I have loved Spanish for as long as I can remember, even majored in it in college. When I signed up for group classes with CR languages, I was excited to refresh my skills and get some much-needed practice since it'd been about 10 years since I used Spanish.
I signed up for the evaluation and was placed in Spanish Level 4. I paid $570 for the evaluation + class then another $48 for the "textbooks" as they called it.
I attended three sessions before dropping out. CR Languages was a huge disappointment. The curriculum is scattered and difficult to follow. I felt like the class was pushed along, and nobody was really learning anything. The "textbooks" as they called it were a folder with pages in it and a tiny pamphlet book - they clearly made a huge profit off both.
Classes last two hours, and I swear it felt like the longest two hours of my life. I have always enjoyed Spanish, and in this class I couldn't wait for the two hours to be over. The energy overall in classes is very low, and conversation is forced. It feels like everyone is uncomfortable.
The curriculum is what I had the biggest issue with. We never really knew what we were studying or what we were supposed to be learning. We just keep breezing through topics. You'd think when students consistently have no idea what the answer is, that it'd be an indication to the teacher that maybe it's time to teach and not just fill-in-the-blanks. Classes felt scattered and disorganized. After two hours, my brain felt like mush and it never felt like I'd learned anything concrete. To be honest, it felt like my Spanish was getting worse!
It was super frustrating when students would make mistakes (either in their grammar, vocabulary or pronunciation) and the teacher said nothing. How are they supposed to get better, and how are students supposed to learn from each other if mistakes are never identified?? Now I see why students who'd taken levels 1-3 at CR Languages had a very poor understanding of Spanish. I would be terribly disappointed if I'd invested all that time and money to be at a level of such confusion.
What really upset me, though, and the reason I'm leaving this review, is how the teacher and owner, Julieta, handled me telling her I'd be dropping out of class. I stepped outside the classroom with her and voiced my concerns over the curriculum, homework and overall class - constructive criticism so she could understand where I'm coming from and hopefully improve future classes. After I got done explaining how I felt, she just said, "Okay." I then told her I'd be dropping out and asked for a partial refund. (One month down, three to go, I thought asking for a refund due to her curriculum and my frustrations with the class was a fair request.) Her response? "No." She crossed her arms and glared at me. I went back into the classroom and grabbed my stuff...she stood at the door, arms still crossed, waiting for me to leave. She was incredibly unprofessional and cold.
As a business owner myself, when clients give me constructive feedback I acknowledge it and thank them for that feedback, because it helps my businesses grow and helps me improve the way we do things.
Apparently CR Languages is not open to suggestions.
I couldn't be more disappointed, and I would NEVER recommend this company to anyone looking to learn Spanish in a fun, supportive and enjoyable atmosphere. Maybe the other classes are different - maybe each teacher makes her own curriculum, I don't know - but Spanish 4 was terrible, and I'm fairly certain Julieta teaches all of the Spanish there.
So basically I paid over $600 for 3 class sessions...and drove 1.5 hours for each class...only to come home frustrated each week. I got NOTHING out of it. read more