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. 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 15 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 Spanish classes, the students will meet three times a week with a tutor to assist them with their homework assignments, including journaling about their experience in Spanish, reviewing and mastering the materials covered in class, working on developing their Spanish conversation skills, and using the Spanish CDs which they will be given as part of their course material to develop and refine their oral and auditory fluency. 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 conceptual 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.
6-10 hours per week. Participation in the volunteer program allows students to become involved in the local community and gain a deeper cultural understanding and appreciation of the workings of Mexican society. Additionally, students will have the opportunity to practice their Spanish outside of the classroom setting and may receive credit at their high school for community service. Students’ volunteer placements will be aligned with an area of personal interest as much as possible. 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 program, we offer local excursions on the weekends, which will
provide insight into Mexico’s culture, history, and local ecology, as
well as plenty of recreational opportunities. Full-Day & Weekend Overnight Excursions
We offer Saturday full-day excursions to different places of interest. Due to popular request, we have also added a number of overnight excursions, to provide opportunities for the students to get to know other nearby regions in Mexico. (These excursions are optional, and are offered for an additional fee.) For those students who choose not to sign up for the overnight excursions, they will continue with their regular weekend school schedule (see sample weekly schedule).
Below is the schedule for our
Saturday day-long and weekend overnight excursions. These are highly
recommended, as they will increase the students’ cultural immersion
experience and add excitement to their stay in Mexico!
Week 1: Friday, June 25th - Saturday,
June 26th
(http://www.gomanzanillo.com/old_articles/elsalto/index.htm) COST: $200 USD
Week 2: Saturday, July
3rd
COST: Included in the trip
package
Week 3: Thursday, July
8th - Saturday, July10th
Week
4: Saturday, July 17th
COST: Included in the trip package
COST: $50 USD
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 2010 trip leaders will be. We have a chaperone to student ratio of 1:8.
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 SAMPLE 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. Includes:
(Does not include airfare & escort services to and from Mexico.) STUDENTS STAYING 4 OR MORE WEEKS RECEIVE A 10% DISCOUNT OFF OVERALL TRIP TUITION Costs do not include: Optional overnight excursions, ATV excursion to Pena Blanca Beach, and 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 - $ 35 Misc. Expenses $ 10 - $ 20 $ 70 - $ 140 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.) Email us at la_catalinagroups@hotmail.com or call us at (011) 52-315-351-5362 (from outside of Mexico). We will send the trip registration guidelines and forms along with information on how to make your payment for the trip. A registration fee of $100 must be sent in along with your child’s application form. This fee in nonrefundable and does not apply to trip tuition & fees. 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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Spend
one to eight weeks this summer on the lush, tropical coast of Mexico
studying Spanish, experiencing the rich and colorful Mexican culture,
and building new friendships with students from different parts of the
U.S., Canada and Mexico! Our teen Spanish summer program 
La
Catalina Natural Language School 
Students
will participate in a private group Spanish course tailored to their
needs and interests. They will be grouped according to their level in a
beginner, intermediate, or advanced Spanish course. Classes are small in
size (limited to 6 students per level) and all students receive plenty
of one-on-one time with the teachers. Our teachers are native Spanish
speakers who are caring, professional, well-trained, and experienced.
Each
student will be placed in a volunteer position in the community for
approximately 
In
addition to the Spanish classes, there will be hands on cultural classes
twice a week where students will partake in activities related to the
Mexican culture, including some of the following options: beading,
painting, Mexican cooking, collage making, paper maché, video making and
more!
Students
will depart from La Manzanilla Friday morning and take a bus 2 hours
south to the larger port city of Manzanillo. Upon arriving, students
will get to explore the bustling downtown area and city market and enjoy
a traditional Mexican lunch. In the afternoon, they will get to relax at
their hotel on the beach (http://www.hotel-la-posada.info/), and have
some free time swimming and snorkeling in the crystal clear waters,
before
enjoying
dinner out on the town. On Saturday morning, the group will go on a
full-day tour to the beautiful “El Salto” waterfalls, topping 100 ft.,
where they will hike through the lush tropical forest, swim in
refreshing waters, see exotic plants such as the “Chicle” tree, where
Chiclets gum comes from, and have lunch in the mountain pueblo of
Minatitlan.
Manzanilla for a full day of fun and luxury at the
end of their stay in Mexico. 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, sea kayaking, tennis and more, and enjoy unlimited tasty
meals at the resort. (
Vallarta to experience the culture and
natural beauties of this magical place. On Day 1, they will explore the
city on foot, walking through the cobbled streets and along its
beautiful seafront “malecón” with views of the bay and visiting historic
sites, including the Cathedral de Guadalupe. Students will enjoy eating
at festive Mexican restaurants and practicing their Spanish with the
friendly vendors in the streets.
Banderas Bay, enjoying a
continental breakfast while soaking up the famous sunshine of Puerto
Vallarta. They will stop at Los Arcos, a protected marine preserve, for some of
the area's best snorkeling, then it's on to Las Animas. Here students
will enjoy the brand new adventure park, featuring such exciting
activities as zip lines, hanging bridges, climbing, and more. 
After the park, students will head to the beach, where the group will
enjoy a hot-cooked lunch in full view of the gorgeous Banderas Bay. On
the cruise back to Vallarta, students can try their luck fishing to add
even more fun to a great day in Puerto Vallarta. In the evening,
the group leader will organize a night on the town for the group. 
sea turtles along the way. Upon arriving to Tenacatita Beach, they will
go on a
jungle boat tour
through a mangrove and learn about the
local wildlife and ecology and snorkel at a coral reef with crystal
clear waters. Afterwards, everyone will have lunch at a festive Mexican
restaurant on the beach and have time to swim and boogie board, before
returning in the boat back to La Manzanilla.
Students
will experience the excitement of the powerful and easy to handle Honda
ATVs. A professional guide will lead students through rugged mountain
trails to the unspoiled and endless beach of Peña Blanca on the ATV’s.
Along the way, students will capture spectacular views of the tropical
forest and exuberant vegetation. Upon arriving to the Peña Blanca beach,
students will have a chance to swim, have a delicious Mexican lunch and
meet the friendly people of the village.
Students
will take a horseback riding tour around the plantations and marshlands
behind Aguacate, a little farming and ranching town 35 minutes south of
La Manzanilla. We will ride through and around plantations of coconut,
banana, mango, tamarindo and aguacate, fields of tomatoes, chilli,
papaya and pastures for goats, sheep and cattle. Many area farmers and
ranchers still travel to their fields and back daily on horseback or
move their livestock from horseback so this tour is a great way to see
the local countryside and experience close up an average day in Mexico
for many people who live here.