Has anyone attended a language school recently which you would recommend? We are young seniors, one with conversant language skills and one with almost none. We are looking to stay in one place for a week and challenge ourselves with the lessons in the mornings and enjoy the city and environs in the afternoons. We will have a car. Thank you.
Posted by
Windsor, Ontario, Canada
4088 posts
I can recommend a different language experience in Spain. Vaughan Systems, a very large English-as-a-second-language company based in Madrid, solicits English-speaking volunteers for its immersion programs. I've gone twice. Their clients and the "Anglos" spend six days/five nights in a luxury hotel speaking nothing but English. No pay, but three meals (with wine) daily in an up-market hotel, usually some distance out in the country by bus from Madrid. This is not teaching, but rather conversation that allows the students, usually at an advanced stage and often middle-aged, to practice what they have learned. Part of the fun is meeting volunteers from the many parts of the world where English is spoken: The UK and North America, of course, but also Australia, South Asia, Ireland and so one. The range of accents is a challenge to the students that they never face reading a printed page. Vaughan makes clear that the Anglos are not there to speak Spanish. http://grupovaughan.com/volunteers-in-spain
Posted by
Washington DC
28082 posts
I know an American who participated, along with her mother, in that English-conversation program, and she highly recommended it.
Sorry that I can't help with a Spanish-language school. I'm going to be looking for one myself but haven't begun the search. Google will turn up lots of options as a starting point. Usually there's a fair bit of detail online concerning cost, length of class, etc. You can then email with specific questions. I stumbled upon the small school I attended for two weeks last year in Orvieto. The little advertisement for it on the free map from the tourist office caught my eye.
There was just one negative: The book we used, which I of course wanted to bring home with me, was printed on high-quality paper and was extremely heavy. It felt like it weighed 5 lb., though I'm sure it did not. But it was a royal pain to carry it around for the rest of my very, very long trip.