Miss Knox: 3 week Standard Spanish course

I expected that I would be thrown in at the deep end as it was a Spanish immersion course and I know no Spanish at all. I thought that the other people on the course were likely to be young people travelling in South America.

The Spanish language course in Santiago was brilliant and met all my expectations. The staff and teachers at the language school were all very welcoming and helpful. I found it more daunting than I thought I would as many people didn’t speak any English and I had naively thought everyone would do.

The classes were all small and the teachers all very friendly.

I felt very comfortable at the school and consistently felt welcome. The school is in a lovely area of Santiago, it is on a beautiful residential street in a very upmarket area of town and very near to the shared houses (5 minute walk) and also to busy Avenide Provedencia with lots of shops, restaurants and bars.

The best part of my course was definitely the people I met. Living in a house with people from all over the world was a great experience … and lots of fun. The staff were also brilliant and very friendly

All the other students at the school were great and I was glad to meet them all. Doing the three week course gave me a good introduction to Spanish and made me feel more confident travelling around South America after the course, however, to become more comfortable in Spanish I think more than 3 weeks or perhaps private lessons would be needed.

I felt very safe in Santiago and did have lots of opportunities to meet locals as we weren’t in a very touristy area.

I stayed in the School house and was defiantly delighted. A perfect location, plenty of room, great house mates and the luxury of Lucy the cleaner who came everyday! Living in the house was a great way to meet people and made the experience much more fun than I had expected.

I didn’t have much contact with CESA as my friend booked the course, but I was happy with everything.

I would definitely go again. I would do the option which changed school locations through the course to get a more varied experience. The most memorable moments of my time in Santiago were the “Casa Loca” house parties, improving in Spanish so that I felt I was no longer “personality less” which I find can sometimes happen when speaking in a second language.