Language Immersion School/Advice
 

Hola!

Well in March of next year I want to go to Madrid, Spain after I have completed all levels of Platiquemos, I'm self teaching Spanish with a great program based on what the Foreign Service Institute uses.

I came across a website called "Don Quijote" which is a Spanish Teaching/Immersion Program that has schools all over Latin America and Spain. So I thought, well why not do this for my vacation next year!! Some of the schools have Student Flats/Dorms and some only do Host Familes where you live with a native family while you are there.

Right now I'm only looking at a one week stay. Once I think on this some more maybe 2 weeks. But my question is has anyone on this forum gone to an Immersion Camp but lived with a Host Family? Some say its the best way to learn your target language. But I have reservations about living with another family I never met and I have never been so far away from home for such for a long period since I can remember. Any advice you all can give right now would be a great help.
Another problem is that I have no clue where I want to go!! I can pick from Spain, Argentina, Peru, Colombia, Mexico, Bolivia, Cuba(well I'm American so that's out), and Antigua. So many choices of great places and also this would be my first International trip.

If you have been to some sort of Language Immersion camp how was your experience and with the Host Families if you went that route? I will be somewhat fluent in Spainish by the time I make this personal journey of mine. But I think only doing Immersion I can gain native fluency with the first of three languages I want to learn.

A couple of us FTers are looking at exactly such a set up in Buenos Aires, Argentina...living with a host family while crashing thru Spanish lessons for 4 hours a day at the school.

I have done a language program that was four weeks long while living in France. This was after a couple of years of colleage French. After that I went to work. It was a school and classes were 6 hours a day. I did not live with a family but in small family run hotel. The family was very good about helping out with my language skills. I would not have any hesitations about living with a host family.

From the way it sounds doing this will be your first trip out of USA for an extended period of time. If this is true I would suggest just going on vacation to Spain and enjoy yourself. Especially if all you have is a week or two. This will allow you to get into the culture and still use your language skills. A really good place to pick up a conversation is in a park or local markets. Now if you have more time then I would think about a week in an immesion program.

the best school I know of is MIIS, which is actually even better than DLI, because it can be one-on-one, $85 an hour for that. i'm probably going to spend a few months there in a year or two.

it's the only school I know of that can be like Berlitz, except you can get college credit, and focus on whatever you want to focus on, while Berlitz is primarily focused on listening and speaking.

I spend three different summers in Costa Rica learning Spanish when i was in high school at an immersion institute just outside of San Jose. I also lived with a different host family each year and really enjoyed living with them as I was forced to practice my Spanish outside of the classroom since they spoke minimal English, I didn't have to cook, and it was a great experience and exposure to another culture.

I also lived for Madrid for a semster and lived with a host family there. Again I had a great time, it forced me to practice my Spanish daily, I didn't have to cook (Notice a theme here? :D ) and enjoyed it.

youngOrdboi you and I are about the same age and employers/grad schools etc love hearing about things like home stays because it really does help to improve your world view and understanding. Plus homestays make for great stories and cocktail party chatter. ^

On the other side, we just had a 22 year old from Spain staying with us for a month while he went to 4 classes a day in London.

He was the cousin of some family friends and needed to do a crash course in English before he began his PHD.

My husband ended up referring to him with a phrase his Japanese grandmother sometimes uses - "goldfish poo". Because he just trailed around or sat there doing nothing useful.

Practically any conversation we tried to start with him was cut off quickly with a terse "Yes. I know."

Oh, it was SUCH hard work. His English wasn't bad, but he was impossible to engage with - I saw no sign of it improving. In the evenings he just spent his time in front of the computer reading the Spanish Press.

All I'm saying here is don't expect to magically pick up a language through some kind of osmosis. Make an effort, formulate some questions, even if they're stupid ones. Be a dork if necessary (don't expect to wow everybody with your fabulous personality if you can only string a few sentences together... it can get a bit lonely, and the experience can be tough - which is why so many language students revert to their own language and hang out with other students who speak it). It is worth the effort.

Best of luck! (lo necesitaras)


I was educated in England, but went to University in Spain, did my degree in Spanish with Spaniards, and lived with my Grandmother - it was very difficult - probably the ultimate immersion course, but I was determined to re-establish my Spanish identity. I also learnt to cook everything I could, from as many of my family and friends' parents as possible ;) . A good way to learn some very useful vocabulary.

Thanks for the replies. One of my co-workers is Cuban but she knows little Spanish. She is going to Mexico for a two week Immersion in Spanish and staying with a host family. So I will be asking her lots of questions.

I'm an introverted person. Kinda shy and it takes me a while a warm up once I'm outside my comfort zone thats why I sort of have reservations about a host family. Well right now I'm still debatting it and I have untill January to make a final decision. I hear the ones who live in the student flats or dorms do end up talking to each other in english if they all know it. But as long as everyone studies and try to talkto each other in Spanish they can learn it very well. I should be decent in Spainish by the time I do this Immersion but only Immersion in the Spanish culture will give me fluency I think.
www.donquijote.org thats the site if anyone wants to see it and check it out. I'm leaning toward Madrid but also Mexico and Buenos Aires. A hard decision.

My wife is looking for a Spanish Immersion school to attend soon. Several were mentioned in this thread, but the only link seems to be to www.donquijote.org. Can anyone who has been to any other Spanish Immersion schools provide a link or contact information and let us know if you'd recommend it? She's looking for a 2 - 3 week school, and I've got enough frequent flier miles to get her anywhere. Thanks.

Well..
 

I'm torn.

If you haven't been abroad for a period longer than a week, then I agree that perhaps just a vacation might work just as well as a week-long course.

BUT.... if you do go on some sort of program, I recommend a homestay. It can be tough, but you will come away with so much more than if you passed on the homestay option.

I spent a year studying in Japan, and I can honestly say that while it wasn't all smooth sailing, I learned more from the family I stayed with than I did from the classes. A homestay family will offer you an 'in' to the culture that is hard to find any other way. But this is probably more true of a longer stay than a shorter one.

-Kush

Do it in Colombia. You won't regret it. Beautiful country and very clear Spanish is spoken there.

I related my family's most recent experience a few posts ago - but we've hosted many people over the years - most of them with some link to our friends and family in Spain.

Some people have come for a few weeks, others for a month or two, and we've also had people stay with us for much longer periods (I come from a very hospitable family :) )

Basically, I've seen it all. People integrated themselves into our family to different degrees, only the odd few - not too many thankfully - treated our house as a pad to crash out in.

But there's a common thread linking the majority of these English students. With few exceptions, arriving in England would be something of a shock. Although they had invariably studied English at school for years, and some were technically very proficient, all of them found it very difficult to understand everyday speech. They were usually familiar with the words, but couldn't decipher them when pronounced by an English person.

When commenting on their experiences, almost universally they'd say that for the first month they didn't really 'learn' anything - but they did go through an important process during this time of learning how to use and understand the English they had already learnt. Only after a month of full immersion did they start to actually make progress by picking up and learning new words, phrases and grammar.


Learning Spanish puts you in a more advantageous position. The words are more phonetic and you'll find it easier to make sense of them and pick them out from the language you hear around you - but to begin with you'll be under the impression that people are speaking unbelievably quickly.
If you've already studied the language before your immersion course don't be too hard on yourself if you don't think you've made much progress in the first couple of weeks. Learning to be confident in using and understanding what you already have is a vitally important process - and something you can only do in a Spanish speaking country.

I go every year or so to a German school in the lovely city of Bamberg (www.learn-german.com -- highly recommend it)

I don't stay with a family (I'm a little old for that and set in my ways :) ) but the younger (e.g 30 and under) students in my classes all recommend it -- of course it depends on the family. It can cut down on your night life, though, if that is a consideration.

Myself, I recommend two weeks -- I find it takes a bit to get into the swing of things -- both jet lag wise and language wise. I once did three weeks and the last week was a waste for me -- too burned out. Of course, I'm doing this for fun so I don't want to work too hard :)

If it's not too bold, may I ask how you "found your family"? I plan a move to Japan in about one year, and had always planned to live with a friend's non-English speaking family, in Saitama. That's no longer possible, so I'm window shopping for a new plan. Probably I would also be attending a Shibuya language school. In another forum, folks have suggested sleeping with dictionary...but I'm not sure that would give me broad enough experience.

I'm taking the plunge. After hearing airoli's good reviews of Latin Immersion in Buenos Aires, I'm in for a month this summer. I'm shooting for living with a host family, I'll likely throw in a few extra 1:1 lessons, I'll likely throw in some tango lessons, and I'll be popping the Spanish lesson CD's in my car until then. We'll see how this goes....

That's the spirit! ¡Así me gusta!