Spanish Language School
Written April 15, 1999 by Dale Barnard
I recently spent five great weeks attending a Spanish language school in Mexico. I wanted to be able to comfortably speak to the locals in order to find interesting natural features, gain permission to explore their land, arrange safe and innovative camping locations, and to better participate in the Mexican cultures.

In speaking with other people who have some interest in attending language school, the most common question I have heard is, "How did you decide where to go?" Many countries have good schools, and each country offers many choices. I used the Internet to research the possibilities.

A quick Internet search on Yahoo (www.yahoo.com) for "Spanish language schools" revealed the following countries:
· Argentina
· Chile
· Costa Rica
· Ecuador
· Guatemala
· Mexico
· Nicaragua
· Panama
· Peru
· Spain
· Uruguay
· Venezuela

The least expensive schools that I found during my research are in Guatemala. In particular, I have heard from several people that there are great schools in Quetzaltenango, Guatamala, that cost less than $150 per week for all-day private lessons, housing with a local family, three meals daily, and cultural field trips. Many people consider it unsafe to venture out of the cities in Guatamala, but many other people consider such concerns to be overstated. A plane ticket from Texas to Guatamala runs as low as $300 at times.

As economically tempting as it was to go to Guatamala, I decided to attend a school in Mexico. I wanted to increase my knowledge of the country in addition to my Spanish, and it was nice to make friends that I have a chance of seeing again. Once I had chosen Mexico, I had to choose a city.

I researched various Mexico locations using the Internet. A quick search on Yahoo for "Spanish language schools Mexico" revealed these school locations:
· Cancun
· Cuernavaca
· Ensenada
· Guadalajara
· Guanajuato
· Mexico City
· Mérida
· Oaxaca
· Puebla
· San Cristobal de Las Casas
· San Miguel de Allende

I chose to go to Oaxaca because the cost of staying with a family seemed lower than most other places, and several people had told me how nice the city is. I chose the school Amigos del Sol (Friends of the Sun) because it had lower prices than most, seemed informal, and had small class sizes, usually not more than three students per teacher. No one had recommended the school to me; I just chose it based on the web page information and took my chances, knowing that I could change schools if I did not like it.

As it turns out, I got lucky. The school was great, as I expect most are. The teachers were well-educated and spoke sufficient English to predict our difficulties in learning Spanish as a second language. For three hours of classroom time, five days a week, it cost 72 dollars. I paid in pesos, but always the equivalent to 72 dollars at the current exchange rate. Although some schools require a deposit and reservations before your arrival, Amigos del Sol lets you pay during the first week of classes. In fact, they were so informal that I always had to seek out the school’s director just to ask if I could pay. The school was also happy to arrange for my housing with a local family. It helps to call ahead to give them some warning that you are coming, but while I was there, several other students showed up unannounced and the school still managed to find them a place to stay within a few hours.

I stayed with a very nice, middle-class family for between nine and thirteen dollars per day, depending on how many meals each day I ate with them. I had my own room in their house with hot water for showers, kitchen facilities available, a closet, and a desk. They cooked large, diverse, tasty meals, and I never had stomach problems. I usually ate one or two meals per day, which left opportunities to explore local restaurants for other meals. More economical housing options existed. For example, I could have stayed in a "dorm" at the school for only five dollars per day or a hotel for about eight dollars per day. However, since learning Spanish was my main objective, I am glad that I had the additional interaction with the family. I soon started thinking of them as "mi familia de México" (my family of Mexico).

Most people seemed surprised that I had chosen to take buses to and from Oaxaca instead of flying. I love traveling on Mexican buses. They are comfortable, safe, efficient, and less expensive than flying or driving. Instead of feeling like another second-class airline passenger, I got to ride premiere- or executive-class buses.

The trip between Oaxaca and Austin required only three buses, $130, and about 28 hours. I never had more than one hour of layover time, and I conveniently crossed the border on a bus, making it easy to transport all of my luggage. It would have taken three days to drive my own vehicle, and the cost of Mexican auto insurance for such a long trip is prohibitive. Along the way, I saw six movies on the bus monitors, wrote in my journal, rested in the comfortable, reclining seats, and transitioned back slowly to my life as a Texan.

Speaking English again required a whole change in mindset. After five weeks of speaking Spanish, I felt no strong urge to return to English. For about a day after returning, I found myself slipping into Spanish when deciding what to say. When I had first arrived in Oaxaca, just the opposite had been true.

I had begun with the remnants of three semesters of Spanish taken ten years earlier. I was always saying, "¿Mande?" ("Pardon me?") After five weeks of schooling and living with a family, speaking Spanish 99% of the time, I now feel like I am "over the hump" on conversational Spanish. I can carry on long conversations without having to resort to English when I do not know a phrase. I make many mistakes and have to dance around a lot of words that I do not know, but I would estimate that they taught me the equivalent of one or two semesters of college-level Spanish in five weeks.

If I had had more time and money available for language school, I would have stayed for two more weeks. Seven or eight weeks of school would probably be the most that I would enjoy. After that, I would consider finding a tutor for two or three hours a day, mostly because it would cost less than a school. Once the school classes finish teaching the Spanish grammar, they focus on vocabulary, phrases, and drill-and-practice. Any good tutor could help with this, especially if the student provided the learning materials.

Each day, in addition to my classes, I would meet with a Oaxacan student that was studying English. We would spend a half-hour conversing in Spanish and a half-hour in English. Then, with a different student, I would spend a half-hour reading in Spanish and a half-hour in English. These "intercambios" (interchanges) always benefited us and cost nothing.

I had brought a small Spanish/English dictionary with me to Mexico, but it quickly proved inadequate. Thus, I sought a nicer one, perhaps one that had more than 100,000 words in it. A nice bookstore in Oaxaca had about twenty to choose from so I devised a test to determine their usefulness: I looked up words that Mexicans use that some other countries do not. For example, they use the words "checar", which means "to check", and "aprendizaje", which means "new knowledge". Most dictionaries did not have these common Mexican words. I found a great dictionary with these words that even has sentence examples for almost every word. It is called "Richmond Student’s Dictionary" (ISBN 970-642-308-7).

I constantly wished that I had brought a Spanish grammar book with me. The old college textbooks that I have seen in used book stores would have been fine. I could not find a good grammar book in Mexico, so upon my return to Texas, I bought a book that has exercises and answers in the back called "Advanced Spanish Grammar" by Marcial Prado (ISBN 0-471-13448-1). Now I can hardly wait to return to Oaxaca with my grammar book in-hand to find a tutor and spend another month learning Spanish. To save money, I will probably rent an apartment for a month. It sure is more fun and rewarding to learn Spanish in Mexico than in college classes at home.

Of course, we can "get by" in Mexico with only a simple understanding of Spanish, and we can certainly improve our Spanish without attending a school. However, if you feel as anxious as I did to speed up the learning process, and you have the time and money to attend a language school, I encourage you to make the decision to go. My entire trip’s expenses, including transportation, schooling, housing, recreation, and a few gift purchases, came to about $1,100. Take a chance on choosing a school and a location. If you spend too much time worrying about where to go or what school to choose within a location, you might overwhelm yourself with all the possibilities. Instead, plan minimally and have confidence that you can figure it out when you get there. When you get back, let me know how it went. Feel free to contact me with any additional questions or feedback at barnarddale@yahoo.com.

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