Gap Year

During the fortnight that I was there, I was speaking Spanish the moment I walked into the school, which had a positive effect on my confidence as I was able to overcome any fear I had of speaking Spanish. I had a great opportunity to meet new people from all over the world which was exciting as we are able to talk about our experiences and get to know each other in lessons and in our free time. In class we studied grammar, and had done plenty of exercises at the right level of Spanish to keep improving and learning more during the time that I was there. The teachers that we had always encouraged us to speak and helped us to express ourselves and made it easy to ask for help if there were any concerns/ hadn’t understood something.

I enrolled myself Nicola and my daughters Emma (15) and Amy (13) into what I thought was a beginners Spanish class. As we had left enrollment to the last minute we enrolled on the morning so we were 30 minutes late to the class....at which point I thought we were in the wrong class (a more advanced class)...however was reassured later by other classmates that it was a beginners course. Some of the other students already spoke some Spanish so we felt out of our league when they understood the teachers talking Spanish.

We enjoyed the morning class (9-10.50am) with Natalia who structured the lesson using the whiteboard to explain things and gave us work sheets. Natalia was very good at explaining things and made an effort to make sure everyone in the class understood. The lesson was fun, and we felt that we learnt a lot.

The late morning class (11.10-1pm) with Tomas was a real challenge and not very enjoyable. (I am not a quitter but I struggled to keep going to the classes). We mostly worked through the book and he would assign exercises but most of the time I didn't know what the question was asking so by the time I google translated the question others had finished answering it. When I did ask for his help he told us he wasn't there to translate but to teach, which is all very well but I learnt more in Natalia's class from her teaching style.

The location of the course was great. The facilities were great, spacious classroom. I didn't do any of the activities due to family staying however there were some great opportunities.

Overall the course was a challenge and harder than I expected however my Spanish has improved. My daughters found the course overwhelming and I would suggest that the age limit of the course should be higher....maybe even 16 or 17 years old.

It was a great experience for me. I felt like I have an other live - for one week.
The school location was very central, the teachers very competent and nice. I did not participate in school activities but I went to the cinema und to a flamenco show with a classmate.

The housing was also very nice. I hat a host mother who could also be my real mother and 2 "host brothers".
I felt very good.

Nice school at a good central location. Good, entertaining teachers.
Homework is given in a classical way, not in modern digital methods.

I took three weeks worth of classes at Enforex in Seville where I lived with a host family about a 10 minute walk away. Everything was top-notch. Teachers were great and very entertaining. Periodically, they adapted their lessons to specific subjects that we, the students, had special interest in. I met great people, visited great restaurants, bars and learned to navigate Seville's labrynth of narrow streets. My brother and I had enough free time to travel to surrounding cities (and Portugal) over the weekends and still be able to take advantage of what the city of Sevilla had to offer. It was a time that i will never forget! Thanks for the opportunity Enforex!

Housing: it was an interesting flat with a lot of antiquities... a nice landlord... the room was ok, but I needed a lamp at the bed and a small desk where I could have made my homework

The initial test was as those things are I suppose. 2 years I was in Salamance, and it was done in the same way there.
But the class which was formed afterwards, was not homogeneous. We came from all parts of the world, and had all kinds of intonations and pronunciations. At a time we were 9 people, all very different. I really think we should have been split up in two classes!!

The teachers: 1 teacher did what she could. She tried to vary the teaching and was spontaneous and very nice. The other teacher was always the same, no variation, used the pc only to play classical music while we were filling in the exercises!

I think the main problem is that the Enforex department in Sevilla in October has too few students and thus few teachers. My friend was put in the advanced class and I was put in the nivel A2 Elemental. Neither of us felt very comfortable. For him it was too difficult and advanced and for me it was too much the same as 2 years ago.