Private classes (10)

I liked the school and the house a lot. The only thing I didn't like is that I received instructions about taking a language test on my first day but then Laura kept trying to contact me on Saturday and Sunday while I was en route to Colombia to get me to take the test over the phone. I eventually just told her my level and that was fine but I think a last-minute phone test isn't a good representation of someone's knowledge. The week before would have been fine, so I'm not sure why she waited until a time when someone would obviously be in transit.

I did two weeks of school in Bogotá and then I moved to Nueva Lengua's other school in Ibague. In total, I did four weeks of Spanish with Neuva Lengua.

Though the two schools are the same company, they are very different.

The first two weeks in Bogotá was in a classroom with three to four other students.
Each week they may or may not change the teacher. For my classes they changed the teacher for the second week.

I felt the teacher for the first week was perhaps not as confident or as experienced, and that affected the quality of the lessons. Not to say that the first week was a waste, but in comparison, I got much more out of the second week’s teacher.

The two weeks in Ibague were with the same teacher, and only one other student. My understanding is that at Ibague has classes that are smaller, because it is a less popular place to go. This was true. I had two weeks with only one other student and the same very capable teacher for both weeks. Our two weeks were intense and productive.

Because my third week (first week at Ibague) contained a holiday, we had class for four days only, but 20 hours. This week was particularly intense because we started at 8 am and went to 1 pm. It was not the usual 9 am to 1 pm, five days a week.

The activities were good at both locations. Fun and a novel experience each time.

Ibague is a very affordable town, compared to Bogota.

Both cities and schools were worth the effort and money.

Perhaps the number of students in the class was higher than I expected. Some days there were as many as 6 of us. In conversational classes, this leads to a lot of wasted time waiting for the responses from each student. The teachers were very committed and had good methodology but they could have been more demanding of the students. Perhaps it is the age difference, but the level of immaturity shown by some students was often very distracting . For some , homework assignments were rarely done, it seemed that having a good party the night before took precedence. I also spent several weeks in a different language school in Medellin and I found that it was much more constructive, with never more than three students in the class..

I went on the museum tour.. There were two of us. a lower language level and two at a higher level, The guide from the school was thorough but usually speaking at a level more appropriate for the more advanced students.


The location an facilities were very good.