I studied Spanish in Spain

Hello, Reader!

Did I mention that I lived in Madrid for three months? Oh, I won’t stop mentioning it? Here’s another post about my time in Spain. Today, I’ll tell you all about my Spanish language course. 

As soon as I got to Madrid, my host was determined to start me on a Spanish course - so about two days after I arrived, I was taken to a public language school to inquire about their Spanish class. Luckily, the class wasn’t filled up yet, so the same morning I sat the language proficiency assessment, which resulted in me being placed in an A2 level class. I paid the cost of the course, which came to just over £200 and I was set to start the next day. Since my Spanish wasn’t good enough to do all of this independently, I sat there like a child while my host took care of it and I just handed over the money. 

The course itself was very intensive. We had lessons four times a week, an hour and a half every morning from Monday to Thursday. Inside the classroom, we were only ‘allowed’ to speak in Spanish even if we were having private conversations - this wasn’t difficult with most classmates because we were all fluent in different languages. The one language that we all had in common was Spanish so that’s what we used most of the time, even if it was broken and messy. My classmates were from all over the world and all had different reasons for being in Spain - some temporarily, like me and some migrating there with their families, to settle down permanently. It was interesting to meet people from all different countries and of different ages and backgrounds because we all ultimately became friends. The learning in the class was largely based on practising conversations which were prompted by the textbook. We were set written grammar exercises for homework most days, but in class, it was usually group activities. Throughout the course, we learned three past tenses, two future tenses and two present tenses plus conditional tense. We also learned about the courtesy, history and cuisine of Spain and how these differ all over the country. It was genuinely very well rounded and I came out of that course being able to hold up a conversation about so many topics which I made sure to practice with my Spanish host.

The end of course exam consisted of four sections; listening, reading, writing and speaking. Want to know how much my Spanish improved? I got 98/100 marks on that exam. I dropped one mark on writing and one on listening. Reading the class group chat, it even seemed that I earned the highest score, which I genuinely couldn’t believe. 

My overall experience was so, so positive. I mentioned this in my ‘Lessons from Madrid’ post, but this class really kept me afloat during my time there. I felt so comfortable and positive there and I learned so much. I would definitely do it again on the next proficiency level. But alas, it was time to return to London. 

Definitivamente lo recomiendo aprender español en una escuela española.

Love,

Agnes xo