ class. The play was also written by a beginning student. None of them had any previous knowledge of Greek before they arrived in Ikaria. After two weeks in the course they were able to use a basic vocabulary (around 300 words, including about 50 verbs in the past, the future and the subjunctive). As a result:
More videos from our courses: