Keystone Magazine Learning the Keystone Way 2015-2016 EN | Page 63

1. Summer activities can build English
proficiency.
Just being in an English-language environment can help students
with listening comprehension, and challenge them to speak Eng-
lish more. So traveling to an English-speaking country is a good
summer plan. Most families will find that even in non-English
speaking countries, they need to speak English as the common
language of communication. Enrolling in an English-language
summer program gives similar exposure to English, in both formal
classroom instruction and in less formal social interactions. But
there are other more deliberate ways to improve English even at
home. Students can write a diary or a blog in English. They can
watch English-language movies and listen to (and sing with!) Eng-
lish-language music. They can spend some time each day on web-
sites that have vocabulary games or exercises. They can read books
and websites in English. Proficiency in English is a “use it or lose it”
proposition. It’s so important to keep up with English learning.
2. Summer activities can increase knowledge
of other cultures.
Family travel is a great way to learn about traditions, foods, and
ways of life in other places. Meeting and talking with people can
help with breaking down cultural barriers. Most of our Keystone
students want to go to university outside of China, so seeing how
people in other countries might have different ways of doing eve-
ryday tasks or have different approaches to life can help with later
transitions when it’s time to study overseas.
3. Summer activities can help students to
find a passion or pursue a passion.
Colleges like to create freshman classes that have variety and
depth. They don’t want each accepted student to be the same. It’s
not enough to just have good grades and good test scores – eve-
rybody applying to Stanford already has that! They want to see if
students have started to develop their own interests and passions.
Some summer programs are specialized - for theater, or basketball,
or photography, or astrophysics, or computer programming, or
fashion design, or yoga, to name a few. If a student already has a
strong interest, summer is the time to dive deep and learn more!
Other summer programs, though, allow students to sample many
different kinds of activities and programs, in the hopes that they
might find an area that sets them on fire. Summer is a time for find-
ing a passion as well as exploring a passion.
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