ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at summer projects in which university or college students work with school children for a continuous period of several weeks during vacation time. A particular difficulty of the summer projects may be the students' attempt to offer children fresh and stimulating experiences which conflict with, rather than complement, the children's experiences in school. Some of the most successful work of summer projects has undoubtedly been with native English-speaking children who are backward readers. College students predominate, but the help of local sixth formers has already been mentioned; in some cases younger secondary school children have helped, working with juniors and setting up a crèche for under-fives. A deeper understanding of the child's learning processes, of the cultural or linguistic problems that may arise, is something that the teacher or college tutor has to help with, and where again, for the language or education student, the personal gain can be considerable.
