Just posted this on the ‘5 Day Welsh’ Facebook group:
You can see initial comments from Hilary and Olwen on this page - and they’ve posted fascinating and much more detailed feedback on the forum:
[yes, you’re on that thread now!]
So now, my thoughts on how it went, and what happens next.
First up, and very simply: it worked.
5 days of massive effort took three people from ‘not far off scratch’ through to genuine communication (I’m busy uploading the videos via our painfully slow connection right now).
In fact, they achieved more than I expected - most particularly in terms of their listening skills. We know that the accelerated listening triggers a neurological adaptation - but I thought it would take more than 5 days to kick in - previously, people have told us that it took about two weeks at 5 minutes a day.
Now, it seems that (while I would still expect more consolidation over time) the total time listening is an important part of this - an hour a day for 5 days clearly triggered some genuinely valuable adaptations.
But…
Can we do better?
Yes, I think we can.
All 3 of our pioneers found the extended periods of time when they were ploughing through the lessons very challenging (in different ways). So I think we could provide more support there - team breaks on the hour, maybe some little treat morale boosts, that sort of stuff. It would mean a longer, tougher day for the course leader - or maybe having more than one on the support team - but we want to push the limits, so this is important stuff to get right.
I’ve also been challenged convincingly to reconsider the immersion element of the 5 Day approach.
We know that immersion is vital for our intermediate bootcamps - but for people starting from scratch (or near to scratch) there may be less value to the immersion - as long as the 2 hours of spoken production still happen. I’m always very, very wary of things that seem ‘easier’ - they can have hidden costs - but I think our next run will test what happens without immersion (ie, with English allowed in between activities).
I also think we could do more to pamper our learners - who thoroughly deserve it when they’re making this kind of effort. We’ve already been thinking about head massages, but I think it would also be good to do more catering. Our pioneers all seemed to be eating pretty well, but I think having some catering done would add to the sense of enjoyment - and the more enjoyment we can wrap around the undeniable suffering, the better!
Of course, these sort of additions aren’t cost-free. I’m starting to understand why the best language school I’ve ever visited (Regina Coeli, in the Netherlands: https://www.reginacoeli.com/) costs about £5000 a week. We will always want to make learning Welsh, in particular, as low cost as possible - but we may need to work out some kind of partnership approach for that.
Next steps
We’re looking at two things.
One is a possible date in Portmeirion.
The other is a not-quite-so-expensive next stage test in Caernarfon - towards the end of March.
We haven’t finished costing-out the Portmeirion option - but it’s knocking on for a grand just to stay there, so with the extras we want to add, that one’s going to be moderately eye-watering.
The test in Caernarfon, by contrast, we’ll try to keep to about £600 or £700 - depending a bit on how much it costs to add some of the extras I mentioned above.
If you’d like to hear when we announce specific dates and prices (for people to say if they’re interested or not), you’ve got two options:
1 - Trust Facebook to let you know when I post in this group, or
2 - Stick your name on our email alert list (for 5 Day Super-Intensive dates only) here: https://forms.aweber.com/form/88/754447788.htm
and then the actual contents of the dream eluded me 
). The only time I might enjoy it is if the course was longer than a week, with the weekend off, then a massage on the Friday night would be very welcome.