Immersive classroom training: worth it?

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My experiences attending two different Spanish schools, one in Quito, Ecuador, and the other Don Quijote in Salamanca, Spain.

Both schools were immersive = only Spanish spoken. If you ask what a word means, they will only tell you in Spanish by using definitions, synonyms, and examples. When you reach B1 level, they basically speak at a normal speed, but they enunciate clearly and they usually know when a word is introduced that you’re unlikely to know.

Both schools use study and exercise books. They aren’t cheap. €45 for each level at Don Quijote. (They photocopy any exercises they want from the exercise book, so you don’t need to buy it.) The classes are def. not cheap. ~€200/day for two classes @ 2hrs each. The first class would work on ch01 and the 2nd on ch02 for example. 5-days a week and no discount for no-class holidays. :-/

Unless you have plenty of money and need to be “forced” into listening and speaking, you’re better off buying the electronic materials and working at home on your own.

The books are located here (create an acct. before buying):

The books are modern (pub 2015) and include blog & chat posts etc.

The electronic B1 level Professor book €21 includes transcripts, all audios, and the answers to the questions in the Alumno book AND it also includes the B1 Alumno book. Both books have 3-years before expiration. The extra exercises book is €11 and includes the transcripts and the solutions at the back of the book but it only has a 1-year expiration.

The audios in the courses are very challenging as they are at the speed of ordinary people and have accents from around the Spanish speaking world. And the book go through every grammar point with spaced repetition as you advance up the levels. The reason for all of this is that the books are designed to get you through a DELE certification that is required to enter a college in Spain or to include in your CV.

Between a strong LLM and the answers in the Prof book, you really don’t need a teacher.

Let me know if you have any questions.

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In the past I attended classes with the Alliance Française and l’Institut Français in England. From memory they were not expensive. I would say that they are worth it if you live nearby and you want a more social learning environment. Some people like going to classes and meeting people. But to be fair you have to do lots of work outside class if you want to make real progress.

I would not travel to the target country, my experience is that you do not benefit from that until you are a good B2, and costs associated with travel, lodging and food are high. And once you are B2, I’m not sure you need classes

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I agree completely. In fact, the class is going to continue on, whether you understand a concept or not - so yes, much work needs to be done outside of class in order to be effective. We covered some periphrasis today in a quiz and in one section, nobody got them right. Even so, we’re not going to take more class time to review that section again.

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I attended language schools in Germany mainly to brush up on my grammar after doing immersion on my own at home. One big advantage of learning through immersion first was that my listening skills were already good enough to understand native German teachers when I started taking classes.

That said, there was one downside. The classes mostly focused on grammar and exercises—four hours a day, five days a week—which could get pretty monotonous. Honestly, this teaching style didn’t seem to have much of an effect on most students’ overall proficiency.

Overall, if you want to study grammar in a structured way and can handle immersion on your own, these classes aren’t a bad option. For one, the teachers are native speakers, so you’re still getting listening input. Also, they help fill in gaps in your grammar.

After taking these classes, German sentences no longer felt strange or intimidating to read, and I quickly stopped relying on bilingual dictionaries/texts as a crutch. Now I’m able to read German directly.

That said, if you’re disciplined enough to study grammar on your own, I honestly think these classes are a waste of money. Otherwise, I don’t really see a good reason to pay such expensive fees. Each intensive course level lasted about three months and cost me around 500 euros.

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