Two weeks on the Maltese Islands

In the two weeks of the spring holidays, from April 30th until May 14th 2016, 120 volunteer students of the Berufsmaturitätsschule Zürich participated in the language stay in Malta. The goal of the event? To improve our English skills, become familiar with a different culture of the Mediterranean region and of course to have lots of fun! Looking back at the two weeks, we can all certainly say we have achieved that.

Our trip started at the airport in Zurich on April 30th, where we all met at the gate after checking in our luggage. Excitement started to come up within the groups of students while boarding the plane. After our departure at around 5:40pm, we had a very relaxed flight, which only took about 1.5 hours.

As soon as we arrived in Malta, it was time for us to change our language from German to English. To be fair: it wasn’t easy at first, but we all got used to it after a little while. At the airport in Malta we made contact with our group leaders for the first time, when they accompanied us to our host families, where we arrived about an hour later. As it was still Saturday evening, we all just had to go out and experience Malta’s nightlife.

As usual, the weekend went by pretty fast and we mentally prepared ourselves for school. But this time, with much more excitement. On the first day, we got split up into mixed classes, preparing either for the FCE or CAE exams. As the teachers were all familiar with foreign students and their average skills, they adjusted to the difficulties really well and helped us individually if we needed any additional support. This was of course possible because of the rather small sizes of classes we had.

Apart from school, we could participate in various leisure time activities: from paintballing to scuba diving, over to the jeep safari, there was something for everyone. We even made a boat cruise to the beautiful Blue Lagoon, where we ate dinner and went swimming. During these excursions, we all got to know each other better and better every day, due to us being split up in groups when playing paintball for example. Therefore there weren’t multiple small groups anymore, in fact, we all got along and went out together in the evenings.

In conclusion, we had a splendid language stay with nice weather, good humour, lots of fun and it definitely helped us to improve our English skills. None of us will ever forget this trip.