When selecting a school in New Zealand, there are many things to look at. You probably first checked the price, the courses and location. But with so many schools to choose from which ones provide the quality you need?

The New Zealand government regularly checks all language schools in New Zealand, and publishes its reports on the NZQA website. This website can be a little confusing because it not only lists language schools but all education providers (such as the local music schools and dance studios).

To take an example, lets find one school listed on this website. Nelson English Centre is a great small school in sunny Nelson on the tip of New Zealands South Island. If you want to go off the beaten track this is a fantastic place to relax.

First enter the NZQA website here.

Then select “Nelson” , and in the list that follows you have to search for “Nelson English Centre” (use CTRL-F to quickly find it if the list becomes very long).

This should give you the Nelson English Centre school profile , as shown here.

On this page you will find the schools contact details, and at the bottom the two bits of most crucial information. First there is the school audit report. This should list in detail all that is good and bad about the school in plain English.

Secondly, it lists the schools Audit Cycle. Here it is three years, which means that the government only thinks its necessary to come by once every three years (the longest period). Newer schools, and schools that have previously failed inspection will have shorter inspection periods.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away… language schools did not have internet access, and they would tell their students that they should immerse themselves fully in an English speaking environment and not send e-mails home the whole time to better improve their English (they were right).

Nobody listened however. Today many students bring their portable computers when they travel and with it their e-mail, IM and all the tools necessary to edit their digital photographs.

So are you ready to sit in the shade outside your school with some fresh juice and your portable computer? Talk to your friends at home using Skype and brag about life overseas ? (… so its raining at home, that is just so sad to hear…)

Wireless Internet at your homestay is much harder — in many places dial-up is still the only way to reach the Internet. And in some places the Internet is metered (the more you download, the more you pay). So if you are unlucky, your homestay will not allow you to access the Internet. It is sometimes possible and in some advanced cities its actually quite common.

Questions to ask the school or your agent:

1. Does the school offer wireless internet?
2. Does my homestay offer wireless internet?

When picking a homestay to stay with, there are usually several meal options. The most common three are:

Half Board

Most students who stay at a homestay will book half-board. This includes breakfast every day and an evening meal. During the day you are out at school — so you can take care of your own food. Sometimes, half board also includes three meals (breakfast, lunch and dinner) during the weekends ; but this varies from school to school and its good to check this before you book your accommodation.

Full-Board

This is three meals a day for the whole week. Lunch during the week is usually sandwiches you can bring to school. This is great if your mother is worried that you will starve, but otherwise you might just want to eat in the school cafeteria or find a nearby food stall to hang out with your friends.

Breakfast Only

As the title suggests — this is just breakfast. This can vary from some milky cornflakes and an apple to a full English Breakfast: beacon & eggs, baked beans and tea together with some marmalade to put on your toast.

Self Catering

This is usually not a homestay option — it means that you take care of all your own meals. Some homestays allow you to cook your own meals, but it is not very common. This option mostly exists with rented apartments.

Eating at the homestay can save you a lot of money and save you lots of time everyday. But you might want to find some flexibility to cook your own meals ; or some hot water to poor onto your instant noodles.

When selecting a language school one choice to make is whether to pick a chain school (a school from one of the global brands such as EF, ELS, Eurocentres or Kaplan Aspect) or to study at an independently owned school.

The chain schools have the benefit of strong marketing, they visit everywhere, and because of this their schools have students from all over the world. They also monitor the quality of their teaching so it is very hard to go wrong. But this also makes them slightly impersonal. These are usually big schools with many students located in the most popular language study destinations worldwide which hire teachers based on demand and season.

Private schools are most often family run operations with a handful of teachers in a much smaller environment. A schools size can vary from 40-120 students. Usually many of the teachers have taught at the school for years giving the school a relaxed and comfortable environment for students. These schools often also have close relations with their homestay families making it easier to find the right family for each student. But the quality of teaching can vary much more — and because these schools have limited budgets for marketing themselves, they might not attract students from as many different countries.

When selecting a school do as much research as possible, and if possible, try to get recommendations from former students or an agency that understands your particular needs. Always make sure that the school you select is recognized by its local government as high quality.

In an ideal world you would have one teacher, spending all of his time just teaching you. This is called one-to-one teaching and as you can guess it is extremely expensive. You are paying for the teachers salary all by yourself.

Most language schools will have a maximum number of students in a class, usually around 12-15 students. If the number exceeds this they will open another class. The smaller this number, the more time the teacher can spend on you every hour. During the low season (winter, fall) the average number of students in a class can be even lower, about 8-10.

If the number of students in a class goes over 15 it will be very hard for your teachers to recognize you and spend time on your particular needs. It will also be very hard for you to participate, make suggestions, ask questions and practice your speaking in such a large group.

In many cities you can find language schools offering their courses for a range of prices. One fairly standard rule is that the lower your tuition fees are the more students there will be in each class. This is not completely true but it is usually a good rule of the thumb.

One good way to avoid crowded classes is not to travel overseas during the peak seasons (winter & summer holidays) for the schools. Or to pick a school that is slightly off the beaten track and that can offer good quality tuition all year round because they do not have overcrowded classes.

When going camping, you can travel hundreds of miles, cross borders and finally find a nice spot by the sea only to discover that the spot next to you is occupied by someone from your hometown. There goes your opportunity to practice your Spanish as you will end up discussing football for the rest of the week.

It can be the same with language schools ; and it is up to the school to make sure that they have a good mixture of nationalities. The best classroom is one where everyone speaks a different native language, and everyone has to use their new language skills to practice.

Around the world, the countries from which the most student study abroad are usually Korea, Japan & Switzerland. A good school will make sure that no nationality will go over 30% of its students, but this can be quite hard. For example, the Cambridge exams are very popular in Switzerland , and these courses only have three intakes (January, March & September). So a quiet country school can suddenly be filled with Swiss students working hard to pass the CAE & FCE exams.

Of course, having a few fellow country men and woman has its benefits. They might know how to cook great food from home, in exchange for you doing the dishes.

Traveling by plane, train or automobile is never easy — and if your journey takes long, you can expect to be exhausted when you finally roll into bed.

So why not arrive a few days earlier, recover your energy and start at your language school feeling energetic? The course starts on Monday, you arrive on Thursday, or Wednesday, giving you a whole weekend and more.

This sounds like a good idea but often its exactly the wrong thing to do. The reason is culture shock.

Fresh out of bed, you are now alone in a new country. The homestay family is at work. You wander around, but know little about the bus routes, where to buy food or what to do. People speak a different language, so you can’t easily ask for directions. Turn on the TV, but its all in a foreign language and this is when you get bored, lonely, and you still have days to go before anything will happen.

If you arrive on Saturday, or Sunday, the weekend is quickly over and on Monday morning you are a bit sleepy, but so is everyone else. You quickly learn about your classes, new friends and really start your life overseas. By the end of the day you are exhausted but know that there is still plenty to do.