Huemul (individual)

Very nice, excellent welcome by the school. I really appreciate the individual class to boost my oral skills

Daniella was a wonderful teacher, professional and patient.
The school facilities were terrible. Undergoing reconstruction. I was the only student in the school so no social life whatsoever. Thank you Daniela, but no thanks to school

Nice teacher, nice school. Nice location..............

The people who work there were good, respectful, and helpful. The location was the best. The teachers were amazing.

There were some minor issues though:

For the first weeks, it seemed that I was the only one taking the class in the school. I enjoyed the class but I didn't like the vibe. During the two weeks of class, I was arranged to be taught by two different teachers, which was okay to me, but their different accents did bug me a lot.
I also found that my classroom was actually a part of the students' dormitory. The students who decided to live there would really have no privacy.

I joined the individual intensive study program, referred to as Huemul, in hopes of receiving advanced Spanish instruction. My overall experience was mixed.

The institute is located in a great location, downtown in Barrio Lastarria. The building itself is on the old side and was only semi-functional for my first week since the institute (with the exception of my poor teacher) was on a break. The workbook and all listening samples were from Spain, quite a difference from Chilean Spanish. The class consisted primarily of accomplishing the workbook, accompanied by discussions on Chile.

Negative: I communicated that I wanted to focus on two areas: (1) international relations and (2) living in Chile. Upon arrival, the instructor had not been informed of this request. Although my teacher made a great individual effort teaching me about Chile, I felt the institute failed to customize my training and the course had little structure overall. I did not feel like I was held accountable for any homework assignments, did not receive frequent feedback on performance, and at times, felt stuck on the listening side of two-way conversations. Although I definitely learned, I feel like it could have been much better.

I would like to leave negative feedback about my housing. I chose my personal room to be in the same building as where my classes were. The room was too small, the bed was very old and bad.. I couldn’t leave all my stuff there. It was too small, and the Internet was not just bad – it was terrible. Sometimes it would not work at all for days.

The location, however, was great. I liked my classes and the teachers were perfect. I improved my skills in 3 months from principiate 1 to basico 2, even if I didn’t study during my free time and just did 3 hours a day. I enjoyed it, but I didn’t like the classrooms. Some of them were really bad, and most of them had no protection from street noise. It was annoying, having to do exercises while listening to live music from restaurants, or dogs barking.

With regard to the activities, they had a Spanish club which met once in two weeks, but the schedule was always bad, and they informed me about it on the same days I had classes, so I never went. Not that many Spanish learners were there. Most of the time (three months), I was alone in my classes. I was okay with it, but still.

They also don't have any facilities outside school, like tours in the Montañas together or whatever. I didn't like it. They could have easily had it in Santiago.

All the workers were very kind. The teacher was really engaged with the objectives. It was an interesting experience.