Language Courses

Hi, does anyone have any experience with any language schools? Any recommedations? I want to learn some Spanish in either Madrid or Barcelona from scratch.

Reply 1

Butterfly

I do actually...I'm tired so I can't be bothered to give any info at the moment but will asap x

Reply 2

Butterfly

Okay sorry!

Well...last summer I spent 4 weeks at a language school in Berlin. I went through a company called CIEE, which I found out about on the internet.

Anyway...it was the best experience of my life (so far!) I had done German for 6 years (up to AS Level at that point) so was already able to speak it quite well. From my experience, learning as a beginner would be a lot harder. This is for two reasons: 1: The lessons are carried out ALL in the target language. This wasn't a problem for me, as I was able to speak some German, but I did wonder how that functioned for beginners' lessons. The reason they can't do it bilingually in target language & English is because their students come from all over the world, and so not all (although obviously many) can speak English. 2: You will make a lot of friends there who are also studying the language, and the target language will be the only common language you have with some of them. Well, many people do speak English, especially in Europe, but I did become close friends with some people through my language school e.g. a Hungarian girl, who do not.

The lessons are (at most language schools I believe) conducted by native speakers, which is much better for the student. Class sizes are small, and during my lessons, emphasis was on oral work, with some minimal homework (which I never did because the social life was fantastic!) We had a textbook and worked through that, although it wasn’t like the sort of textbook you have in school. It was more like a cross between a textbook and a workbook. We didn’t follow it religiously though. We also watched films, which may not be possible for beginners but is a good way of learning.

However, the best part of my stay was just the experience in general. There are some downsides to language schools if you are hoping to make real progress with the language…For one thing, the friends you make will almost all be from the language school, and so none will be native speakers. Although this is great for getting to know different cultures, these people will all have varying abilities with the target language and so may not always be a good influence on you! Of course, I had a lot of interaction with native speakers because I was there for a month, e.g. going shopping, to restaurants, the hairdressers’ etc. meant I was using my language a lot. You’d be surprised how much you learn from just listening to conversations on the bus, reading billboards etc. Anyway, secondly, as I mentioned before, the social life is really good, which can be a big distraction from your primary reason for being there! There were some people who only turned up to like half the lessons, because they were held in the mornings and they had hangovers! I only did this on a few occasions because it would be a huge waste of money otherwise.

The language school will organise trips/activities (optional) for the afternoons. Although some may look appealing, I found many seemed quite boring and often already had plans to go out with my newly found friends! Don’t feel obliged to go! You will probably find that people go out every night, because there is nothing else to do otherwise (stay in your room?) and so you will spend a lot of money…but it was worth it in my case! It was just amazing!

How long were you thinking of going for? I really don’t know if going for less than a month would be worth it, especially as you’re a beginner. It just doesn’t give you enough time to learn things to make your trip worthy of its cost.

I definitely recommend the experience but make sure to do your research about the language school itself, the area it’s situated in (e.g. how far from the city centre etc) and of course costs. Some are a lot more expensive than others, from what I can remember when I was booking. One piece of advice I would give you would be to organise your own accommodation separately. Most language schools offer an ‘all in’ package, which includes tuition at the school, insurance and accommodation (as far as I know). It’s cheaper to find your own accommodation, and you know what you’re getting that way too. Some people at my school had to share rooms, and were placed in a family, which is a bit boring compared to being placed in a flatshare with other students of similar age. If you’re going in the summer, I’d say definitely look around on the internet for short let rooms in flatshares etc.

Hope this helps! If I think of anything to add I will do so…x