Experienced first-hand by a Bulgarian language teacher
“One of the most significant benefits of intensive language courses is the extent to which you are immersed in the language.”
This is the first thing that pops up when you try to research the effectiveness of an intensive course and honestly, I couldn’t agree more. Last year at Studio we held two intensive A1 courses and what really stood out as a huge benefit was the fact that the intensive group did not have the chance to skip a day’s practice, and language is all about repetition continuously though time. What is more, the students seemed to go effortlessly through the course because of the fact that everyday they had 1 astronomical hour which was enough to learn A LOT of new words and structures and at the same time not too much time to get tired and start sliding down the motivation slide. It seemed that everyday people were perfectly capable of taking more and more words and structures and at the same time practice what had been taken the previous day. By the end of the course, I felt that students managed to get more out of it and managed to do so for a shorter time! Of course, it is also important to pay attention to a couple of other factors when deciding on a course.
First - Are you ready to give 1 hour of your day, every day and be focused and present?
This is an important aspect of the intensive course, because if you skip a day or two you are risking falling behind quickly, so it is important to set your mind to the task of being present and in good concentration every day of the week. (Don’t worry we rest on Saturday and Sunday)
Second – How will you continue after?
As I mentioned above, the pace of the course gives the opportunity to immerse yourself for a month and a half in the language. You pick up speed and by the end of it you have become quite capable, especially if you throw an honest gaze behind you, however in order to retain all this information you MUST continue learning until it manages to crystalize in your brain (which normally happens for around 2 months of practicing a lexical or grammatical item). This means that if you stop, because you are tired of the intensive course, you will probably loose a lot of the information, so it is good when you plan for it, to also plan how to continue after in order to grow and develop your amazing Bulgarian language skills.
In all fairness, what really makes the difference at the end of the day is staying consistent for a long enough time to be able to really master the language. If you are the kind of person who manages to easily create a routine and a habit of learning, then you will surely benefit from any type of course, because it is practice that makes perfect, however if you are the type of person who easily gets distracted and likes to procrastinate (guilty 😊), then perhaps you will need an external engagement that will keep you going back to the language day after day – in this case – the intensive course is just for you!
If you would like to give it a try, check out our courses section to see if there is an intensive course starting any time soon!
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