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After many years of rolling, CEI El Jarama can say that it is now definitely going international. Centro Educativo Internacional El Jarama S.L. was the name given 22 years ago by its founders. The “El Jarama” bit was added pretty straight forward given that the Jarama River surrounds the company’s main premises and provides the unique scenery and characteristics to such centre.

“Educativo” since we do nothing but educate and teach values and concepts to everybody that visits us, mainly children.

And the “International” bit, since originally envisioned to become a reference in Spain on the grounds of foreign language Summer courses, it is recently when the company has given a great and deep jump into its internationalization.

So, going international

On the one side, the learning of languages under our umbrella (we do not allow to say that we teach languages, but rather that our students learn them – which leads to high implications when defining our didactic methodologies) is becoming more and more important. As we said before, 22 years ago we started to carry out Summer immersion camps in English and some test with other languages were done too. Something completely innovative at the time. Today, there are over 600 children and teens that participate every Summer in some of our language programmes, English and/or Spanish Summer courses.

Lately, CEI El Jarama has introduced immersion programmes for local schools and for foreign schools either in English and/or Spanish. Over 600 primary and secondary school students have benefited from such programmes in the last school year. On the other hand, the amount of foreign students we welcome has substantially increased in the recent past. The number of individual reservations that come from all over the world for our Summer programmes is permanently increasing.

But also the numerous groups of Chinese and Egyptians, with around 30 students each, coloured our last Summer programmes. In total, a 15% of the total 1.200 Summer reservations corresponded to non Spanish students. A unique Summer experience for the foreign kids, for the local ones, and for all our staff members!!!

But couldn’t one say that this exchange and study abroad experiences are not an overall increasing trend? Indeed they are a growing trend! Recently, we reported about this significant increase of study travels on the Study Travel Magazine article or even in our previous post on this blog. But, does this mean that it is easy to become a successful company in delivering quality programmes to international groups? I do not agree with that.

Going international and company culture

Let’s just imagine we are dealing with highly sensitive “material”, i.e. 6 – 17 year olds that are sent to us from their home countries, to whom we have to provide with all sorts of personal and emotional care during their 15 to 30 day stays. And also, let’s pretend that every feedback from the teachers and/or responsible accompanying adults states that CEI El Jarama manages to create a great atmosphere at the same time that looks after every single detail and every single need of each child, so that the kids can adapt, integrate, enjoy, and, therefore, improve their language skills.

If we now think that this is actually not a fantasy in our minds rather than a fact in CEI El Jarama, the question is how we manage to get to that point. It takes a lot of time to implement, a lot of personal efforts and sacrifices from all the personnel and above all, a company culture committed and devoted to the importance of languages, firstly, and to internationalism, secondly.

And here comes the third and last reflection of today´s article, the staff panel makes the “internacional” dream possible. But how? Integrating such committed culture towards internationalism in their day to day basis: They have been taking voluntary English classes provided by the company for the last 4 years. All members of staff have had training on cross-cultural education. The company and all the staff have been building ties with foreign communities in Thailand for 6 years now. Amongst an important number of staff members, English, and even French, is the most commonly spoken language, 10 different nationalities working together, etc.

CEI El Jarama strongly believes on the empowerment of its stakeholders, either staff members, visiting children and/or their families, and strives for giving them valuable tools to enhance all possible sides of their personal development. Besides this, we define our service essence as caring for every detail and specific need of each of our students. These two attitudes, we believe, help us to make our dreams on internationalization real, or any other dream we may stand for.

Post written by Víctor Manuel Rodríguez Martínez  (Head of CEI El Jarama)

Hemos creado el programa Días sin Cole en CEI El Jarama para ayudar a que las familias no tengan que agotar días de vacaciones y puedan acudir a sus centros de trabajo realizando la jornada lectiva como cualquier otro día.

Este programa de Días sin Cole en CEI El Jarama está especialmente diseñado para AMPAS, empresas, asociaciones y grupos escolares que deseen organizar una jornada en el entorno privilegiado, en la ribera del río Jarama, con nuestro equipo profesional de monitores. Todo especialmente diseñado para los alumnos de infantil, primaria y secundaria pasen un día fantástico en el entorno privilegiado del Río Jarama, en Talamanca del Jarama, a 40 minutos de Madrid.  

Durante el día, según el ciclo escolar que estén cursando, los niños/as realizarán muchas actividades, tales como apicultura, senderismo, transformación de alimentos, cuidado de los animales, equitación, taller de plantas aromáticas, montarán en burro o pony, barcas en el lago, etc.

La temática del programa Días sin Cole en CEI El Jarama va cambiando según la estación siendo, para este próximo 28 de noviembre, La Matanza. Los niños/as disfrutarán fabricando chorizo de forma artesana al tiempo que aprenden el proceso completo desde el despiece hasta la obtención del embutido de la carne de cerdo, un animal muy útil, sobre el que les contaremos muchas anécdotas.

Os iremos avisando de los siguientes días sin cole con temáticas nuevas para que podáis apuntaros. El precio lo incluye todo: autocar, monitores, comida y actividades.

¡Pasad un día divertido e inolvidable!

Para empresas, AMPAS, asociaciones, federaciones o grupos escolares podéis informaros y realizar la reserva llamando a los teléfonos 91 841 77 09/ 91 8421 75 40/ 91 841 76 49

Si sois una familia interesada, informad a vuestras empresas para que nos llamen y puedan gestionar el servicio de Días sin Cole para vosotros.

Descárgate el documento sobre los Días-sin-colegio.pdf donde encontrarás los detalles del programa y los precios.

It did not take me long time to decide to join in for the Alphe Korea 2013 and Alphe Japan 2013. The downside to these impulsive yet drastic decisions is the risk it becomes a “habit” (i.e. every time there is an international conference on study abroad, it just takes me a few hours to make up my mind and book in). This would not be very recommendable since it would incur huge expenses for the company but even worse, a possible divorce…

However, in this case the decision to go to Korea and Japan has been highly fruitful and convenient as it is beneficial to CEI El Jarama´s endeavours: CEI El Jarama is promoting a joint programme with Alcalingua (Universidad de Alcalá) that aims to encourage foreign students under 18 years (juniors) to mix with hundreds of the Spanish students that decide to spend their summer holidays with CEI El Jarama… Learning Spanish in Spain.

Is our observation of an increase in demand for language courses a fiction or a reflection of reality?

There is indeed an increasing demand for Spanish courses.

-              Spanish is increasingly being studied in the world as a second or third language.  Although still a little far from the strong influence of English, it is now making remarkable progress in schools and educational institutions. After the local mother tongue, both English and Spanish are considered second and third languages respectively, whilst in English speaking countries, and especially the USA, Spanish is considered a second language.

-              Some argue that Spanish is the language with the largest native speakers in the world. Others claim that Chinese or even English come first.  It all depends on what you consider  “mother tongue”, for example if Chinese includes Mandarin and Cantonese or not, etc. However, it is important to recognize that approximately 400 million people are native Spanish speakers and these figures keep increasing.

-              Another significant growth and importance of Spanish is its influence in the USA. The knowledge of Spanish is now considered key, as there is more and more preference and higher demand for Hispanics who master both English and Spanish.

-              Finally, a recent report from the British Council reflects the need for deeper studies of foreign languages in the UK. It encourages education institutions to train the population, specially the youth, in what they call the “Languages for the Future”. And guess which is the first of those 10 languages!! Yes, Spanish.

These, amongst other reasons, led the Instituto Cervantes, 22 years ago, to venture into spreading and encouraging the use of Spanish. At that stage they could foresee how relevant Spanish was going to be and started opening centres all over the world. But this prestigious institution is not the only one acting as a facilitator for teaching Spanish, since there are plenty of Spanish or Latin American universities, language schools or study abroad agencies that provide fantastic opportunities to learn or improve Spanish everywhere in the world.

Universidad de Alcalá, and specifically its centre for Teaching Spanish as a Foreign Language, Alcalingua, has been delivering Spanish courses in Alcalá de Henares (Madrid) for adults -university students and seniors, for more than 20 years. Now, based on a joint venture with CEI EL Jarama, the programme Spanish Immersion in Spain was developed to cater to younger people. If you are considering to learn Spanish abroad, we recommend you to think of learning Spanish in Spain. 

Why choose to promote in Korea and Japan?

Let us explain but a few:

-              Alcalingua has extensive experience with East Asia, mostly importantly China, Japan and (South) Korea. They know these markets very well and also know what these societies demand and expect. Something that shouldn’t be taken for granted.

-              Most importantly, East Asia is a massive emerging market in every area, including education. Every year their societies – their people, become wealthier and thus can think of saving some money to invest in their children´s education.

-              Actually, it is a common trend in such countries that as their citizens rise to a more middle class standing, they become highly obsessed with their children´s education. It is noticeable that the level of education and mentality of these societies have an influence on children, as they are known to be extremely diligent and responsible regarding their studies. They are known to be very good in maths, music or languages subjects, to name but a few.

Would you permit me to give you a glimpse of what I experienced on my short trip to both countries?

Seoul

You may enter a supermarket and not know any of the food products they may offer. Totally unknown ingredients for Westerners, vegetables, roots or simply spices; and the multiple ways they have to mix and cook such ingredients. As a result you find delicious and incredibly varied dishes and combinations in any restaurant of Itawoen street, for instance. Korean sashimi is probably its best known dish but, believe me, there is much more to it.  Finding tasty food on the streets is just as common as in the rest of Asia.

 On the other hand you feel safer than at home and hospitality and respect is as high as in any other of its neighbouring countries.

South Korea is amazingly developed considering the hard 20th century they went through – several wars and occupations. It is nowadays a fully developed country, with an estimated 3,8% GDP growth for 2014. It has around 50 million inhabitants, 24 million living in Seoul metropolitan area (Sudogwn). Its surface area is about 100,000 km2 (one fifth of Spain´s surface area).  Brands like Samsung, Hyundai, LG, KIA, etc. show the power and potential of this country.

In summary, you can see lots of traditional features of a continental East Asia culture in their people´s behaviours, but with a modern and up-to-date flavour of a fully developed country.

Tokyo

Probably something unique in this planet, I dare to say. No parallelism with any other city I know. Every culture and society is a product of his past but, in Japan this is probably even more noticeable. And it is not only the past events that model the current culture, but also their people´s determination not to lose ties with their traditions and to row on the same direction on everything they do.

In downtown Tokyo , tiny wooden restaurants seem to be taken from theearly Tokugawa times, in the 17th century, delivering amazing first class quality meals, always home-made, by the way.

But Tokyo is different from the rest of Japan, and not only because of its magnitudes and the fact that is the largest metropolitan economy in the world, but specifically because it was rebuilt time and time and again from almost nothing but bare ashes. The last time it was almost totally burnt down was during the indiscriminate air raids by the allies during the Second World War in 1945. Most of the city was on fire, and consequently destroyed, since nearly all the houses at that time were built with wood.

In 68 years, since 1945 till now, Tokyo has become a superb, top-rank city, with every single detail perfectly planned and looked after. Its clean and perfectly tar-marked streets, their organized districts and means of transportation are just a few examples. Its fantastic sky-line and in all, hundreds of magnificent buildings and road infrastructures lead one to think of European cities as small-scale tests of city construction and planning.

Some figures to conclude, Japan has 127 million inhabitants, whilst around 36 million people live just in the metropolitan area of Tokyo. Whilst Japan has 6,852 islands and a total surface area of 377,944 km², most of the population lives in valley areas which are only a 25% of the total land – the rest formed by inhospitable mountain ranges. This creates one of the greatest population densities in the world. It is the 3^rd economy in the world, just behind China and the USA, and the average gross domestic product is around 35,000$, compared to the Spanish, 30,000$ or the US 50,000$. 

Have you not been in this part of the world yet? 

What can I say? Find yourself an excuse to go and do not think about it twice!! 

Post written by Víctor Manuel Rodríguez Martínez  (Head of CEI El Jarama)