JUNIORS – On Language Holidays
Parents are becoming more willing to send their young children on a language travel programme.
Although very young children still account for a small proportion of the language travel market, it is undeniably a growing niche in many countries. Young children have different requirements from the 14-16 year olds that make up the mainstay of the junior market, and schools and agents must be able to adapt their services specifically to cater for them.
First, when looking for suitable schools agents should only consider those that make special provisions for young juniors. The school must ensure that there are relatively few students per supervisor and that children are supervised constantly; and the teacher should be qualified in language teaching for non native speakers.
In terms of accommodation, many industry sources agree that residential accommodation is often better for young children as students are not having to deal with the 24 hour a day host family experience as well as everything else.
Other sources maintain that a special host family can provide young children with the comfort and attention of home. Once the schools have adapted the courses to meet the needs of younger students, and agents have selected the schools they wish to represent, the next step is to market the programmes. The target audience, in this case, is the parents and the teachers, rather then the actual students themselves.
For younger children it is important to satisfy both the parents and the teacher that their child/student will receive sufficient pastoral care and plenty of well supervised activities as well as the effective language tuition.
The most important aspect of marketing to juniors is to have the answers to the many and varied questions from parents. Parents usually want to know every little detail, from whether their child will be picked up from the airport to what childcare experience the host family has.
From our experience, parents of young children in France are generally well prepared to send their children on a course overseas. The parents sending young children overseas are much more open minded and up to these things.
It is already widely accepted that the younger the child the more responsive he or she is to learning a second language. Parents are coming round to the idea of sending their children on a language travel course at a younger age.