Last July (2025), I sent my twin 11-year-old daughters to Chester International College’s Spanish immersion program in Santiago, and we loved absolutely everything about the experience.

The location in Santiago was ideal—this small, beautiful, and historic city created the perfect backdrop for both learning and exploration for our kids and us as parents.

The program itself was wonderfully balanced: my girls were immersed in Spanish while also enjoying quintessential summer camp activities such as sports, swimming, theater, and fun after-school and weekend outings throughout the region. The variety kept them engaged and excited every single day. The campus felt idyllic—lush and garden-like. Each afternoon, the children enjoyed a fresh, nutritious lunch prepared by the kitchen staff and served in a beautiful garden beneath the grapevines.

The staff was exceptionally friendly and supportive. They even helped us secure accommodations in the old city, which we absolutely loved. While we opted not to board our daughters this time, the school made staying off-campus seamless with their convenient door-to-door bus service. Boarding is something we would definitely consider in the future as they grow older.

Overall, the program exceeded our expectations in every way—combining language immersion, cultural discovery, and fun in a safe, supportive environment. We couldn’t recommend it more highly.

Added note: A wonderful bonus was reconnecting with our close family friends from Ireland, whose three daughters were also enrolled. With the kids happily at school each day, us parents had plenty of time to work remotely while exploring the city and surrounding areas together.

Sabel teacher is very amiable and has left a deep impression on me. In the classroom, everyone's abilities will be taken into account and layered teaching will be conducted. Each class and homework will be conducted in a layered manner. We have been encouraged to communicate in Spanish. Overall, I really like this teaching method. I won't feel very difficult, or dull and simple.

There are abundant sports activities in school, which is a great honor for me. I can experience different sports activities every afternoon. In sports activities, there were always people who gave me more opportunities. Even those sports activities that I’m not good at will encourage me to try more. They always patiently explained the rules to me. I particularly enjoyed school-organized outdoor activities, especially surfing!! This was my first attempt, but I think it's very, very, very fun!

Our daughter (13) absolutely loved this residential camp. So much so that she wants to return for a month (rather than 2 weeks) this year. The teachers and organizers were amazing and she made wonderful Spanish friends her age. It could not have been a better experience.

The logistics of travel and handover were really well handled. Our daughter could have felt very nervous attending a camp away from home by herself, but the organizers and teachers were so kind, that she didn’t at all. Very highly recommend it.

Chester College has many years of experience as an international school with excellent English and Spanish summer camps. Besides a wonderful location, there is a great deal of factors that speak in its favor. First of all, kindness and pleasant environment. The staff includes experienced professionals and energetic young people that give personalized care to every child. The space is cozy both at school and at the residence. The language course is combined with a lot of fun activities and excursions. The summer camp is very well organized. Parents receive detailed practical information before the program and a personalized progress report afterwards. Making the experience very positive for a shy teenager (as is the case of my child) must be a serious challenge. Yet I believe it was a very useful experience: new scenery, contact with new languages, new people of different nationalities and origins, opportunity to enjoy nature and beautiful landscapes during the excursions, engage in creative group activities, spend much less time with gadgets and much more having an actual social life. It was without any doubt positive and enriching. My daughter's knowledge of Spanish was not zero before the camp, but her speaking skills improved significantly.

Coming from Australia, with no exposure to Spanish, our two Teens were apprehensive to say the least! The teachers and program was excellent, and enabled them to get a grasp of basic grammar and pronunciation - often correcting us - and sparked a genuine interest to follow up on the language at home. The excursions in and around Santiago allowed them to be immersed in the stunning region and we found ourselves jealous of their exploits and explorations! The staff were very kind and thoughtful and even held a birthday celebration for one of our children, with cake and singing - and sent us a copy of the recording!

This camp is a great way to learn Spanish or english as people are always speaking in both languages. We also have 4 hour lessons in the morning were we can learn a lot. We have some fun activities afterwards and sometimes go on excursions as well. There even is a swimming pool, a football pitch and a basketball pitch in the college. At the end of the 4 week sessions there is a play in english and the Spanish narrators have to speak in Spanish to explain what is happening. It takes place in a very big theater and it is very fun !! This time we played Aladdin based on the new movie that went out with Will Smith. During the play, there is also dancing and singing and the song are beautiful. The end of the camp is always very sad and everyone was crying in the morning of the last day whilst singing the songs.

I loved the spanish course. It was a great experience and i believe other people should try it too. Santiago is a great place with plenty of fun things to do during the summer. We went on many excursions with the other kids in the english and we even went on some class trips with only the people from our class. We visited many beautiful places throughout Galicia. The spanish course in itself was quite good and my spanish greatly improved by the end of the month. The teachers in the camp are all very nice and are a lot of help. They provide us with pretty good living areas and the food is quite good too. This has been my fourth year doing the camp and i really enjoyed it. I made loads of great friends here and had a great time with them in the camp and the residence and i can't wait to see them all next year.

I loved Santiago! I wanted to choose an area of Spain that was far away from all of the tourists in the Costa del Sol and that's exactly what I got. Santiago is such a beautiful city! The Spanish camp was awesome - the classes were really small so we had lots of help from the teacher and I improved loads over the month.
We also did lots of our lessons offsite - going to the local market to learn the names of the food an practicing ordering drinks for real in a cafe was lots of fun. At the site (Chester College) the Spanish camp was held at the same time as a big English camp for Spanish students, so I made lots of friends from Spain which was cool and it helped me with my Spanish as I could practice with them (some of them were my roommates too). At the end of the camp we all put on a big theater production to showcase our work which was fun, I think it helped to have something to work towards.
We went on about 3 trips a week - often to beaches or nice countryside. The beaches were so beautiful! Also I hate the extreme heat, and in Santiago it was a really nice temperature (about 25-30ºC) which was perfect for me. I would definitely recommend this camp. Oh and the food was delicious too!
PS - I liked it so much I decided to come back to do a year abroad at their international school :-)