Spanish Group Classes

The following courses are tailored to adapt to the learning needs of beginner and intermediate learners. You will practise conversations and engage in role-play situations to acquire good comprehension and oral skills; group size is kept small (4 to 5 students) to allow for maximum interaction and the opportunity to truly practise what you learn.
The courses follow a progressive time line, so the next level course starts the week after each course ends.

Beginner I

This is the first level of Spanish, and is appropriate for those who are new to Spanish, or have a basic notion of it.

• Gain confidence. Break the language barrier
• Learn to "think" in Spanish
• Learn to pronounce, read and write in Spanish
• Learn techniques to communicate effectively in Spanish (Keep It Simple)
• Learn about sentence structure. Using the grammar and vocabulary learned to build sentences
• Practise dialogs
• Practise oral composition
• Develop oral skills by practicing role plays based on real-life situations

• All about nouns and adjectives
• Question words. How to make questions. How to answer questions
• Role-play: "Meeting someone and exchanging information in a social situation"
• The present tense of the most relevant regular verbs
• Role play: "Booking a hotel room"
• The present tense of some relevant irregular verbs: to want, to have, can, to say, to know, to do/make, to go, to think, to see
• Role play: "Buying groceries"
• There is/there are/is there?/are there?
• Role play: "In a restaurant"
• Role-play: "Planning a visit to a friend who lives abroad"
• Conversation: "Talking about a film"

Beginner II

This course takes over from level 1 and gets deeper into more elaborate conversations and richer dialogs. It introduces one of the past tenses to enable conversations in the past

• Gain fluency and further conversational skills
• Improve listening and comprehension
• Broaden the vocabulary and grammatical expressions, and using them in a variety of contexts
• Practise speaking about past events by using the first of the two most relevant Spanish past tenses: the preterit tense
• Be able to talk about future plans using the alternative future (I'm going to...)

• Quick review of the present tense
• The verb "to like": Expressing likes and dislikes
• Conversation: "Talking about news and current events (World or local news, an article of interest, a current event)"
• The preterit tense of the most relevant regular verbs. Formation and use
• Conversation: "Talking about a past trip or holiday"
• The preterit of the most relevant irregular verbs. Formation and use
• Conversation: "Talking about what we did last weekend"
• The Direct and the Indirect Object. Formation and use
• Conversation: "Talking about a movie or a book"
• The alternative future: Formation and uses
• Conversation: "Talking about future plans"

Intermediate I:

Level 3 continues developing oral and comprehension skills with an introduction of the second most relevant Spanish past tense: the imperfect tense. Students participate in conversations in which both past tenses (the preterit and the imperfect) are used. The past perfect, the conditional and the future tenses are also introduced.

• Gain speed, increase vocabulary and expressions
• Learn to speak about past events using both past tenses: The preterit and the imperfect
• Learn the conditional tense (would), the past perfect tense (I have said/gone/been...) and the future tense(I will...), and practise using them

• Quick review of the preterit tense
• Role play: "Complaining about poor service received in a hotel"
• The imperfect tense. Formation and use
• Conversation: "Story-telling: Urban Legends"
• The conditional tense. Formation and use
• Conversation: "How would you plan and book your next holiday?"
• The past perfect tense: Formation and use
• Conversation: "Global warming. Implications and possible solutions"

Intermediate II

Level 4 continues developing fluency and comprehension skills, introducing the subjunctive mood. It focuses on the practical application of the subjunctive, correcting mistakes done when speaking, and gaining speed.

• Improve comprehension of fast-paced Spanish
• Correct mistakes done when speaking Spanish
• Learn about the present ant the imperfect subjunctive and how to use them
• Gain speed

• Conversation: "Calling customer service"
• Conversation: "Presenting a topic of your choice: current events, news and articles, history,..."
• The present subjunctive tense: Formation and use
• Conversation: "Talking about traditions in different countries"
• The imperfect subjunctive tense: Formation and uses
• Conversation: "Things you would change if you could"

Advanced

A purely conversational, on-demand course. It is designed for learners who already have a good level of fluency, but who want to keep practising Spanish to maintain and improve their skills