I have always wanted to know another language. When I travel, I want to ask people about their lives, their jobs, their families. I’d like to be able to have a better conversation than “Need. Beer. Please”. While I took many years of French in high school and college, it keeps seeming that the language I need to use the most is Spanish. So, for the last few years I’ve been learning Spanish—mostly on my own, mostly using workbooks.
(Quick shout out for these workbooks, I can’t believe how much I have learned at home in my living room from them! Warren Hardy Spanish Workbooks I’m not affiliated in any way I just really like them.)
However, all the workbooks in the world can’t fix that when I speak to someone and they give me an answer I don’t anticipate, I stare at them with a deer in the headlights look. It was time to spend some time in a Spanish speaking environment learning. A group of us girls went to Guanajuato Mexico—and they brought their kids also.
The weather in July was amazing—75 or 80 degrees every day. I wore a sweater one or two mornings, but otherwise I just wore a short sleeved dress/skirt.
We all signed up for classes at Escuela Falcon. Many of us were at different levels, and we all wanted something different from classes. So, we just ensured that our schedules ended at the same time each day so we could do social things afterwards.
I’m an A2 student (I can conjugate to say “I eat tacos, I used to eat fish, but yesterday I ate steak.”) I took 3 classes per day—9am to 1:30 (they take a small break between 12-12:30) and studied topics like Listening Comprehension, Conversation, Grammar and Mexican Culture. You don’t need to know your level—you will be given an entrance test to take before you head down. They’ll do their best to match you up to the right level. At the end of your first day of classes you can let them know if there are any that aren’t a correct fit and they’ll do their best to make them right. You also get to pick new classes each week—so you can keep on with what you have or change completely.
I was only at the school for just over a week, but was amazed at how many people came down for months at a time. One thing I think contributes to this was how incredibly flexible the school was with scheduling. My friend realized that this trip was a great time to spend some one-on-one time with her kids that she missed back in the US. She would take each one out of classes for a few hours one day a week and they would go to a museum together, or breakfast out. She just let the school know a day or two in advance and they didn’t charge her for those sessions. Another classmate of mine was down for 3 months of classes—he took 3 weeks on, 1 week off. The Type-A American in me really appreciated the Mexican flexibility that came with the school!
Listening Comprehension: We were played a bit of audio and either had to transcribe it exactly, or answer questions about what we heard (depending on the class and the teacher). They usually played it 2-3 times to allow us to get it. (My classes were 3 or 4 students)
Conversation: An interactive conversation facilitated by the teacher, from topics picked out of a hat. Any words that were new to someone were written onto the board, so you could improve your vocabulary. (My classes were 3-5 students)
Mexican Culture: In this class, we learned about Mexican government, politics, and history. The teacher was amazing, and I impressed myself with how much I could understand! However, I realized that I’d be better served working on verb conjugations, so I didn’t take this class the second week. (My class was 2 students)
Grammar: What I think of as a traditional foreign language course from my youth—conjugations and practice. This class was a bit horrifying for me because it was just me and the teacher and I spent an hour being drilled for conjugations and conversation! However, it’s the one I know that if I had been able to take it longer would have made my Spanish so much better. (My class was just me!)
The teachers were incredibly nice. The girls in our group who had never studied Spanish loved their time also—one took a cooking class and said she was impressed that she understood the whole thing even though she didn’t speak any Spanish. The kids all loved it—they took various classes from cooking to cultural activities (going to the market to buy fruit, going to museums, etc) and vocabulary classes that somehow always involved them leaving with glittery art projects.
The school provided lots of after-class optional activities, but also going to classes for only half days left lots of time for exploring on our own.
Before I went down there, I was excited but apprehensive about going to classes. After I was there, I was sad that I wasn’t there longer.