The Cultural Exchange Program (CEP) is great way for students to experience a new culture and practice their English immersed in an entirely English environment. The CEP runs between July and August and accepts students between 11 and 17 years of age.
By attending CEP students can expect to:
- Improve their English
- Experience a new culture
- Travel North America
- Make new friends
Accommodations
- While in London, Ontario Canada students will reside in our Ivy Hall Residence.
- While traveling throughout the United States and Canada students will stay in hotels of at least a 3 star rating with dual occupancy.
Meals
- London International Academy (LIA) will provide each student will a meal card during the length of stay in London, Ontario. This ensures that students can select the meals of their choice.
- As the students travel across North America LIA will have arranged every meal for each city they visit.
The CEP Program is designed to improve the listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills of our students. We offer an inter-disciplinary approach to learning that is strategically in accordance with the Ontario Ministry of Education’s curriculum taught by Canadian teachers who are fully certified by the Ontario College of Teachers (OCT).
Our teachers gear lessons to the different levels of the students in their class and use creative approaches to keep the students engaged. Students rotate between “individually-centered” lessons, which are also accompanied by skill-based and first-hand learning activities.
CEP consists of three types of English study:
- Academic English
- Topic English
- Activity English
Academic English
Listening/Speaking, Reading, Writing/Grammar
- Listening/Speaking: Teachers will expose students to various listening activities, such as lyric lessons, and instructional games. In speaking, students will be asked questions on a variety of topics in order to test their ability to utilize their vocabulary and sentence structure. They will also be asked to formally present a speech to the class.
- Reading: Our reading classes strictly focus on comprehension and using familiar vocabulary in combination with context in order understand unfamiliar words. Here students will learn important reading skill sets, such as; inferring, identifying and describing elements of a story, and expressing the themes and concepts that arise within it.
- Writing/Grammar: In teaching writing and grammar students will learn to use proper punctuation, appropriate tense and correct spelling. They will also use parts of Speech, Simple/Compound Sentences, Noun/Pronoun Agreement to further improve both their writing and grammar skills.
Topic English
Topic English aims to educate students about Canadian culture and practices. Students learn about the history of Canada, Niagara Falls, Aboriginal Canadians, and Canadian Art, among other interesting cultural topics. Students’ classroom learning is paralleled with visits to London City Hall, The University of Western Ontario, local museums and Niagara Falls in order to further reinforce genuine Canadian concepts. This gives students the opportunity to explore the Canadian environment in order to gain a truly meaningful learning experience.
Activity English
It is important to allow students to learn English while doing various, fun activities. Our activities include baseball, volleyball, art, cooking, shopping, music and more. In a neighboring school setting, our CEP students have the opportunities to build friendships with their Canadian peers and speak with their new Canadian friends in English. While learning Canadian dance, art, and games from Canadian teachers and friends, our CEP students improve their communication skills, especially in listening and comprehension.