I took a week of group lessons here, was given a "placement test" that I don't really think tests…read moreanything. Really basic questions and then for each tense, they ask you how much you know it (without actually testing it). I told them I'd like to focus on conversation, don't want to do workbook exercises as I've done the last grammar topic (subjunctive) in three books already and don't need more. I'm grateful they at least listened to the no workbook part.
The classes were half "conversation / grammar" and half reading. I put the first part in quotes because I was paired with a couple who caused our class to talk about: how high various cities are, "how do you say xyz in Spanish", conversions between metric and imperial systems - aka useless things you can just look up on the internet. This isn't conversation, it was entirely useless and an utter waste of time. If students are going to do that, the teacher needs to take control of the class to steer it into conversation and stop that. The conversation part was also extremely unstructured where the teacher didn't prepare anything except for one day, we did question cards.
When I finally asked if we could have actual conversation and not talk about facts that you can look up on the internet, the teacher told me this is conversation, although he did actually switch to real conversation shortly after. Too bad this only happened on the last day.
For reading, I essentially ended up translating it on google translate and sort of reading the Spanish next to it - the reading was too difficult for me with too many words I don't know and I had no idea what was going on. After two days of this, I decided I can't keep doing this, as it's extremely useless and I can pick books at my level to read at home. Generally speaking, we don't need to spend 1 hr 15 mins to read. I spoke up about it and when the director talked to me about it, she repeatedly said I should be open-minded and try it. I did try it for two days. It's absolutely useless, and I had to explain why to her 2-3 times before she stopped telling me to be open-minded. Maybe I'm not the one who needs to be open-minded. In the end, I chose to stay for half the class (the "conversation / grammar" section), got a refund for the rest.
The activities were also not really informative, they were all run by Flor, the director. We had a convo about day of the dead that really just turned into a lecture about how we need to be careful safety-wise when visiting cemeteries and not to be rude tourists. When we took a walk at Jalatco, she didn't explain anything - I could've gone on my own and it would've been the same experience. She and her brother (Miguel) invited us to go to the cemetery with them, and Miguel was way, way, way more talkative and informative than Flor; he should do the tours. We also had a hot chocolate and mole tasting which were nice.
Flor also asked me on the last day if I'm from Vietnam or China or Japan. I usually attribute this question to ignorance, but if you're running an English language school, surely you've met Asian-looking people not from Asia. I don't really believe this is ignorance because I'm assuming you know (I could be wrong, maybe you don't know) - and I view it as a microaggression. How can you ask that as the director of a Spanish school who accepts students from all over the world?
In any case, I wouldn't recommend this school. Classes aren't structured and teachers don't correct your Spanish (heard both of these feedback from other students too), not appreciative about the assumption of where I'm from based on how I look, activities weren't informative. Honestly, it was a waste of my time. My Spanish didn't progress at all during this week.
