One of our Spanish schools in Spain is located right in the heart of the lovely seaside town of Nerja, Spain.
With its own accommodation at a 3-star hotel within walking distance to the school, it’s a great spot to take a Spanish language holiday.
Although this school specialises in Spanish language lessons, you can also take a stab at improving your tennis, salsa, flamenco, or even photography by combining your Spanish holiday with your favourite activities.
If you’d prefer to just focus on your Spanish learning, you can still join one of the many cultural excursions and delve into the culture with your newfound friends.
To give you a better idea of what happens inside the classroom, some of the teachers from Nerja have answered your most frequently asked questions:
What do students do during a typical class?
A typical class is mainly spent speaking and listening. We use the content guidelines suggested by the European Framework for Second Languages, which encourages plenty of time doing hands-on learning.
What techniques seem to help students learn the most?
Pair work tends to be a great way to break down what we’re learning overall and focus on simply chatting with a partner.
We also find that assigning a ‘daily task’ encourages students to prepare for class. They know the task in advance at the beginning of each lesson. The task acts as a goal for the day, so students plan to learn and complete the daily task by the end of the session. This gives them a goal to work toward as well as an idea of where their focus should be.
How would you recommend preparing for a language course?
To be honest, there is no need to prepare in advance. Everything you need to learn can be learnt once you arrive, though we would recommend being highly motivated and ready to learn.
How much can students expect to learn in a week?
Regardless the course you are on, we see students make a lot of progress – not only in the new content they pick up, but also in practising and putting the content to use in the real world.
According to some of our students who compared their language classes in their home country to ours, they claim that “what you learn in one month at home is what you learn in one week here.”
As teachers, that’s our goal and we love to hear this feedback from students.
What’s the breakdown of classroom techniques?
We do 60% pair work, 20% group work, 10% teacher-to-student work and 10% student solo work.
As a teacher, what are some of your preferred class activities?
For us and our students, the most popular and fun activities are: the cooking class where students learn how to make paella, sangria and a tropical salad, and our “tapas tour”.
In the summer, a lot of students enjoy our team volleyball games, and we also offer cultural seminars on a variety of topics, from Picasso to Flamenco.
What are some of the extracurricular cultural activities your school offers to help people explore your city and meet others?
We try to vary our activities to give students with different interests the opportunity to join in and meet others. To give a few examples, we hold a book club, Nerja walking tours, a tapas tour, salsa or Flamenco dancing lessons and diving excursions.
With free time, students are also free to explore the larger cities surrounding Nerja, such as Malaga, Seville, Cordoba and others!
With excellent tuition and plenty of time outside the classroom, a language holiday is the ideal way to start learning a new language or improve your existing skills. For more on learning Spanish in Nerja, you can read up on our two-week Spanish holiday itinerary.
