Page 35 - ELG1802 Feb Issue 454

INTERVIEW . REVIEWS & RESOURCES

Keep it

all in the

family

Oggi (back row, 3 from right)
rd
with his adoptive family
Melanie Butler speaks to one of the owners of a language school that has
transformed people’s lives

LAC has changed my life. I don’t parent has a point of contact within CLAC, says that about 2 per cent of our students
do what I do for money. I do it who send them emails, photos and updates come from agents,’ he reports back.
because I love it.’ throughout the course. ‘He’d like about 10 per cent from agents, no
‘C For double Bafta-winning This is a family business. The mother Anne more than 20. Besides, we can only take small
documentary maker Oggi Tomic, these words runs one centre while her son William runs groups.’
are not empty rhetoric. the other. William’s wife, Carolina, teaches Word of mouth is also the way that British
Oggi arrived at Cambridge Language and yoga to the students and Oggi, the ‘informally’ children are recruited. Having English-
Activity Course (CLAC) eighteen years ago adopted brother – they never could find his speakers in the mix has always been an
on a scholarship, and this exclusive family- birth mother to make it official – teaches them essential part of the CLAC experience. In
run English language summer school really filmmaking. the old days, they were enrolled in foreign
transformed the Bosnian orphan’s life. Forever. ‘William taught me when I first came – language courses, but these days they form
But things did not go well straight away. English through science. I think I remember part of a buddy system, acting as cultural
‘I took one look at it. Big building, full of the Bunsen burners. Was it science, William?’ ambassadors.
children – I thought that was just like another The other permanent member of the CLAC ‘It works brilliantly,’ Oggi chortles. ‘I
orphanage. I had been to five. My friend and still have British friends I met as a student
I decided to rebel,’ Oggi tells me down the Everybody who at CLAC.’ Another feature of the CLAC
phone. The rebellion lasted precisely 24 hours. comes to CLAC once experience is the high ratio of adults to
On the second morning, Anne George, who children. They have one adult to every four
founded CLAC with Elfrida Heath in 1985, comes back, students and, needless to say, some of those
called him into her office. adults are former students.
‘Do you want to be good? Or do you want or so it seems ‘We don’t take students over 17, so they ask
to leave?’ she asked. Oggi decided to be good. if they can come back as helpers,’ Oggi says.
Apart from one time in 2001, he has come team is their general manager, Hazel Pelling, ‘We tell them to take a year or two off, see the
back every summer ever since and now works who started work there as an English language world. Then back they come.’
year-round as enrolments manager when he teacher in 2009. Nine years later, she’s still CLAC is not just a language school, it
isn’t making films. there, making sure everything runs smoothly. seems, it’s a way of life – although the team
Elfrida has retired, but Anne George Everybody who comes to CLAC once comes certainly take the language learning seriously,
and her son William still run the summer back, or so it seems. This year, 80 per cent of and not just in the classroom. Children share
school, and still follow the traditional CLAC the teachers were returners and 70 per cent of rooms with someone of another nationality.
approach, which emphasises ‘personalised the students had also been there before. English is encouraged at all times, screen time
attention to the children and their parents’. ‘Last year we had our first second is limited and mobiles are taken away at night.
‘The very first thing William and I do generation student. The mother came and ‘You take mobile phones away from
when we pick children up from the airport,’ now her child.’ Word of mouth accounts for teenagers?’ I asked, amazed. ‘Isn’t there a riot?’
says Oggi, ‘is ask them if they are hungry and 20 per cent of enrolments. Then there are Oggi replies, ‘We keep them so busy, they
remind them to call their parents.’ Every families who find them through the web. And don’t really notice’.
agents? Oggi puts down the phone to children on summer language courses, I ask
Finally, as a parent who spent years sending
consult his adoptive brother. ‘William
Chris Leslie about end-of-course reports – something I
never once received in eight years.
‘Every child gets a report, hand-written
by the teacher, with notes from the centre
manager and also from a director. And a
certificate. Oh and a memory stick with
photos from the course.’ Oggi pauses.
‘I still have my report and my certificate
from when I first came from Bosnia,’ says the
boy who went to a summer school and found
Oggi Tomic in Sarajevo 1997 a family.
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