Best, Most Affordable Spanish Course/tutor

nickel_penney

Registered
Joined
Jan 2, 2017
Messages
9
Likes
6
hey all!

I am moving to BA in Feb and have two months there. I would love to take spanish lessons and develop at least conversational spanish. Any suggestions on the best course/tutor to use? Ideally they would be a decent price and located in/near Palermo :)

thanks!!
 
Take First a FREE Spanish course offered at some Public High's 5 times a week for 2 hours..!!

THEN decide if you need a private tutor...$$, or a paid course by BA Univ. $$$$
 
Two months doesn't give you a lot of time to waste with group classes. I would work with a private tutor. Adriana Crom teaches out of her apartment in Recoleta, and is an excellent, reasonably priced teacher. I can't recommend her highly enough. Many others have posted reviews of her teaching skills on this site as well. A quick search will give you her contact info. Best of luck!
 
Two months doesn't give you a lot of time to waste with group classes. I would work with a private tutor. Adriana Crom teaches out of her apartment in Recoleta, and is an excellent, reasonably priced teacher. I can't recommend her highly enough. Many others have posted reviews of her teaching skills on this site as well. A quick search will give you her contact info. Best of luck!

What makes Adriana so great? What did you like of her teaching approach? I started studying to teach Italian to foreigners, however my teaching-teacher has experience only in teaching Italian to Spanish speakers, which is completely different thing than teaching to a native English speaker.
 
Serafina,

Alicia, la Coqueta studied Spanish with Adriana for many years, she reached a good understanding of spoken Spanish.
I met Adriana, she may have good teaching methods. Her business card mentions she completed studies in Oxford.
 
Serafina,

Alicia, la Coqueta studied Spanish with Adriana for many years, she reached a good understanding of spoken Spanish.
I met Adriana, she may have good teaching methods. Her business card mentions she completed studies in Oxford.

I am not aware of Oxford offering TESOL courses better than anywhere else.
I started studying language teaching theory and the general line of thought is that the teacher doesn't need to know the learner's native language (and it is always not possible, if the class if made up of learners of different countries). Indeed, it is also discouraged to provide translations, which is really tempting as a shortcut when you know the learner's native language.
Personally, I use translations because I don't like guessing (as a learner), but I know I shouldn't as the student will remember more easily something he figured out himself rather than blatantly given to him.

Hence my question about Adriana's method. Drawing parallels between Spanish and Italian is too easy and useful to give it up, but since English uses a completely different syntax, I am not sure it is worth it.

Last year went to a school fair in Vicente Lopez and I met the creator of the "SpiderWeb method", an method to teach English to Spanish speakers. It was very smart and the creator explained they are working on other versions for different languages. http://spiderwebmethod.com/
 
What makes Adriana so great? What did you like of her teaching approach? I started studying to teach Italian to foreigners, however my teaching-teacher has experience only in teaching Italian to Spanish speakers, which is completely different thing than teaching to a native English speaker.

Happy to follow up my somewhat vague/general post...clearly I was tired as I was too lazy to look up Adriana's phone number. She is recommended by many different baexpats over the past six or seven years at least, at least ever since I joined.

I'll start off and say that I first enrolled in one of those 20 hour per week classes downtown, where I had four other people in my class, mostly those who wanted to party late, show up late, not do any homework, and take lots of coffee breaks. It has always been my experience in studying language that classes are frustrating because no one is your same level and there is usually a time hog/teacher's pet who takes up a bunch of time. I found it to be a total waste of my time, and the price was very similar to Adriana's private lessons per hour. Not to mention, I got more out of working with Adriana three hours per week than I did in that 20 hour per week class.

I liked Adriana because she got right down to work with me every time. No time was wasted. The homework was relevant and useful. Our classes were entirely in Spanish, unless I was struggling with some grammatical rule and she wanted to explain to me how it differed or was similar to English. Let me say that I never studied Spanish formally before I moved to BA, so I was truly a beginner, but I didn't fee overwhelmed. I studied with her twice a week for an hour and a half in her apartment in Recoleta, which is well-located and very quiet. Adriana fully understands English grammar (better than I do), and speaks English fluently, which as I mentioned, really helped me when I got stuck. Other than that, we spoke entirely in Spanish, including grammar instruction and free-flow conversation. She corrected me as I spoke, but without throwing off my flow or undermining my confidence. Working with her intensively for over a year made all the difference in my level of fluency, and that is why I continue to jump in and recommend her anytime I'm on baexpats and see someone looking for a teacher.
 
Thank you for your recollection. It is very helpful to understand what approaches are particularly appreciated. I must add that the "best" approach is very subjective - for example if a student had learned another language in the past using a particular approach and was successful with it, he/she might follow the same approach again.

I learned English by studying its grammar (at school), and when last year I started taking private German classes with a rather informal approach I was quickly overwhelmed and full of doubts - I couldn't figure out a rule on my own. On another side, my husband, who studied languages in school but most of his foreign languages knowledge come from his past as a sales representative around the world, was extremely enthusiastic of this informal approach and was picking up very quickly. The more he felt confident in German, the more I felt behind. Can I say I am scared by German now? He can't wait to resume classes and I can't wait to find an excuse not to. B)

As a teacher, the hardest part for me would be to teach how to pronounce letters and sounds in an acceptable way, how to explain where the tongue is, how to put your teeth and lips, etc. (children and some lucky people figure out this naturally, but most adults usually don't). I have met native English speakers who are fluent in Spanish after living here for a very long time, but with a terrible pronunciation - I think the letter that really gives away a native English speaker is the "r": you can't speak Spanish like a train and then say -rr- in parrilla the same way you pronounce arrive it is really a pity after so much effort on the grammar and the vocabulary!
 
i learned Spanish in Glasgow.....

The vowels sounds in West of Scotland English and the natural Jota sound in words like loch make us Scots naturals to speak good Spanish . Many taxi drivers ask if I am a gallego......maybe the fact that i lived for a few years in Spain seemed to have paid benefits.

Anyway , the most important thing is that you are relaxed and feel good with your teacher . You need to find a teacher that suits your exact needs . Might be difficult given the time scale . But Adriana sounds that she could be that person . A one to one is always better than a school situation . Give it a chance....
 
Back
Top