German Summer School in Vienna for Kids and Teens (12-17)

Students choose between twenty and thirty German lessons a week. Both options are taught in the morning; the more intensive option adds a second block in the early afternoon. A lesson lasts forty-five minutes and classes run Monday to Friday in small groups, with an average of ten students and a maximum of fifteen. Teachers are native speakers, all levels from beginner upwards are accepted, and students are placed after a level check on arrival. Grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation and listening are practised through communicative games, pair work and group work aimed at real-life situations. A preparation module for the OeSD German certificate can be added, and the examination can be taken on site.

The package covers tuition, accommodation on the campus, full board, the daily activity and sports programme, the evening programme, bed linen, free WiFi, course books on loan with a notebook and pen, round-the-clock supervision and a certificate at the end of the course. Excursions further afield, airport transfers, a Vienna transport ticket, insurance and the certificate examination are booked separately as extras. Stays run from one to five weeks, with arrival on a Sunday and departure on a Saturday.

Students live on the campus of a historic Vienna academy, in the same enclosed grounds as the classrooms, the dining hall and the sports facilities. Standard rooms sleep four to six students, with showers and toilets shared on each floor and kept separate for boys and girls. Superior rooms sleep two to four students and have a private shower in the room, with the toilet either in the room or on the same floor. Boys and girls are accommodated in separate wings of the same building. Roommates are matched by age while mixing nationalities, and individual requests are taken into account where possible.

Full board is included, with three freshly prepared meals a day served in the dining hall. Breakfast is a buffet with bread and rolls, cold cuts and cheese, spreads, cereals and hot drinks. Lunch is a three-course meal with a soup or starter, a choice of main course and a dessert, mixing international dishes with traditional Austrian cooking. Dinner is another freshly cooked meal, occasionally served as a cold buffet after a full-day excursion. Vegetarian and vegan options are always available and halal meals can be requested when booking. Barbecue evenings are a regular part of the summer programme.

Afternoons and evenings are filled with sport and culture. Students play football, basketball, beach volleyball, tennis and table games, go swimming at outdoor pools and on the Danube island, try climbing and learn the Viennese waltz. Cultural sessions take in museums, palaces and historic districts of the city, with guided visits and university campus tours. Evenings bring discos on the school grounds, film screenings, quiz and games nights, barbecues and outings to see the city after dark. Shopping trips and day excursions beyond the city are also part of the wider programme.

The campus belongs to a historic private academy in the city and has spacious grounds. Outdoors there are tennis, basketball and beach volleyball courts, a large football pitch and a barbecue area, all set in a private park. Indoors there are sports halls, recreation rooms, classrooms, a dining hall and the residence itself. Free WiFi covers the campus. The site is enclosed and supervised, a short walk from the city centre and directly beside an underground station.

The camp suits families who want a real language course rather than a holiday with a few lessons, combined with the safety of a single closed site in a European capital. Everything happens in one place, so younger teenagers never travel unaccompanied between accommodation and classes, and staff are available at any hour. Students come from many countries, which means German is genuinely the shared language outside the classroom as well as inside it. Alongside the language, participants get a summer in Vienna: its museums and palaces, its parks and swimming spots, and evenings with friends from around the world.