Fuengirola SPEAKING

Helping Spanish youngsters improve their English

IMAGEN©TURISMO ANDALUZ S.A.

FUENGIROLA Town Hall is asking English-speaking families, couples or individuals to help promote English-speaking skills among the town’s youth.

According to the councillor for foreign residents, Suvi Kauranen, the aim of a new educational programme, Fuengirola Speaking, is to “develop verbal fluency among young Spaniards (from 12 to 17 years of age) studying English at school.

“The town hall is looking for volunteer families that speak English as their mother language and are willing to receive a Spanish girl or boy into their homes for a short period of time in order to offer the possibility to practise oral skills in a ‘natural environment’ without the need to travel abroad or pay huge sums of money for language courses.

“Fuengirola is a really international town; there are more than 32,000 foreigners and 129 nationalities registered (on the “pardon”), which has lead the mayoress, Esperanza Oña, to search for ways to take advantage of this multicultural feature and promote the ability of such an important universal language as English.”

There are two ways for people to participate in the program. “Either a pupil comes to your home in the afternoons and you give everyday chats as if the pupil were a member of the family (or) the pupil stays overnight, having meals with the family, which will mean that the pupil’s parents will pay a small fee for the costs.”

For more information: Tel. 952 589 440; foreignresidents@fuengirola.org; fuengirola.org