KCG Foundation Program in June

Jun 25th, 2013, Tuesday

The KCG Summer Program is, by nature, a rigorous and intensive undertaking for prospective students. In many ways, the Summer Program transcends the possibilities and rewards of a more traditional, English-learning class. For one, the intensive nature of the program resonates with the demands of a traditional English class taught overseas. The program also provides students with an elusive, prolonged English-only environment, a factor that is so critical to learning a second language. Moreover, given the expansive outline of the program, with time allotted to reading, writing; oral English, grammar, and vocabulary building, the course affords the instructor great flexibility in tailoring the contents of the course to fit diverse student needs.

Now two weeks into the Foundation phase of the KCG Summer program, it would appear that the ambitious goals and targets of the course are well on pace to be met, if they aren’t already. The students appear quite receptive to the course materials, and are appreciative of the unique approach the KCG Summer Program undertakes to improve their respective English proficiencies. Although the strengths and weaknesses of the students differ, the aforementioned flexibility of the course has allowed for necessary adjustments and tweaks to better guide the progress of each student. To be sure, there are technical and instructional aspects of the program that have required minor modifications, such as the pace of the lectures or the method of feedback. Overall however, the philosophy of the program has been unchanged, and has so far successfully helped to craft a strong, integrative, and challenging course.

Within the next two weeks, KCG will be launching its second round of the Summer Program Foundation phase. The current schedule is structured such that this round of the program begins on the 8th of July, and finishes on the 25th of July. Moreover given the varying ages and English proficiencies of interested clients, the July round of the program will feature two separate daily instructional sessions, one taking place in the morning and the other in the afternoon. The morning session will accommodate more advanced domestic Chinese students around the 9th or 10th grade. The Afternoon session on the other hand will cater to a younger group of students around the 5th to 8th grade, many of whom are still just beginning to learn English. Naturally, the respective instruction materials for the morning session will be much more challenging than the afternoon session; while the morning session content will largely resemble that of the material currently being used for the June Round, the materials being prepared for the afternoon session will emphasize the basics and foundations of the English language.