Looking for a Spanish school in Spain?
08:05, 27 June 2009
.. Posted in Personal.. Link
It's the weekend! Time for a personal blawg:
Back in 2002, I went to Ávila, Spain to study Spanish (or Castellano) at the Instituto Español Murallas de Avila. I had been looking for a school that would be focused on its students learning Spanish quickly, not on its students partying and hooking up. IEMA had been recommended to me by my Spanish teacher in Germany, who is from a small village near the school, and after meeting a couple of students -- colleagues from the UN -- who had gone to IEMA and loved it, I booked a place for two weeks. I came back and jumped up to the next level of language class at work, then went back two years later and jumped another level!
I highly recommend IEMA: the daily classes, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., are tiny (you will have one to four other students), very intense and a lot of fun. I recommend taking a private lesson with an instructor as well twice a week. If you are a beginner then, in just one week, you will be speaking Spanish. No kidding! If you speak some Spanish already, you will see your skills jump immediately. IEMA is excellent for preparing for the DELE (Diplomas of Spanish as a Foreign Language). They also have a special class for Spanish language teachers.
The best time to start is the first Monday of the month. I only went for two weeks, but many students go for three and four. I went to Ávila for the first time in August, and it was a great time to go -- most of the village is off on vacation (and that makes it quiet at night so you can, you know, SLEEP), and it's still very cool, temperature-wise, because you are in the mountains. And it's much better to study Spanish in Ávila than, say, Madrid or Salamanca, because in Ávila, there's NO English speakers, other than maybe your fellow students. My fellow students were from Germany, France and the USA.
I lived with a family in Avila during my stay, and it was wonderful (puppy!) -- it meant I was always learning Spanish. There was a lot to see in Ávila, and it was relatively easy to get to Madrid or Salamanca for the weekend.
Downsides? If you are over 30, then you will probably be the oldest student, and I think that can some time be intimidating (but the instructors don't care about your age and won't treat you any differently). Take earplugs because, while you may need to get to sleep before midnight in order to make it to class in the morning, the citizens of Avila stay up late late late. That's it, really.
I don't get anything for promoting IEMA -- no discount on a future class, no kickback, no nothing. I'm not sure anyone would even remember me there. I just want to recommend a really great Spanish school!
Also, I'm looking for a similar school in Mexico or Central America -- particularly one focused on preparing for the DELE and is a member of Instituto Cervantes. If you had a similar experience with a school in this hemisphere, let me know.
