Find Yourself the Right Spanish School
Posted on July 31, 2009
Filed Under Learn Spanish CD, Learn Spanish Online | Leave a Comment
When you decide to learn a language like Spanish, the numer one most important consideration is the school you will go to. Don’t gloss this over and just go to the nearest one! Check out every school’s methods and materials before you take out your credit card. Spending a bit of time beforehand sorting these things out can mean the difference between you learning Spanish to a level of fluency in 3 months instead of 3 years. So do your homework!
I am writing mainly about Spanish schools in the UK, but it is the same in the US, or wherever you are. (But if you are UK-based go and read this more indepth article on Spanish schools in the UK: How to Study Spanish in Britain)
For the rest of us, lets focus first on the Spanish school where you’ll be going to classes. Perhaps surprisingly, a lot of Spanish schools don’t have a great learning environment or system in place. And you can ensure you don’t go to one of them with a bit of research.
The majoriy of classes will inevitably slow down to meet the pace of the slowest student. The reason this will always occur is because teachers must share their attention evenly amonsgt the students in their class. But this problem happens in the first place when schools do not properly divide their classes so each class has students at a very close level together, and also because they are not strict on students being lazy or dropping behind.
Secondly, many schools are just happy for the students to turn up and pay for class. The teachers don’t challenge the students and encourage a fast learning pace. And the third point, many Spanish schools won’t give the students a clear idea of what is expected of them over the period they are studying, and how fast they should progress. Which is so very important for learning anything.
These few hints will help you to avoid the worst schools. Just quickly before that, you could always opt for a good quality home-study Spanish course to avoid all these problems. I have written a review of the most popular and successful of these courses, which you can read here: Rocket Spanish Review
Now, back to those tips. When you are trying to choose a school, call them up and check there four things:
1. Are their classes split into many different levels of laguage learners? At least ten is optimal. Most schools only have advanced, upper-intermediate, intermediate, pre-intermediate and beginner – this would be too few classes to properly divide the students into. You would definitely have many students of different levels in these classes.
2. Check how they deal with students who are unmotivated – who skip lessons and don’t mind about dropping behind. these students have a big effect on the rest of the class. The best schools remove them from the class.
3. Does the school and do the teachers value pushing the class at a fast pace of learning?
4. What are the course books? The materials used are actually more important than the teacher – find out what you’ll be using and do some research – check them out and see if they look good to you, you can also find reviews for previous student’s opinions.
If you are not entirely happy with the answers to your questions, don’t go to that school.
If you’re interested in studying Spanish in London, read this article: Learn Spanish in London
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