Junior Summer Programme with a Host Family, Blackrock College

General English for juniors on the Blackrock College campus. Students sit a placement test on their first day and are then grouped by level and by age. There are two lessons a day, three hours and twenty minutes of class, and a minimum of fifteen hours of tuition a week with course materials included. Lessons follow the Common European Framework of Reference and cover levels A1 to C1, taught by the communicative approach and built around reading, writing, speaking and listening. Students are tested regularly so teachers can follow progress, and everyone receives an end-of-course report with their confirmed class hours.

The programme fee covers tuition and course materials, full-board host family accommodation, the half-day activity programme and the end-of-course report. Students are met at the airport by an ATC representative and taken to their host family by private transport. ATC staff and managers are on the campus around the clock. The same centre also sells a residential option in The Castle on the college campus, priced separately.

Students stay with a local host family in south Dublin on a full-board basis, sharing a room with another international student or with someone from their own group. The family provides a packed lunch each day. Students travel between the host family and the college by public transport and can come back to the campus in the evening for activities.

Full board. The host family provides breakfast and dinner and a packed lunch for each day.

Half-day activities run alongside the lessons and are built around personal development rather than sightseeing alone. Students who stay with a host family can return to the college campus in the evening for the evening activity programme. Full-day trips run at weekends, when students take a packed lunch with them.

Blackrock College stands in fifty-six acres of grounds in south Dublin, about seven kilometres from the city centre, and the campus overlooks Dublin Bay. The college dates back to 1860 and its grounds and sports facilities are used for the activity programme. Classes are held in the college buildings.

An international summer on a suburban Dublin campus with the evenings spent in an Irish home. Students meet classmates from many countries in the classroom and in the activity programme, then go back to a host family where English carries on outside the lesson. ATC has run a summer programme at Blackrock College for more than thirty-five years.