Congratulations to Livia Stocker, Sara Vonmoos, Leo Baumgartner, Nicole Kaeslin, all from Switzerland, to Seolah Yun from Korea and Tamara Ruether from Germany for passing the FCE exam. Well done everybody!
The next FCE exam preparation course takes place from Monday 16 May to Friday 3 June here at the Slaney Language Centre.
The biggest event in Ireland in 2011, the Tall Ships Races, will take place for four days from 30 June to 3 July in Waterford, which is located on hour from Wexford. This is suitable for language students to visit this great celebration. Ireland will play host to over 70 majestic Tall Ships and it promises to be one of the most spectacular and colourful events in the world! Half a million visitors are expected to visit the South East over the four days to enjoy food, music, street theatre and fireworks. Come along, experience and enjoy what promises to be an amazing festival. Have a look at the list of events that will take place over the four days.
Last summer we introduced a hurling workshop as an activity for our courses. Hurling is a traditional Gaelic sport played with a hurley (a wooden stick) and sliothar (a small hard ball) It’s an extremly fast, skilled and dangerous sport. George O’Connor, a nationally famous Wexford hurler gave an unforgettable hurling workshop to the children who attended our family course. He taught them hurling skills and presented them with the gift of a hurley to develop their skills and to continue playing the game when they returned home. We look forward to offering such a great workshop again this summer so if you would like to learn more about this traditional game when you’re here with us, let us know!
Check out the Gaelic Athletic Association website to find our more about this traditional Irish game.
All of us at the Slaney Language Centre are getting ready for an exciting New Year. Our website has been updated and is now online and you can also download our new course guide.
Specialised courses in 2011 include a Course for 30 Plus Students at Easter, an innovative Language and Culture Course in October, two FCE Exam Courses and three Family Courses.
We hope to see you all.
Ever heard of Wwoofing?
WWOOF stands for World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms and is basically an exchange - in return for volunteer help WWOOF hosts offer food, accommodation and opportunities to learn about organic lifestyle. Bea from Switzerland was the first Slaney Language Centre student to try out wwoofing. She had a great time and now more and more people of all ages and many different nationalities combine their English language course with working on an organic farm in Ireland. The language course will help you to improve your English and all you need then is a bit of enthusiasm and love for nature and the outdoors. You can even choose your own farm at Wwoof Ireland and optain more information about courses and more from the Slaney Language Centre.
Hi Everybody,
here some news from the Slaney Language Centre:
Special Offer for Easter Family Course
If you have children between ten and fourteen years of age we would be delighted to offer you a 20% discount on our Easter Family Course which will take place from Monday 29 March to Friday 9 April. Why not get away for a relaxing and educational break for you and your child? We guarantee that it will be an experience that neither you nor your child will ever forget.
July and August Family Courses
Hurry! There are ONLY two children’s places left on the August family course and a few more for the July courses, so book immediately to avoid disappointment! Family courses offer you the chance to have an enjoyable, relaxing and educational, family holiday. They allow you to improve your English skills while providing your children with the opportunity to learn and develop their English in a fun, child centred approach to second language acquisition. This is an experience that will benefit your children’s future.
More infos: www.wexford-language.com/courses/parents%20and%20children.html
First Certificate Exam Results
Congratulations to our evening class students, Sonja, Joanna and Marcin, who recently took their FCE in Dublin City University. They passed with amazing results. We are so proud of you for your hard work and dedication to the course. Well done also to Alfonso who also recently passed the FCE. He has been with us twice on Summer courses and we hope to see you again soon. We will have another evening course for the June FCE exams starting soon and a Fluency Development and FCE preparation programme in Summer. If you have been working towards doing your First Certificate Exam this course would be ideal for you as we give advice and guidance on all five papers and tips to answer each question. A breakdown of the marking scheme is also valuable to achieve the highest results possible. Please note that it is now possible to take your FCE exam in Ireland in August. Check out our brochure for further details.
More infos: www.wexford-language.com/courses/first_certificate_exam.html
Review your experience
You now have the opportunity to tell the world about your experience with us in the Slaney Language Centre! We would love you to share your memories and experiences with others who have not been as lucky as you to spend time in Wexford and in our school. Please let them know that there are no strangers at SLC, only friends you haven’t met yet!
www.my-language-travel.com/language-school/THE-SLANEY-LANGUAGE-CENTRE
Internet Addicts
Don’t forget that we are now on facebook and twitter and we would love you to join us and keep us up to date with what is happening!
www.facebook.com/Slaney.Language.Centre
www.twitter.com/Slaneylanguage
How Irish are you???
Take the Irish test, if you’re brave enough!
www.wexford-language.com/misc/quiz.html
Results:
Score 0–5: Quick! Book a flight to Ireland – we need to educate you!
Score 6-14: You’re learning but you still need to visit us! There’s so much more you need to learn.
Score 15-19: You must have had a few pints of Guinness or a few hot whiskeys. You’re almost Irish!
Score 20: Well done! You’re an honorary Irish person! St. Patrick would be proud of you! (and Sinéad)
St. Patrick’s Day
St. Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland and we celebrate his life on 17 March. This is a national holiday. We have parades in every town and city in Ireland dedicated to his memory. The biggest celebration in Ireland will take place in Dublin but parades also take place in America, with one of the biggest in the world held in New York each year. On 17 March everyone wears shamrock and green clothes. We also paint our faces, drink green beer and eat green ice-cream. Everybody sings and dances and celebrates on the street.
If you miss Ireland – watch this! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGWMC6wOuSY
Video – Mary’s Bar
On Saint Patrick’s Day,
May God grant you always a sunbeam to warm you,
A moonbeam to charm you,
A sheltering angel so nothing can harm you,
Laughter to cheer you,
Faithful friends near you,
And whenever you pray,
Heaven to hear you.
Lá Fhéile Phádraig shona daoibh go léir!
Wishing you peace and happiness from all at the SLC on St. Paddy’s Day.
Sinead
Hello!
I want to tell you about my experiences in Ireland:
If I look back on my last month in Wexford, Ireland I throughout remember positive things.
I stayed with a hostfamily and I really lost my heart for the Irish way of living. There is NO better possibility to make your English fluent than with a hostfamily.
But especially the Slaney Language Centre does a great job. Lisa is the best manager you can imagine for a language school and Anita arranges everything so lovely. I liked the small classes and my teachers Emma and Susan just taught us in such a sucessful way. I enjoyed every single day! ( I can’t remember that I liked my school in Germany so much 
)
It’s just so pleasant to work with a small group and to learn so many things day by day! To my mind Wexford is a perfect place to stay. There are lots of possibilities for activities in your freetime. One of my class mates worked as a volunteer in an Oxfam-Shop in her freetime after school. I think, it’s a great thing: You can combine the voluntary work with meeting lots of Irish people and you learn to understand the different accents. Her English was getting better so quickly!
Another thing that I liked were the activities in the afternoon. One day Jim, the bus driver, took me and the other two girls of my class to the Hook, the last operating lighthouse. We had a nice walk on the cliffs and Jim told us lots of stories and legends. I really enjoyed it - THANK YOU JIM!
After a three-weeks language course I did a work experience in the office of the Slaney Language Centre.
I’m quite sad that the beautiful time in Ireland is over now 
But I think I will come back and have another great time here!
Kind regards.
Anna-Lena
The biggest animal on this planet has been spotted in Wexford and no it is not me!!!! Great excitement here in Wexford and lots of people with cameras and videos heading for the coast at the Hook Lighthouse . Slaney Language Centre students were only down there last Wednesday and not a sign of anything in the water!!! But we’ll be going down again tomorrow maybe hoping to catch sight of this wonderful and amazing event in natural history.
Have a look for yourselves via the link provided
All the best
Anita
Language-Plus courses, which combine English lessons with leisure activities are gaining popularity in Ireland. Some language centres provide English lessons in the mornings and a specialised activity programme in the afternoons. Other providers start the programme with intensive language courses of one to four weeks duration. Following the course the students will then take part in an intensive programme of a specialised activity. The combination of English lessons with pastime activities gives the student the opportunity to improve his or her language skills by practising a favourite hobby. Examples for activities are horseriding, surfing, golf, fishing, rugby, drama, music, Irish culture and more. The Slaney Language Centre has designed a course called ‘English and Culture’ around the renowned Wexford Festival Opera. Participants of the English and Culture course will combine their English lessons with music, art and theatre events. The course starts on 19 October and runs for two weeks. It targets the more mature students - 50 plus - but is open to anybody over 18. A combination of English and Fly Fishing is planned for spring and summer 2010. The Language Travel Magazine provides a list of Language-Plus courses offered by language schools in Ireland.
Lisa
The Cambridge First Certificate of English - FCE - is the third level of the Cambridge Exams for Speakers of other languages (ESOL).
The exam is described as being at upper-intermediate or ‘independent user’ level. It is the most popular exam. FCE is recognised by many universities and other educational institutions as proof of an upper-intermediate level of English and these institutions take on students who have passed the exam. The FCE is recognised around the world.
The exam consists of five papers: Reading (1 hour), Writing (1 hour and 20 minutes), Use of English (45 minutes), Listening (14 minutes) and Speaking (14 minutes). Reading frequent questions and their answers helps potential canditates to become more familiar with the exam procedure.
The exam dates are the same worldwide and students can take the exam in almost every country.
We are holding a three-week FCE preparation course from 18 May to 5 June. Please check the our website for further information.
Lisa